Portuguese Health Minister Manuel Pizarro called for ‘a lot of prudence’ in the process of decriminalising synthetic drugs to ensure that this ‘good idea’ does not end up disrupting the distinction between consumption and trafficking.
Pizarro spoke to journalists on the margins of an event that was part of the Open Health initiative, in Serpa, in the Beja district, in southern Portugal.
“It’s a good idea to avoid the distinction between consumption and trafficking,” Pizarro said.
“I follow with interest and in a positive way the issue of extending decriminalisation to synthetic drugs, but I think there has to be a lot of prudence in the way this is done,” he added.
“A good idea should not be taken advantage of” to make synthetic drugs “equivalent to all other addictive substances, interfering with the issue of the quantities that each one may possess and that distinguish consumption from trafficking,” he added.
“It is convenient not to add to the difficulties that the police and judicial entities have on the ground to be able to do what they should do, which is to distinguish those who are consumers and who should be helped to enter the health system from those who are traffickers and who should be repressed for committing a crime,” he stressed, referring to Portugal’s existing legal framework, which aims to treat drug use primarily as a health issue.
Speaking to journalists, the minister also noted that Portugal had in 2001 taken “a pioneering measure at world level” by opting to decriminalise drug use – “that is, distinguishing what should be repressed, harshly repressed, drug trafficking, from what should be treated, particularly in the context of health, which is drug addiction and drug addiction.”
Proposals to decriminalise synthetic drugs are to be debated in parliament on Tuesday. Legislative initiatives have been tabled by the governing Socialist Party (PS) and the main opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD), both of which aim to equate new psychoactive substances to classic drugs, so decriminalising the possession of small quantities for consumption.
The two bills would update 1993 legislation that approves the legal rules applicable to the trafficking and consumption of narcotics and psychotropic substances to prevent situations of inequality between New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and Synthetic Drugs, and to distinguish traffickers from consumers.
According to the “European Drug Report 2022: Trends and developments” published recently by the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), almost seven tonnes of synthetic drugs – substances that are sold for their psychoactive properties but are not controlled under international drug conventions – were seized in 2020.
The report also reports “concern” about the increasing crossover between illicit drug markets and markets for new psychoactive substances, noting that consumers may be unknowingly exposed to potent substances that may increase the risk of fatal or non-fatal overdose episodes.”
It stated that by the end of 2021, the EMCDDA was monitoring about 880 new psychoactive substances, of which 52 were reported for the first time in Europe in 2021. By 2020, around 370 previously reported NPSs had been detected on the market.
In 2020, EU member states accounted for 21,230 of the 41,100 reported NSP seizures in the European Union, Turkey and Norway, for a total of 5.1 tonnes of the 6.9 tonnes seized.
(Sérgio Mourato | Lusa.pt)
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