“Smash what you are going to drink”, “change your nostril”, “clean your nose after each trip” or “don’t share the turulo”. These are the recommendations that appear in the T-Drogues, a kind of triptych card that the Federation of Youth Centers of Catalonia has distributed among some of its users for a month. The prevention kit includes a paper to make a joint to snort. The initiative has generated controversy, but the federation assures that it does not trivialize drugs but is part of a campaign aimed exclusively at consumers and is accompanied by advice to reduce or stop consumption. The Energy Control platform, which has advised the entity, also guarantees that it is a campaign aimed at consumers and that it is effective.
The president of the College of Doctors of Catalonia, Jaume Padrós, however, has declared himself “stunned” at the initiative, which he has described on the X social network (formerly Twitter) as “authentic shit”. Also the epidemiologist of the Hospital Clínic Antoni Trilla considers that “unfortunate campaigns like this show a noticeable lack of common sense and rigor to prevent health problems as serious as those resulting from drug consumption”.
The controversy began when the journalist and collaborator of this newspaper Josep Martí Blanch published the images of the cards, in which you could see what at first glance looks like a public transport card. “This material from the Federation of Youth Centers of Catalonia promotes very healthy leisure,” said journalist Martí Blanch ironically. Under the title T-Drogues, on the card you can read a series of recommendations for consuming cocaine safely: from changing nostrils to cleaning the nasal cavity “after each trip.”
The entity emphasizes that this is a risk prevention campaign aimed at consumers and that it is neither the first time they have done it nor is it the first time they have been so “explicit.” At the same time, they assure that at the time there was a debate “and the conclusion was reached that it was not frivolous” and they emphasize that they have been running campaigns with quite explicit content since 2021.
Mireia Ventura, head of the Energy Control analysis service, recognizes that the campaign can be “scary” if seen from a general context, but that aimed at people who already consume it, it is “effective” because it avoids exchanging material and prevents contagion. of infectious diseases. In addition, Ventura explains, with this type of actions we try to “gain the trust of the target public so that at a given moment they can ask for help.” The campaign has been distributed in youth centers that bring together young people between 18 and 30 years old and in stands in party spaces.
Salut, for its part, points out that the entity “made a reduced reissue of this material and that it has distributed only a part in the same controlled and regulated environment, and in internal training sessions. No dissemination has been made on any social network or in general or mass environments.”