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Portugal’s experience in removing criminal penalties for drug use almost 25 years ago offers a real-world case study. Can compassion and public health succeed where criminalisation has failed? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Superintendent Rui Filipe Lourenço Costa, who is with the Lisbon Metropolitan Command of Portugal’s Public Security Police; and Dr Nuno Capaz, sociologist with the Lisbon Dissuasion Commission. They were both speakers at the Drug Policy Summit Malaysia on the 4-5 November 2025.
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day.
00:19I'm here at the Drug Policy Summit Malaysia where activists and policy makers and law enforcers
00:26are debating how to move beyond the war on drugs.
00:31Portugal's experience in decriminalizing drugs some 25 years ago offers a real-world case study.
00:38Can compassion and public health succeed where criminalization has failed?
00:44Joining me on the show to discuss this further, I have Superintendent Rui Felipe Lorenzo Costa
00:51who is with the Lisbon Metropolitan Command of Portugal's Public Security Police.
00:57I also have Dr. Nuno Capas who is a Sociologist with the Lisbon Dissuasion Commission.
01:03We'll find out more about the Portugal experience.
01:07Welcome to the show gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here with me.
01:10Thank you. My pleasure.
01:11So, Portugal is always cited as a model for drug decriminalisation.
01:15I want to understand what it was like some 24-25 years ago
01:20when the decision was made to move away from the criminal punishment for people who use drugs.
01:28Talk to me a little bit about what motivated Portugal to move away from the war on drugs.
01:33Nuno, if I may start with you.
01:35Okay, so what we had throughout the 80s and 90s in Portugal was what was considered an epidemic usage of heroin,
01:43mostly injected usage with all the associated issues around that to mean of using that particular substance,
01:53meaning a lot of overdose deaths, a lot of health issues associated with the usage,
01:58a lot of social and physical degradation also of the users.
02:03And after 25-30 years of a prohibitive approach, we decided to try a different way
02:11and to treat drug users and the drug-related issues as a healthcare issue.
02:17And so we moved away from the criminal and judicial system and into the healthcare system.
02:22It's basically the change in the law that we did by decriminalising
02:28was basically just downgrading the possession for usage from a criminal offense to an administrative offense.
02:35It's still forbidden.
02:37People are not allowed to carry any sort of illicit substance with them.
02:42The difference is that nowadays the possession for personal use,
02:47because it's dealt as an administrative offense very similar to the driving offences,
02:52the users are basically referred to the dissuasion commissions where I work,
02:57which is the administrative authority that was created to replace courts.
03:01Okay.
03:02But there's still a procedure involved. It's still illegal.
03:05The police still apprehends a substance on the street.
03:07People are not allowed to use it openly.
03:10It's basically the difference is that instead of referring the users to the criminal system
03:15and to the court system, they are referred to the health system and to the dissuasion commissions.
03:20That's a really important distinction to make,
03:22because I think a lot of people confuse decriminalization with legalization.
03:26True.
03:27We'll delve deeper into that.
03:31I do want to find out from a law enforcement perspective, what was the situation like when 25 years ago,
03:38as Nuno mentioned, where heroin use or injected heroin was quite rampant with overdoses.
03:45How did you, what was the situation like in Portugal at the time before decriminalisation?
03:52And how did the law enforcement community adapt to the decriminalization?
03:58It took time. Too many years, I think.
04:02But in the beginning, police officers were a little bit afraid, especially of losing information.
04:11Because when we change our mindset, change the law, then the law is a paper.
04:17Now you need to change all the mindset.
04:20And we are a lot of police officers in Portugal.
04:24You need to change those police officers.
04:28They have different cultures, different experiences, different ages.
04:33So it took time.
04:35But I think in the past, maybe 10, 15 years,
04:40all agree that that change was a very good change.
04:46And now we have a different approach.
04:49And all police officers do agree that we don't need, it is not possible, even possible to punish someone who is a drug user.
05:06You see, if he is just a drug user, he needs healthy assistance, he has healthy problems, he is not a criminal.
05:15So we focus, police officers must be focused on crime, must be focused on trafficking, on drug trafficking, not on drug users.
