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B.C.’s first minister of mental health and addictions says she will take an “all-ministry” approach to the overdose crisis, influenced in part by Portugal’s renowned policy for drug use and addiction.

Minister Judy Darcy met with Dr. João Goulão, Portugal’s national drug coordinator, at this week’s Recovery Capital Conference of Canada in New Westminster.

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In 1998, Goulão was part of a committee that developed policy to deal with a deadly drug crisis in his country, during which one per cent of the population was addicted.

Through measures like decriminalization, treatment on demand and the expansion of treatment facilities, Portugal’s overdose-death rate plummeted while public perception of addiction shifted from viewing it as a criminal issue to one of health.

By 2015, Portugal had an average of three overdose deaths per one million people, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.