Drug use needs to be handled with empathy and evidence

As the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use begins its work, Tony Duffin writes of his recent experience in Portugal where he visited supervised injection sites — at both mobile and fixed locations

In drug consumption rooms, people have blood oxygen levels checked.

I WAS in Lisbon recently where I had arranged a series of meetings with people who are experts on responding to drug use. The people I met with are well-placed to speak on the subject; not least of all because they have lived and worked in a jurisdiction where decriminalisation of drugs is well established; and where drug consumption rooms have recently been implemented.

In Portugal, drugs were decriminalised in 2001. This means drugs remain illegal, and the response to possession of drugs for personal use is a referral by the police to the Dissuasion Commission. There is plenty of evidence that this approach has worked better than if Portugal had continued to criminalise people who use drugs as in other European countries.