05:27Drug users are a commission problem, are a commission mission.
05:33They just pass by us because we found them on the streets, we search them, they have small quantities of drugs,
05:41but they are not criminals, they are not an issue for us, they are an issue for my colleague, Nuno.
05:48And so we are to work together every day, even if we don't talk too much.
05:54I need Druid to actually start my work.
05:57So how does law enforcement work with the commission of dissuasion? What is the process like?
06:03Well, like I said before, what we deal with is administrative offense procedures.
06:08So for us to start the procedure, I need a police report from a police officer saying that someone was caught in the possession of an illicit substance.
06:17And if it's a police officer, like I said, it's no longer considered a criminal offense, it's basically an initiative offense like the driving offences,
06:25like the speeding tickets or the parking tickets.
06:28And so I need a police report saying that someone was caught in the possession of an illicit substance.
06:33And by the end of that police report, the person is notified to be present at the situation commission.
06:40So I need Druid to actually do my job, to start my job.
06:44So then what happens? So if someone is caught with drugs for personal use in Portugal, what happens next?
06:51Talk me through the process side.
06:53Basically what we do is risk assessment.
06:57We do, we have a technical supporting team, psychologists, social workers that work with us and they do a preliminary interview.
07:06Normally takes around 35, 45 minutes where they will have to help us access the risk level associated with usage.
07:15We do, we have a scale, a three step scale. So we have to grade the user as a low risk, medium risk or high risk situation.
07:24And basically low risk situation is recreational, non problematic users. Medium risk would be problematic users.
07:33It's not a recreational user anymore, but it's still not an addiction situation.
07:39And the high risk level situations are basically drug addicts.
07:43And according to that assessment, we then do referrals for either counseling or treatment according to the person,
07:51according to the availability on the network.
07:54We, again, decriminalizing for us, it's not the same thing as regulating.
08:00It's basically the diversion scheme that we came up with to avoid sending people to court.
08:06And so the input of that diversion scheme is the police report that Rui and his colleagues make when they encounter someone in possession of a leased substance.
08:16And the output of our diversion scheme, it's basically the healthcare network that is available in terms of prevention programs,
08:24arm reduction programs, treatment programs, counseling programs.
08:28So we have to, by doing that risk assessment, we are then able to do personalized referrals for that specific person.
08:37So there's no rule, there's no magic bullet, there's no one pill that fits everyone.
08:47We basically assess the person and bearing in mind that person and that specific, the specific problem of that person,
08:54we do referrals for the network.
08:56That same, that speaks to me that there's a capacity in Portugal to be able to do all these risk assessments
09:04because if you're sending them to courts, the judiciary may not have the capability to assess this.
09:11Well, the dissuasion commissions were created specifically to deal with these procedures.
09:15And so when we were starting, we provided them with the resources to do this assessment
09:21and we also did an upscale in terms of the general network, in terms of the treatment programs that were accessible,
09:28the prevention programs, the arm reduction programs.
09:31We also increased the budgeting for all those services because we knew we were going to have a major influx
09:38in terms of people going into the network through the dissuasion commission system.
09:42Okay. So, Rui, you mentioned that it took about 10, 15 years before you started to see real mindset change,
09:51a real cultural change.
09:52Yes.
09:53Talk to me about that process, about how culture, how mindset was able to be changed,
10:02particularly among the police force who may do things a certain way.
10:07Okay. In the early years, there was, as I told you, we were afraid of losing our information, our informants.
10:18Yeah.
10:19Because traffic investigations always start with informants.
10:25Informants.
10:26And can be fed by informants too during the years.
10:29But it didn't happen.
10:31We didn't lose the information for sure.
10:36And when we realized that we didn't have the facilities that we needed to bring consumptions to our police stations,
10:57we realized that something has to be done.
11:01And the law, the change of law was a correct way to do what we needed to do.
11:07And it takes time. It takes time because people need time to improve new procedures,
11:16to realize that something has to change.
11:23And in police corps, police corps are not different.
11:27But sometimes police corps are worst in some ways to adopt some new strategies.
11:38Right.
