Romania did better than Portugal. What are they doing better than Portugal? Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list?
(I'm not saying that it's a bad policy but why is the article focused on pushing that policy?)
Also what I want to see: What about Portugal makes it work? Could you test that assertion against a different country if you made the contextual changes and the change there?
I think you missed the point of jacquesm's comment: "They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent."
In other words, it's highly likely that Romania didn't "do better" than Portugal, but rather they're doing a very poor job tracking overdoses at all.
The data points don't even have error bars, unfortunately. They come through various filters. Leaving out one government's reported numbers and keeping another's is a political decision in itself, so it's best to just report the numbers and warn readers of their veracity.
> Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list?
The number of drug induced death has decreased over the past 15 years, and it coincide with the adoption of the liberal policy on drugs. That's what makes Portugal an interesting case study.
(I'm not saying that it's a bad policy but why is the article focused on pushing that policy?)
Also what I want to see: What about Portugal makes it work? Could you test that assertion against a different country if you made the contextual changes and the change there?