Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and they seem to be doing very well with it and have very few drug overdose related deaths. They have [3 deaths per million citizens](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/05/why-h...). I wouldn't be surprised if we had more drug enforcement related deaths in the US.
Portugal is also a _much_ smaller country, with less wealth inequality and systematic racial/socioeconomic divisions related to crime, poverty, drug use, etc. I'm not saying we shouldn't relax the drug laws in the US, but I don't think it's fair to assume that just because it works in Portugal it would work just as well here.
