I spent this past weekend in Lisbon visiting colleagues and friends and attending the first-ever WordCamp Lisboa, which was a very nice event. I was able to meet and greet with the Lisbon WordPress community for the second year in a row (familiar faces!) and help a few folks at the Happiness Bar between talks.

I love Lisbon and was delighted to return there. It was amazing to see this community that has grown from a handful of people we invited to a get-together at our Happiness meetup last year to a WordCamp with almost 200 registrants. It’s the power of open-source publishing at work.

I didn’t bring my camera this year, but I did snap more than usual with my iPhone.

Current:

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal’s drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

Fascinating.

And to think that if we did this in the US we could prevent a ton of additional crime, both here and more importantly in Mexico.

HT: Zé.