INJECTABLE DRUGS IN PORTUGAL
A HISTORY TO EXPLAIN
after almost twenty years, yet there aren´t safety consumption room
in any portuguese city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVhns8UP32E&t=7s
ENCOD visits a Lisbon peripheral zone to discover the reality of the injectable drug users with Doctor Luís Patrício (Mala Da Prevenção).
2017 / Published on 23 August 2017
INJECTABLE DRUGS IN PORTUGAL
by Richard Rainsford
INJECTABLE DRUGS IN PORTUGAL
by Richard Rainsford
The venepuncture rooms was approval by law in Portugal from 2001, fixed and mobile rooms, also the substance testing, but after almost twenty years, yet there aren´t safety consumption room in any portuguese city
Published on 23 August 2017 by
INJECTABLE DRUGS IN PORTUGAL
A HISTORY TO EXPLAIN
ENCOD visits a Lisbon peripheral zone to discover the reality of the injectable drug users with Doctor Luís Patrício (Mala Da Prevenção).INJECTABLE DRUGS IN PORTUGAL
A HISTORY TO EXPLAIN
Even so, there are still people who dedicate their live to the welfare of others who are at risk of social exclusion, They do the work at informal spaces that lack of the infrastructure to can get a good service, people like Dr. Luís Patrício and the initiative that he leads, Mala Da Prevenção.
With a prestigious career behind him, yet he continues visiting the most needy places around Lisbon, normally, abandoned places, at poor zones, where the heroin and other injectable drugs users continue having their meeting point.
This places are prosecuted by the authorities, even without giving an alternative answer to this people. Thank you to Dr. Luís Patrício, we were able to visit one of this places and percibe the institutions neglect around the vulnerable collectives relation with drugs.
So there we found an older public building abandoned, we can not give the address for the afraid of police repression. It is an unhealthy place with deplorable hygienic conditions, a source of infection of diseases such as Hepatitis or AIDS.
Already from the street we were see the used syringes on the floor, it is accessible to everybody who walk around or to some children that could playing around. Also the local was first occupied by the users and then closed by the authorities, that is now more dangerous because to access there we need to overcome different obstacles and a wall of two meters that we should jump to access. This entry is near of the train tracks, increasing the risks for their lives and the community lives.
The Doctor Luís Patrício explains us that the prevention agents attends people at this places. They deliver tools for safe injection and the social workers explain the risks of the bad use with the substances. But this isn´t enough.
Among their tools, we can find the drug prevention case of Mala Da Prevenção. The briefcase includes a basic guide explaining how approach the intervention with drug users; different common objects, such as a cup or a deck of cards. Object with which he makes easy to understand the most complex concepts in terms of risk prevention.
We achieved to talk with two heroin users that explain us which are his vision about the inattention of the users, as well as the danger and the insalubrity of the zone. They asked about the new social worker because they want to speak with her, evidencing the matter of the risk prevention agents in this contexts.
The Doctor Luís Patrício has denounced this situation from more than twenty years ago and the safety room of consumption are approved by national law from the year 2001. But yet any city hall has implemented the law or has given some alternative to this people. Now sixteen years after, the Lisbon City Hall wants to implement the first one at the Mouraria district, a zone near of the center and traditionally it has been a place frequently visited by smoked drugs users, not injectable. They want to make this safety room more for political reasons than practice reasons, that is criticized by the experts for its reprehensible effectiveness.
Actually, the principal focus are find in other districts, too far of centrum, where really there is very big pending work for the risk prevention agents and the institutions, to improve the quality of life of the Lisbon citizens, by models like safety consumption rooms, to focus and facilitate the work on prevention and reinsertion.
By Ana Afuera Gómez
ENCOD (European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies)
