Printer friendly version

ID: HR19-569

Presenting author: Raquel Rebelo

Presenting author biography:

Licenciada em Educação Social. Experiência de trabalho com PUD desde a 2003. Em 2008 integra a MdM, como técnica superior de Educação Social. Em 2009, assume a coordenação de projetos a Norte sendo atualmente diretora.

Distribution of smoke materials as a strategy to approach people who use drugs

Raquel Rebelo, Francisco almeida, Ana Aguiar, Márcio Silva, Fernando Vasco, Raquel Duarte

Doctors of the World has been working in an outreach environment in Porto, with the main goal of early cases detection of sexually transmitted infections within vulnerable populations. In Portugal, since 1993, a national and free program for intravenous consumption is available. Although this and despite the various efforts of the proximity teams, a national and free distribution program for crack cocaine smoking paraphernalia has not yet been implemented.
Description of the problem: Starting on August 2017, MdM offered crack pipes to people who smoke crack cocaine who contacted the outreach team in key drug-use spots in the city. For this purpose, 5000 crack pipes were acquired. The team was constituted by the same personnel and took place in the same spots and during the same time periods weekly. We compared adhesion and drug-use practices between the 2-years-time-period prior to the intervention and the 8-months-time-period since.
Results: Preliminary results of the distribution of pipes, 8 months after the intervention started show that the team was able to identify 147 crack-cocaine users (in two years the team had contacted 184); identification of 105 cocaine smoking users (in two years the team had identified 87); 236 drug users adhered to regular contact by the team (vs 229 in the previous two years); 1127 drug users joined counseling activities (vs 285 in the previous 2 years).
Lessons: The free supply of paraphernalia for people who smoke drugs greatly increased adhesion to the outreach team project. A greater access to difficult-to-reach populations allows for improved local diagnosis and greater knowledge health determinants of populations. Public policies should take into account such measures that facilitate access through provision of needed goods for the drug-user community. Further studies are needed to access economic sustainability and rentability of such a measure at a wider scale.