11:39All over the world.
11:40It's the same everywhere.
11:42And you also have to bear in mind that the dissuasion commissions were a new thing.
11:46Yes.
11:47So we had the police officers, we had the courts, we had the treatment facilities.
11:51And when we introduced the dissuasion commissions, it was a new thing.
11:55And it's still one of the few very original things about the Portuguese drug policy.
12:00So the police officers didn't know in the beginning what we were supposed to do.
12:05Actually, we also didn't know what we could actually do with the law.
12:09So it was a process that took some time first for us to establish our role in the network.
12:16And then to explain our partners and the rest of the stakeholders in the network,
12:21how useful could we be to that network also?
12:24And so naturally it takes time.
12:26We were used to deal with the courts before the change of the law, before the year 2000.
12:33And then they appear somehow, who is this guy?
12:39With a strange name.
12:40Strange names, strange new procedures.
12:43But in five, six years, everything's going well.
12:51Yes.
12:52What evidence do we have that Portugal's drug policy is working, has worked,
12:58in the 25 years that it's been put in place?
13:00Well, the statistical data is obvious.
13:04You cannot deny the statistical improvement that we have in all sorts of indicators.
13:10I would say that it's not just because we decriminalized.
13:15Decriminalized is one piece of the puzzle, but it's not the whole puzzle.
13:20Okay?
13:21It was a kickoff.
13:22Exactly.
13:23It was a starting point and it facilitated a lot of things from then on.
13:29But by itself, decriminalizing, the only problem it solves is the criminal record.
13:34If you downgrade something from a criminal offense to an administrative offense,
13:38you no longer apply criminal sanctions, you do not get a criminal record.
13:43That's a direct consequence of the criminalization.
13:46But then everything else starts rolling easily because of that.
13:50The police can have a more pedagogical approach because they are not dealing with drug users as criminals.
13:56There's a death barrier, which is an important barrier because normally it's one of the first contacts that the drug users have with this whole procedure
14:05that eventually will lead to some sort of treatment or improvement in their quality of life.
14:09So that needed to change also and not considering, not calling it a criminal allowed us after a few years not to deal with them as criminals anymore.
14:20As criminals.
14:21Yes.
14:22And so the fear factor from the users also reduced a lot.
14:28For example, we were talking about that earlier.
14:31Decriminalizing does not have a direct effect in terms of reducing overdose deaths.
14:37But it does have an indirect one because if there's two users on the street and one starts having an overdose,
14:44it's much easier for the other one to call a police officer or an ambulance or a fire department to help that other person.
14:52While in a criminal system, that person will probably just run away.
14:57The fear.
14:58Exactly.
14:59The fear factor rules.
15:00They were afraid of going to prison.
15:01Exactly.
15:02And so, again, it's not a direct consequence of the criminalization, but it also helps.
15:08And I think the key element or the most positive element about the criminalization is that,
15:14is that by no longer calling it a criminal offense or dealing with the users as criminals,
15:21everything else is easier along the way, both for police officers, both for me and also for the drug users on the street,
15:27and also for all the other stakeholders in the network that have much more people coming in
15:33or there's a different doorway for the services.
15:36And I think after 25 years, we were also commenting that earlier on,
15:42there's no one in Portugal that defends that we should go back to criminalizing drug use.
15:48Wow, that's amazing.
15:50What were public attitudes like in the beginning when it was first implemented?
15:54How did the public react to this must have been quite a radical public drug policy?
16:01In the beginning, it was.
16:02And I think the beginning, the biggest challenge we had, it's the same that I still have in these sort of settings,
16:08like conferences and things like that, which is the basic misconception between decriminalizing and regulating.
16:14When people hear the word decriminalizing, people think that they are allowed to use it and to carry it on the street.
16:21Normalize drug users.
16:22Exactly. And it's not like that. It's exactly the same as the driving offences.
16:26You're not allowed to speed on that particular place.
16:29But, well, if you push your car, it will speed more than that, right?
16:33So, with drug users, it's more or less the same, but if there's an encounter between a drug user and a police officer,
16:40the drug user is not allowed to maintain the possession of the illicit substance.
