Paulo picks up a lighter from the table in front of him, holds it beneath the foil-encased bowl of his thin metal pipe for a few seconds, and then inhales. For a brief moment, he falls silent, head slumped forward. Then the 47-year-old is back to his usual chatty self, conversing with the seven other drug addicts who, like him, are making the most of their 30-minute slot at Porto’s new “shoot-up” centre. “It beats getting stoned on the street, where, you know, anyone can come along, kids or whatever,” he says. “Here, we can just do our thing and no one hassles us.”
Lack of interference is not the only reason that Paulo and 400 or so other regulars visit the centre. The government-funded service also provides them with clean needles, strips of aluminium foil, and other materials to facilitate their drug-taking and prevent infections.
The overarching ethos of the centre revolves around harm prevention. A list of rules by the entrance contains no strict injunctions; it simply invites users to be courteous and preferably not leave litter on the floor. Even the free sachets of citric acid, which addicts use to dissolve heroin or crack cocaine for injection, come with a health warning on the packaging: “Can damage the veins if used in excess.”
