The Braga Solidarity Centre/Project Man is concerned about the rise of new addictions linked to technology, excessive use of screens, games or video games. And the concern increases when the State ‘takes a long time to systematise a response to this,’ warned Guilherme Meneses, president of Project Man, yesterday, on the sidelines of the EWODOR (European Working Group On Drug-Oriented Recovery Research) symposium, which brings together experts, researchers and technicians on the theme of addiction, mental health and recovery at the Catholic University of Braga.
According to Meneses, ‘addictions are always evolving’, so it is necessary to ‘know how to deal with new consumption problems and new consumer profiles’. Hence the importance of events such as this, especially at a time when, ‘perhaps due to some deficiency in public policy, there has been a resurgence in consumption,’ especially ‘new consumption,’ for which ‘there is still no specific public response.’
Guilherme Meneses warns that this problem has been ‘getting worse and worse’ and that the State ‘is taking an extremely long time to systematise a response, to support, finance and frame it within a properly structured public policy’. "This is holding us all back immensely. Consumption is on the rise again. In the city of Braga, we are seeing levels of consumption that we haven't seen for several years, even drug addiction, and so we are a little perplexed, because it seems to us that this area of addiction has been somewhat neglected. We are paying some attention – and rightly so – to mental health problems, but this is a neglected part of that area, and we are taking some time to wake up to this reality, which may force us to face problems like we had in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when consumption was completely unregulated,‘ he said, adding that ’if nothing is done, we will soon be back where we were in the past."
Regarding how Project Man has been addressing the issue of new addictions, the president explained that ‘some outpatient consultations are being held for gambling issues, for example,’ which are the result of ‘collaborations we are undertaking at the European level.’ ‘We were already prepared, we anticipated this problem and we already had teams ready to respond,’ he said.
Addictions must be treated in conjunction with mental health - Warning from the Vice-Chancellor of UCP
‘The problem of addiction will never be solved, but if we don't bring together experts with law enforcement and politicians, the problem will not resolve itself. On the contrary, it will tend to persist and increase,’ warned Paulo Dias, Vice-Chancellor of UCP/Braga. It was with this objective in mind that UCP and Projecto Homem organised this symposium. The aim is also to "place addiction within the context of mental health issues. We cannot think of addiction in isolation from other mental health problems. It is important to put this issue on the agenda because, with the change in the Portuguese drug model, addiction is no longer a legal problem but a health problem. However, for those on the ground, it has also become a minor issue, with less support, less funding and less social attention," he lamented.
