“… Considering the gravity of the situation, we must make choices” and   “… to establish clear priorities” as supporting   “… the most vulnerable and unprotected.”.   ”.. The serious economic and social situation demands… a culture of accountability. ” … “We cannot afford to waste public money.”
(Excerpts from the end of the year speech given by the President of the Republic of Portugal)

The Association for a Drug Free Portugal (APLD) welcomes the passionate appeal of the President and seeks with urgency the adoption and implementation of a policy that makes the addict responsible of their acts and allows him to set a project of a real Life.

As matter of fact the current government strategy releases the drug addicts from their responsabilities. It is a serious option with serious consequences. The public treasury is, on the other hand, turned aside with immoral and perhaps amoral purposes. Drug users are exempt, for example, of user fees in health centers of the country (they also do not pay for syringes, needles, tourniquets, etc.). The elderly, the poor and the eternal excluded from such promised prosperity are not so lucky. The Portuguese State has therefore opted for pushing thousands of people to the alienation, slavery and death. This is a criminal policy.

The Republic cannot capitulate on drugs matters. The problem is serious and deserves consistent answers.  The banner of “harm reduction” cannot be an ideology and an end in itself. It is extremely disturbing to promote the correct use of drugs “safely” (sic) integrating consumption into the habits (about 70% of addicts scrutinized in the country are not in drug-free programs but in programs that, while called treatments, are actually “replacements” because these “treatments” substitute one drug for another) that is being made possible by public institutions (such as the Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction - IDT), who submits with the support (sic) from  the State, countless numbers of addicts to a life of  dependency. Drug, drugs  are harmful to consumers and are increasing - directly or indirectly –  the real insecurity.

How to accept that the national coordinator of the fight against drugs and drug addiction understands that “the message that the demonization of drugs and that drugs kill is already outdated?” Source: Journal da Noticias October 9, 2007.

The affirmation of this statement is not only irresponsible but is clearly against the universal and inalienable right of any individual to have a life that is not abused by drugs and to be protected from illegal trade (as is clearly expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

The same person can still find inspiration to say that: “The heroic attempts to stop addiction to heroin in some cases gives results, but usually do not. As diabetics’ needs insulin, some people need an opiate. (…) Hence, the IDT prefers to keep users in programs that do a workhorse of the discontinuity of these treatments? “(!!!)
Source:  Diario da Noticias February 23, 2009 “Many are attached to methadone forever”.

Are the rights and interests of Portuguese addicts well be served by a policy that maintains the illusion of the immediate political reward (even if it is having to distort results - see the recent, unfortunately heralded as false, “resounding success” of the Portuguese policy on drug abuse …), advocates and supports, with our tax money, the continuation of drug abuse and dependence, without any costs for their addiction, including the exemption of user fees …,althought knowing that there is a solution?

And the State? Will it accept placing a significant fringe of society into final defeat (with the infamous fathom of their public interference) by withdrawing its legitimate hope and ability to grow nominally by integrating their habits into a way of slavery? This is the State that represents us? It is this State that deserves to be considered an ethical institution?

Manuel Pinto Coelho - President of the Association for a Drug Free Portugal (APLD)