16:44The substance is apprehended from them.
16:46They get a piece of paper saying that they have to mandatory present themselves at the dissuasion commission,
16:52and we start an administrative offense procedure.
16:55So, people are not allowed to use drugs in Portugal.
16:59They need to pay a fee or something.
17:01Exactly. And the penalties are exactly the same as the driving offences.
17:05Financial fine, community service, regular presentations.
17:09So, there are penalties and there are sanctions that we can apply.
17:13And people are not allowed to have substances in their possession.
17:17Did you have to do a lot of educating the public so that they understood
17:21what did the dissuasion commission have to do?
17:23Not really.
17:24Not really.
17:25Not really.
17:26Basically, we just decided, okay, we know that people are misunderstanding this.
17:30Let's just keep on doing it and people eventually will understand that it's not allowed to…
17:35That's why it took too many years.
17:37Too many years.
17:38So, to see the results, they saw the results.
17:40To see, yes.
17:41Yeah, okay.
17:42So, Portugal's model is often praised internationally as a system that works,
17:46but I'm sure it's not without its challenges.
17:48Are there challenges, are there limitations?
17:51What would you consider the biggest challenge, ongoing challenge of the system, of this system?
17:57Rui?
17:58Do you want to go first?
17:59But consider our experience in Portugal or here in Malaysia?
18:02Yes.
18:03Your experience in Portugal.
18:04Okay.
18:05I think it's time to upgrade our approach.
18:08Okay.
18:09So, we were talking yesterday when we went to the police force here in Malaysia to a meeting with the director of narcotics.
18:19Then, we must change the mindset again.
18:23Because we are focused on the quantity of drugs that someone has in his possession.
18:30Possession.
18:31But…
18:32Possession.
18:33But…
18:34We need to evaluate the intention.
18:37Because…
18:38And we are doing that kind of change of mindset change.
18:43Because since 2023, we changed our law.
18:48And if someone has more than the quantity of drugs for 10 days, according to the old law, if he has more than the quantity for 10 days, he will be arrested and goes to court.
19:04But now, we are changing.
19:07It will take time to evaluate the intention.
19:14For instance, if I have more than the quantity of heroin for 10 days, then it is more than one gram.
19:22But if it is for my consumption.
19:25If I have, for instance, two grams, but I have no money in both pockets, no other things that show that I'm a drug dealer.
19:36So, this guy, he won't be arrested.
19:40He goes to the commission.
19:41Okay.
19:42We also do our report.
19:43But the report goes to the commission.
19:45It doesn't go to court.
19:48Right.
19:49So, context is very important in this.
19:51The context is very important.
19:52But it's also very difficult.
19:54Yeah.
19:55Because policemen need strict rules to work.
19:58Okay.
19:59We are a lot of people with different mindsets, with different experiences.
20:03And for me, as a police leader, it is a challenge.
20:08That's why these new procedures will take time.
20:12Yeah.
20:13Not only for the police, but also for the courts.
20:19Because sometimes we are doing the procedures like the new law established, the law from 2023.
20:31But the court doesn't want to know.
20:34Okay.
20:35They are doing the same procedures that they were doing before.
20:41Okay.
20:42So, it will take time.
20:43But I think that the mindset change from possession to intention is absolutely essential for the future.
20:53Definitely.
20:54I would say that for us, the biggest challenge is the availability of the network.
21:00Because, like I said, our diversion scheme, the input is the police report.
21:05The output is the referrals that we do to the network.
21:07Okay.
21:08For example, at the dissuasion commission of Lisboa, we deal with around 2,500 to 3,000 procedures a year.
21:15So, if I had 2,500 or 3,000 different responses in the network, I would be able to specifically refer that person to the specific program that could benefit their life in the most significant way.
21:29And that's normally a challenge because it implies budget and also it implies the network is not only state-run, but it's also private-run and NGO-run.
21:40So, there's a huge mix of different services, some new, some old, some open, some closed.
21:47So, for us, it's a constant challenge to, again, direct the person to the specific response that might benefit them.
21:54Right.
21:55Okay.
