Lisbon drug consumption room with “very, very positive” results
After a year of operation, a room has about 1,300 registered users and has already had a reinforcement of the nursing team to respond to a universe several times greater than expected.
The Service for Intervention in Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (SICAD) considers the results of the first year of operation of the assisted drug consumption room in Lisbon to be “very, very positive”, which today is a true “inclusion structure”.
“The very positive ones”, said this Tuesday to Lusa the deputy director-general of SICAD, Manuel Cardoso, regarding the first year of operation of the assisted consumption room installed in the Vale de Alcântara area, in Lisbon, which began to users on May 18, 2021.
Manuel Cardoso highlighted that the is a structure that goes “far beyond what is necessary” for the consumption of illicit substances, intravenously (drug injection) with surveillance of health technicians, which is what is foreseen in Portuguese legislation for this type of equipment, commonly known as “kick rooms”.
The space, the first and only one that exists in the country, is today a room for drug consumption in responses and smoked, but it also has “other capacities”, with several at the social level, such as nursing services, provision of meals, an area bathroom or a clothes bank, thinkers particularly for homeless users.
There is also one that is in the active community, in the neighborhood where the equipment was installed, in the vicinity of Casa espal Ventoso, where it selects the traces of drug consumption (such as syringes) or tries to intervene with drug users.
“It is a structure of inclusion, which pleases and a clear positive note for its intervention”, stated Manuel Cardoso.
After a year of operation, a room has about 1,300 registered users and has already had a reinforcement of the nursing team to respond to a universe several times greater than expected.
The equipment made was initially planned for 30, as this is the number that indicates a survey for more than three years in the area where the Pinhal is installed, which is dedicated to the recovery of drug addicts and is an entity that manages an assisted consumption room from Lisbon.
The deputy director general of SICAD (the former Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction) highlighted that “the support” given to users in the room managed by Ares do Pinhal makes the “response much more effective” and explains, on the other hand, the adhesion and demand higher than expected.
The high number of users, in relation to the expected, “is one that something doesn’t go well” and “needs for reception equipment that in different parts are not available to respond to the different varieties with a signal of response to the different needs, added, which stand out as several specialties of the assisted consumption room, there are users who use the equipment without consuming drugs in the space.
According to data from Ares do Pinhal, there are currently about 200 people visiting the room daily and the number of daily is 135.
For Manuel Cardoso, it is a project “to succeed and to be replicated, as long as it responds to a need and intervenes” by authorities and by those who intervene in the field in the fight against drug addiction, given that “the objective is that it cannot be perceived ” and there are also answers before this “final” line, with a view to prevention.
The room began to receive users on the 18th of 2021 and functioned as a pilot project in March, when it completed one year of operation authorization by SICAD.
The space that is created at the end by the Ares do Pinhal association and has the Lisbon City Council as a partner, which is responsible for the initiative of this equipment and secured the funding.
At this time, SICAD is “requesting as governmental authorizations for continuity” and its funding, from the end of the year, without any interruption, of the detailed project Manuel Cardoso, who added the objective objective is that from 2023 onwards there will be funding to four years, with annual monitoring of results.
The tender and project funding will be carried out under the programs known as Risk Reduction and Damage Minimization (RRMD), which provide for budgets to be guaranteed up to 80% by SICAD and 20% by another entity.
According to Manuel Cardoso, “proximity work” is currently being carried out with the Lisbon Chamber “in order for the municipality to be able to finance the remaining 20%”, so that all project costs are ensured at the beginning of next year.