Last updated on 24th April 2024
With the pandemic causing havoc with mental health, this year, 2021, has seen a sharp increase in the number of A & E visits and hospitalisation due to drug use. Madeira, together with the Azores, are Portugal’s high risk/user regions, especially in the use of new psychoactive substances, which seems to have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Daniel Neto, Director of Psychiatry at SESARAM, says that the truth of the problem is that, this is nothing new, but that it has now become a ‘real social’ crisis and that the region’s society as a whole has failed.
“It has failed above all with the poorest and most fragile proportion of the population, where these substances have multiplied, and where there are more and more consumers. Access is increasingly easier, cheaper, with prices similar to a beer or a poncha.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
Source: Photo by Jonathan Gonzalez – Unsplash
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