Mr. António Manuel Leitão da Silva:

I understand what the Deputy is asking. As I mentioned before, the distinction between a police job and a social job is definitely a grey area. It will not be up to police to make that distinction at the very beginning. This distinction should be made afterwards when the individual is referred to the dissuasion commission. I understand that some individuals who are using drugs are not critical. To submit them to a dissuasion commission may be a bit tough but at the end of the day, the job of the police is to submit them to the dissuasion commissions - not to distinguish at the very beginning.

We were facing a lot of problems with mental health cases at the beginning. Most drug users are not diagnosed with mental health problems but most of them can be critical and a serious threat to public security due to some morbidities acquired during the use of drugs. Probably one area where we lack support on the ground is the fact that most of the time we just have the police officers on the ground. I have been challenging my counterparts from social work and the medical side that the support for drug users cannot just be given at drug consumption facilities. It should be given on the ground because most of these individuals are not consuming drugs in DCRs. I do not know if I answered the Deputy's question.