Global Mental Health Ethics by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030662967
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Model Intervention

Efforts at harm reduction could be seen in Lisbon as early as the 1990s, when Odette Ferreira, an experienced pharmacist and pioneering HIV researcher, started an unofficial needle exchange program to address the growing HIV epidemic. Ferreira, whose fieriness made up for her small stature, began giving away clean syringes in the middle of Europe’s biggest open-air drug market, in the Casal Ventoso neighbourhood of Lisbon. She also collected donations of clothing, soap, razors, condoms, fruit, and sandwiches, and distributed them to users. Her efforts were met with death threats from drug dealers and legal threats from politicians. Not one to back down easily, she eventually convinced the Portuguese Association of Pharmacies into running the country’s—and arguably the world’s—first national needle exchange program [9].

Along with harm reduction programs, the Portuguese government eventually appointed an expert commission that proposed decriminalization of all illicit drugs for personal use as its first national drug strategy. Their goal was to provide a more evidence-based approach to drug use and decriminalization aimed to create a more humane legal framework [7]. Decriminalization of illicit drugs ultimately went into full effect in Portugal on July 1, 2001. Prior to this reform, drug possession or cultivation was punishable by up to 1 year of imprisonment, but with decriminalization, these minor drug offenders were now being funneled through the drug treatment system rather than the criminal justice system [15].

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