PORTUGAL TAKES AWAY PRISON AS A PENALTY FOR USING DRUGS

Narcotics: Even Injecting Heroin Is No Longer A Crime. Critics Fear An
Influx Of Foreign Addicts.

LISBON -- Agostinho Miguel Teixeira, a heroin addict, spoke in
amazement about what happened when police caught him shooting up with
a friend the other night.

"They started to help us," the 28-year-old said. "One of them turned
on his flashlight and pointed to our arms so we could do it easier,
because it was really dark. The other said: 'Don't worry, we're not
here to give you trouble. Do your stuff and then give us the syringes
and come with us to the police station.' "

But the two addicts weren't being arrested. After four hours of
bureaucracy, but no charges that could land them in jail, Teixeira and
his friend were released, the beneficiaries of a new Portuguese law
decriminalizing the use of drugs--including heroin. The pair were
ordered to appear not before a court but before the newly created
Lisbon Commission for the Deterrence of Drug Addiction, just one
component of a law approved by the ruling Socialists that aims to
fight drugs with the philosophy that traffickers are criminals who
should be punished but that users are victims who should be helped.

Teixeira said he expects to enter a treatment center as a result,
because he wants to get off drugs and the commission will try to help.

Portugal isn't alone. From a pilot program in London that lets
marijuana users off with a warning to a law in France that allows
police to use discretion on tolerance, Europe has been moving toward a
more practical approach to drug use.

The Portuguese law, which took effect July 1, eliminates the threat of
prison for possession of small amounts of any drug. Critics have
charged that it opens Portugal to the threat of drug tourism, meaning
addicts or casual users lured here by the promise of using drugs
without risking jail.

Backers of the measure call that view a mistake, because drugs remain
illegal, with their use punishable by fines or community service--just
not prison time. And being caught with even one joint could send you
to the anti-addiction commission, supporters point out.

"We're trying a sort of third way between the hard approach you have
in the United States and the soft approach some countries have, like
Holland," said Vitalino Canas, Portugal's drug policy czar. "We are
not allowing any legal use of drugs. It's not the same as in Holland."

Teixeira, the addict, said he recently heard British and German
tourists talking about the new law. "They think it is a drug
paradise," he said. "It's not."

The law presumes that possession of up to 10 "daily" doses is for
personal use, not punishable by imprisonment, but that holding more
than that is evidence of dealing, which still carries the threat of
jail. The amounts defined for a "daily dose" are less than what
hard-core addicts actually consume, however, so in practice an addict
with more than a few days' doses still risks prison.

The law requires that anyone caught with even a minimal quantity of
drugs appear within 72 hours before one of the country's 18
anti-drug-addiction commissions. After a hearing, those bodies can
impose punishment such as a fine of up to $250 or revocation of a
driver's license. Commissions also provide medical help and counseling
about the dangers of drug use.

Canas said that so far, he is aware of only "one or two cases"
involving foreigners. "We didn't notice any increase of people coming
to Portugal to use drugs," he said.

For those within the 10-dose limit, punishment is normally suspended
for first offenders, and in any case the law allows fines only for
casual users, not addicts, because of concerns that addicts would
steal to pay the fines.

Foreigners caught with drugs will also be required to appear before
the commissions. While it may prove more difficult to enforce
sanctions against them, police in their own countries may be notified
of whatever action is taken here, Canas said.

Drug trafficking remains punishable by up to 25 years' imprisonment.
The sale of even a single dose of a drug to a friend is considered
dealing, Canas said.

"We think most people who try Ecstasy or hashish will not try other
drugs, but some will, so the system should not leave these people
alone," Canas said. "The commission should warn them and threaten them
with sanctions."

Until the new law took effect, police had shown decreasing interest in
arresting casual drug users "because they knew that if they got a
young guy . . . using Ecstasy or hashish, and this person with very
bad luck was sent to jail, he would probably come out from jail using
not hashish but heroin with syringes," Canas said.

Police appear to be more likely to take action against casual
users.

