CHARITY vs. GREED –

Feb. 24, 2024 – Municipal Police in Porto, Portugal regularly patrol areas used by drug consumers. Police in Portugal don’t arrest people who use drugs. Instead they have a strong track record referring people in addiction to counseling and treatment. Talk to people addicted to street drugs in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, and you hear confusion and dismay over the carnage of overdose deaths taking place an ocean away in the U.S.

Ana Batista, a soft-spoken woman in her 50s who’s been addicted to heroin for years, said she hasn’t lost a single friend or family member to a fatal overdose.

“No, no, no,” she said, speaking at a safe drug consumption clinic, where she had come to inject under the supervision of nurses and counselors.

READ@NPR