Drug customers line up outdoors of the SAOM van for a methadone cocktail and provides within the metropolis middle of Porto, Portugal final spring. There are only a few overdose deaths within the nation the place drug habit is handled as an sickness slightly than against the law.
Photograph by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Publish /Getty Pictures
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Photograph by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Publish /Getty Pictures
Drug customers line up outdoors of the SAOM van for a methadone cocktail and provides within the metropolis middle of Porto, Portugal final spring. There are only a few overdose deaths within the nation the place drug habit is handled as an sickness slightly than against the law.
Photograph by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Publish /Getty Pictures
Brian Mann covers the U-S opioid and fentanyl disaster for NPR. Which means he talks to lots of people scuffling with habit. Time and again, he is heard tales of people that have succumbed to their habit — final yr 112, 000 — greater than ever in historical past.
However when Mann traveled to Portugal to report on that nation’s mannequin for coping with the opioid disaster, he heard a really completely different story. Overdose deaths in Portugal are extraordinarily uncommon.
The nation has taken a radically completely different strategy to medication – decriminalizing small quantities and publicly funding habit providers – together with websites the place folks can use medication like crack and heroin.
Portugal treats habit as an sickness slightly than against the law. Nobody has to pay for habit care, and nobody scrambles to navigate a poorly regulated restoration system. May Portugal’s strategy assist the U-S combat its opioid epidemic?
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This episode was produced by Connor Donevan and Megan Lim. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Andrea DeLeon.
Our govt producer is Sami Yenigun.
