They are “very cheap”, addictive and abundant on the streets: in São Miguel, Azores, the new psychoactive substances (NPS), commonly known as synthetic drugs, are mixed with bleach or fertilizer in “home laboratories”, cause psychotic outbursts and destroy cognitive functions.
In Ponta Delgada, there are sales and consumption, for example, in a garden where tourists take pictures, teenagers eat sandwiches, and the elderly play cards after lunch – the authorities know, it’s in plain sight, but “consuming is not a crime” and “selling synthetics is not, either,” explains Suzete Frias, general director of Arrisca – Regional Association for Rehabilitation and Socio-Cultural Integration of the Azores.
“Every week a new substance appears. Selling it is only a crime if it is included in the lists of illegal consumption. Currently, there are three on the list. We are always chasing the damage,” he laments.
Regarding the bill that has been introduced in the Portuguese Parliament to criminalize NPS, Suzete Frias believes that “with new substances appearing weekly, the underlying problem remains.
More than a third of the NSPs seized in 2021 in Portugal were collected in the Azores, where substances “never seen before” in Europe have been recorded, the Judicial Police revealed in 2022.
The number of NSP users in the region is not counted, but in March, there were 937 users in opiate substitution programs, and “many of them use synthetic drugs in parallel,” says the regional health secretary, Mónica Seidi.
For some, it will be “very complicated for the cognitive part to return to normality,” says Silvia Moreira, psychologist at Alternativa – Associação contra as Dependências.
“If they’re ingesting fuel, insecticides, bleach or acetone mixed with medication, what’s going to happen to their brain? It’s poison, literally,” he warns.
Suzete Frias also mentions that psychoactive substances “are mixed in the Azores with fertilizers, disinfectants, or rat medicines”, products “as harmful” as drugs, “in domestic laboratories but dangerous because they contain highly flammable materials”.
“The Azorean user is essentially a poly-consumption user, who buys and consumes cheap substances without looking at the degree of risk they carry,” revealed, in a written response, the Regional Directorate of Prevention and Fight Against Addictions.
According to Suzete Frias, the “biggest motivation” before NSP is the price.
“For two or three euros, you can buy a small package for several doses. On the other hand, there is a greater abundance of these drugs,” he indicates.
But “the big cause of consumption in the Azores is poverty,” he stresses, adding that in São Miguel, the island with the highest prevalence of consumption, the majority of addicts “have a low level of education, are socially vulnerable, and buy on the street.
According to 2022 data from the National Institute of Statistics, the Azores was the region in the country with the highest at-risk-of-poverty rate (28.5%).
For Arrisca, “the government needs to invest in prevention, in fighting poverty, in promoting the economy, jobs, and access to housing.
NSP causes “rapid changes in behavior and mood, aggressiveness, a yellowish white skin tone,” and “mental disorders and psychotic outbursts,” such as “hearing and visions and persecution mania,” says psychologist Silvia Moreira.
Most consumers, he adds, “leave home, or just go there to demand money or steal something.”
A study by the Novo Dia association for 2020 identified 493 homeless people in the Azores and “a higher proportion of homeless people per thousand inhabitants (2%)” than on the mainland (0.84%).
Besides those who sleep on the street, there are those who spend the day there, wandering on seemingly endless walks, begging for “five cents to buy a sandwich,” or standing outside supermarkets with outstretched glasses waiting for coins.
The number of people referred for treatment in therapeutic communities in the Azores rose from 26 in 2019 to 35 in 2022, 63 in 2021 and 25 in 2022, according to data from the regional directorate.
On the other hand, alcoholism is, in the archipelago, “a problem as serious as synthetics,” warns Alternativa’s psychologist, warning that, “when returning home, with so many open wounds,” there is a tendency for users to turn to alcohol, “legal, cheap, and culturally accepted.
