Opinion

Once a model, crisis imperils Portugal’s drug program




Feature

Posted on August 17, 2012


LISBON -- Sergio Alves had been off heroin for a year -- a tough year to stay clean in Portugal, as the debt-laden country weathered more painful austerity measures after an international bailout and sunk into its worst recession since the 1970s.

As tax hikes gnawed into the grocery business he runs with his wife and the stress mounted, Alves relapsed. Now back in rehab, the 30-year-old is glad he can fall back on the free state-run center for drug addicts, where he says few signs of austerity are visible yet.

"The business was bad, my life became just the work-home routine. I took to heroin again to forget," he says. "But I knew heroin was going to destroy me, and I have a daughter now…So I rushed to the center and they gave me another chance."

Portugal’s famously liberal drug policy has been held up as a model for other countries -- Norway is considering adopting parts of it and countries as far afield as Argentina have expressed interest.

But experts warn that budget cuts and the threat of more cuts to come -- combined with an increase in hard drug abuse -- risk turning it into a shadow of its former self.

"We have a certain responsibility to maintain the essential despite the recession," said Joao Goulao, the national drugs agency chief. "Other countries do look at us and seek our expertise. If we divest too much, then one day we’ll have to talk about the Portuguese drugs policy in the past tense."

Aging but spacious and well-kept, Lisbon’s Taipas rehabilitation clinic is one of over 40 such clinics across the country, the result of Portugal’s 11-year-old pioneering drugs policy which decriminalized drug use while offering free treatment and state-funded street-work programs. It is places like this that are likely to bear the brunt of future cuts.

"We’ve already suffered some budget cuts, but maintained the essential intervention services. Now the budget for next year is prepared and…I’m afraid it is inevitable that there will be more cuts," said Mr. Goulao.

Meanwhile, the share of injecting drug users who sought help via the agency’s centers doubled last year to 14% and looks set to rise further, though it still remains well below the peak of 36% registered in 2000.

"We see more drug use linked to desperation -- mostly heroin, the comfort drug," Mr. Goulao said. "There’s no doubt the economic and social conditions are making the drug phenomenon worse."

Some believe the drug treatment program has been weakened after Mr. Goulao’s IDT agency and its 1,700 staff was merged with the National Health Service as part of state cost-cutting. "This integration amid the crisis and with health care in a shambles can only yield bad results. We already see teams being suspended, programs on the ground discontinued, the end of financing for projects with a high social impact," said Joao Semedo, deputy chairman of parliament’s healthcare committee.

And in yet another blow, funding of risk reduction projects from the national program for HIV/AIDS -- closely linked to drug-related work -- has been slashed to €1.5 million from €9 million a year, with no guarantee that existing projects will continue. -- Reuters