Dr. Nuno Capaz:

We do not have any sort of safe supply of any illicit drugs. We just decriminalised the possession. We did not mess in any way with the supply side of the chain. If people want to use illicit drugs, they still have to go to the black market. As to the usage and supply situations, normally what happens is that this is very complicated to prove in court because very tiny amounts of substance and of money are involved. Therefore there is no proof to be collected by the police officers. We also noticed from daily practice in Portugal that those situations normally go away if the usage part is dealt with. If we can get a user who is also supplying into a treatment programme, they will automatically stop supplying because they will not need money to support their own supply. What happens is that the court knows it will not be able to convict a person because the user's supply is basically a friendship thing. It is someone who lives outside the big cities but has a car and so is able to drive to the main city to buy substance and take it back to his own town for a couple of friends. It is not really supply. It is basically the same thing as someone buying a little bit of cannabis and sharing it with a couple of friends. Is that supply? Theoretically and under the law, it is supply. They are handing out a substance for another person to use but are not getting rich out of it so it is not a dealing situation as we normally perceive it in court. The answer to the question is "No". We do not have safe supply in Portugal.