$300K worth of drugs seized in major fentanyl bust

"raydan" said
Sorry, no shortage of drugs on the street.

In 1999, use of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs was rampant. Approximately 100,000 Portuguese, or one per cent of the population, reported an addiction to hard drugs.

Hundreds died every year, says Dr. Joao Goulao, the public health physician who has received much of the credit for helping turn the situation around.

“It was devastating our people," Goulao said.

It was very similar to the situation in Vancouver now, where city morgues are regularly filled to capacity from opioid overdoses and a mobile hospital emergency ward was set up to relieve the burden on overworked first responders in the city's drug-ravaged Downtown Eastside.

. . .

A decade later, the number of addicts was halved and overdose deaths had dropped to just 30 a year for the entire country. The number has remained steady ever since.

Europe’s drug-monitoring agency says Portugal’s mortality rate from drugs is now more than four times lower than the European average.

Goulao says 90 per cent of public money spent fighting drugs in Portugal is channeled toward those health-care goals — just 10 per cent is spent on police enforcement.