It’s a Wednesday afternoon in the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal. Just like any other day of the week, the outreach team of the NGO Crescer is getting ready to go around the neighbourhood to distribute food and clean supplies.
“Normally in the streets, we take out this kit, it’s an injection kit. Sometimes, with this kind of job, the people and the community don’t understand because it looks like we are promoting the use of drugs,” says Nuno Maneta, 54, a peer worker at Crescer. After spending a decade using heroin and cocaine, he turned his life around and has since been working with harm reduction organisations.
A job like Nuno’s can only exist due to Portugal’s radical drug policy.
In 2001, the country decriminalised all drugs, becoming the first one in Europe to adopt a public health approach to drug use. The law marked a radical break from traditional punitive drug policies. Instead of punishing users, the country offered therapeutic treatment and long-term support.
This policy, which remains unique in Europe, has had profound effects on the nation’s health and social outcomes. The law came as an extreme measure after Portugal had spent over a decade grappling with one of Europe’s worst heroin crises. In the 1990s, around 1 percent of the country’s population was addicted to the drug, causing an epidemic in drug-induced HIV infections.
Miguel Moniz, a researcher at the University of Lisbon, explains: “Something had to be done. Putting people in jail, telling people that they can’t use drugs, and prohibiting them from using it… These very classic ways of trying to deal with drug problems in most societies were untenable and weren’t working. It was a critical situation in Portugal, and I think they were a little more willing to try a more dramatic measure.”
The impact: health and safety before punishment
The policy stands on the idea that eradicating all drugs is an unattainable goal and is grounded in the belief that addiction is an illness, not a crime. While drug trafficking remains a criminal offense, those caught with drugs for personal use are not prosecuted but referred to “Dissuasion Committees” – a panel of health and social professionals who assess the user’s level of addiction and provide therapeutic support.
With no criminal charges for possession, individuals have the chance to seek help without fear of legal consequences. As a result, outreach programs and harm-reduction services have flourished, providing users with safer options and vital support.
Nuno, who has firsthand experience of the policy’s benefits, shares: “I experienced a time when the point of view was different. I got beaten by the police in the 90s, the police stole my drugs and threw them on the floor. And I’d get angry in those times, I got afraid of those guys.” This changed after the law, he says: “There’s a lot of helping happening in the streets, like outreach teams. And you can feel it’s more secure because you’re not a criminal anymore. So you can get help without getting beaten up. It’s very safe now.”
The long-term social benefits of decriminalisation
The outcomes of Portugal’s drug policy have been striking. A 2015 study showed that the social costs of drug use fell by 18% in the first decade, largely due to a reduction in the number of criminal cases and imprisonment for drug-related offenses. Public health outcomes have also improved dramatically, with drug-related deaths decreasing significantly, while the number of HIV diagnoses linked to drug use dropped from 50 percent of new cases in Europe to just 1.68 percent by 2019.
Portugal’s success and global impact
Portugal’s success has sparked interest worldwide, with some countries considering or adopting elements of the Portuguese model. In 2020, Oregon became the first US state to decriminalise all drugs, citing Portugal’s example. However, the policy was reversed in 2024 after a surge in overdose deaths. Experts argue drug-related deaths were tied to the Fentanyl drug sweeping across the country together and the impact of the Covid pandemic, rather than the policy itself.
The question remains: why hasn’t the world followed Portugal’s lead? Watch the full story of Portugal’s drug policy in the video, where ENTR dives deeper into the successes, challenges, and lessons from one of Europe’s most ambitious drug policy experiments.
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