21:56So, both of you are here discussing with the Malaysian policymakers, law enforcers, to think maybe there could be a different approach to drug policy.
22:07When you think about your own experience and you think about the Malaysian context, what are some of the key prerequisites or conditions that make for Portugal's drug policy to succeed?
22:22What needs to happen in a Malaysian local context to be able to make sure that decriminalization works effectively?
22:30I would say political will.
22:32Political will?
22:33That's the only thing.
22:34That's the only thing?
22:35That's the only thing.
22:36I agree.
22:37Because, again, police officers are very good at following orders, so if you give them the order, they will follow it.
22:42If you create something similar to the Dissuasion Commission, if they give them a specific law to follow through, they will do that.
22:50If they fund NGOs to open more programs, they will open it too.
22:54If they fund or if they co-fund the private sector like we do in Portugal, they will also improve.
23:02And if they have a state-run healthcare service that basically provides all the basic needs to the population, it's easily doable.
23:09All you need is basically political will because, like I said in the beginning, decriminalizing is not the same thing as regulating.
23:18Right?
23:19So it's still illegal and there are still mechanisms for the state to show that it's still illegal.
23:26It's not allowed to do it.
23:27There is no increase in usage because of that, because there is no increase in the accessibility of the substances.
23:33The only difference is the way you deal with the person after the person is caught.
23:37So, again, it's not that much of a big change.
23:41If you provide the players that you have, police officers, Dissuasion Commission, treatment centers,
23:49if you provide them with resources to do their work, they will do it.
23:53Do you agree?
23:54I agree.
23:55So it really is about political will from the top to make it happen.
24:00Yes, because you need to improve a new network.
24:03You need political will, first of all.
24:07It's the kickoff.
24:08The kickoff.
24:09And then everything else follows after.
24:10I think so.
24:11Naturally.
24:12And if the political will is based on the assumption, like we did, that we should deal with it as a healthcare issue,
24:19everything else would follow through easily.
24:22That's just it.
24:23If you assume that as the starting point with political will, the changes will happen.
24:28The baseline is that.
24:29Exactly.
24:30And then you cannot expect the world to turn into a paradise after two weeks.
24:35Yes.
24:36Okay?
24:37You need to give it time for the network to adapt, for the police officers to adapt in the first place,
24:41for the Dissuasion Commission to learn their role in the network, for the network to learn the Dissuasion Commission role.
24:47So you need to give it time and you need to improve, you need to do a lot of training to all the players.
24:53But basically, in the beginning, all you need is to assume that you want to deal with it as a healthcare issue,
24:59and then have the political will to change it.
25:01The Dissuasion Commission is such an innovative idea.
25:04Has it been implemented in other countries?
25:06Not really.
25:07Not really.
25:08So only in Portugal has it managed to...
25:10A specific administrative authority to deal with the procedures of people who are caught in the possession of a lecid substance for personal use.
25:17Amazing.
25:18Which is what makes Portugal such a brilliant case study.
25:22I wouldn't...
25:23Not brilliant.
25:24I don't want to say that because it's my job, but I would say that, yes, it's one of the original things,
25:29and I think it's one of the key factors because it's the one that makes the transition from the police officer on the street to the healthcare service.
25:36It was a very good idea, but I think brilliant, I wouldn't call it brilliant.
25:41But you've proven that it could be done, and I think that the test case is what's important.
25:45Definitely, yes.
25:46And we also proved that it's not the end of the world if you no longer deal with it as a criminal offense.
25:51That's one thing I would like to add.
25:55It takes time to see results, as Nuno said.
25:59But because we need to be used...
26:03To adapt.
26:04To adapt with all the new concepts.
26:07But we realized that one thing, that if we change tomorrow, we need to adapt, we take time,
26:14but tomorrow nobody goes to jail because of drug consumption.
26:20So it starts tomorrow if we change today.
26:23This is very important.
26:25Well, thank you both, gentlemen, for being on the show and sharing some of your insights.
26:29I appreciate your time.
26:30That's all the time we have for you on this episode of Consider This.
26:33I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening.
26:35Thank you so much for watching, and goodnight.
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