The government hopes such young people would benefit from getting
picked up by the police, Canas said.

"We think the drug users are not the criminals but are the victims of
a crime," he said, "and should be helped like other victims of crimes."

Estimates of the number of heroin addicts in Portugal range from
30,000 to 100,000. Many users started 15 or 20 years ago and are not
only severely addicted but also infected by hepatitis, tuberculosis or
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Death rates are high.

A separate law that took effect in late June sets out a framework for
stepped-up efforts to help addicts with their social and health
problems, primarily through shelters and medical programs.

That law also makes it legal for local governments or nongovernmental
organizations to set up programs for "supervised drug use" by severely
addicted people--in other words, so-called shooting galleries, where
addicts can give themselves injections using clean utensils and with
medical staff nearby. No city or organization, however, has yet
stepped forward to initiate such an effort, and it isn't a priority
for the national government, Canas said.

Skeptics have particularly targeted the decriminalization
law.

"There will be planeloads of students heading for the Algarve
[southern coastal region] to smoke marijuana and take a lot worse,
knowing we won't put them in jail," Paulo Portas, leader of the
conservative Popular Party, bitterly predicted. "We promise sun,
beaches and any drug you like."

Canas insisted that Portas "knows this is not true," but he added that
the conservative leader's widely reported remark reflects an ongoing
political battle over drug policy.

"We must have courage, because we must try new alternatives," he
said.

Other concerns have been raised about the change.

Rui Goncalves, a Lisbon police official with an anti-drug-trafficking
unit, noted that in the past, drug buyers were often arrested at the
same time as dealers and that their courtroom testimony could help win
convictions. The threat of street reprisals was at least partly
balanced by the hope for lenient treatment from the court when the
buyers also faced criminal charges, he said.

"Now the risk of reprisal remains, but they have nothing to gain," he
said. "In theory, it could make getting convictions more difficult,
but in practice, it will probably only affect a few cases, because
even now we arrest users and they don't testify."

One of the biggest question marks hanging over the new policy is
whether anything can really be done to help people such as Luis
Tavares, 40, who said he started with other drugs as a teenager, then
got hooked on heroin 10 years ago, unaware of its danger and thinking
it was "like hashish."

"I want to give it up, but it's difficult," he said, speaking the
English he learned working in London during his pre-addiction days. "I
don't have the motivation. I don't have a place to sleep or eat. I'm
sick with hepatitis B and C. . . . I wish I never started."

He sometimes tries to get work as a laborer, but "they don't give me a
job," he said. "They look at my face and they know I take alcohol or
drugs." He's been imprisoned five times for a total of 15 years--three
times for car theft and twice for burglary, he said.

Tavares gets his heroin by standing guard for drug dealers, he added.
"I help them," he said. "I watch if the policemen come or not." But
he's often hungry. "The people I watch out for only give me drugs.
They never give me money to eat."

Many say that the very visible misery of people such as Tavares is one
reason why decriminalization isn't likely to lead occasional users of
Ecstasy or hashish to risk trying heroin.

"Young people are perfectly aware of the dangers of heroin. In Lisbon,
they see the addicts," said Judite Lopes, head of a project aimed at
redeveloping and cleaning up the capital's Casal Ventoso district,
which for years was the country's most notorious center for drug
dealing and usage. Much of the district has now been razed, with
residents moved into new housing blocks and addicts provided with
medical services, including syringe exchange programs.

Teixeira thinks young people today aren't as naive as he
was.

"I started smoking joints, and one day someone came with heroin and
they told us how to do it, and we started 'chasing the dragon,'
burning it on foil [and inhaling it]," he said. "From that to using
syringes was one year. The problem for me and most of the guys was
when I tried the speedball [an injection of cocaine and heroin].
That's when I told myself, 'I'm caught.' I liked it so much, I knew
right then."

The new law will probably provide an excuse for some people to try
heroin, Teixeira said. "But the new generation is well informed," he
said. "They don't think like us."