“Keep this advice in mind: Marijuana is best in flower and from trusted sources. With cocaine and synthetic drugs, go small and slow. Use a little to see how your body responds.”
The recommendation appears in brochures from a campaign by the Department of Youth Policy in the municipality of Morón, the capital on the western outskirts of Buenos Aires, which is governed by Mayor Lucas Ghi, an ally of Vice President Cristina Kirchner.
The controversial nominations, which were distributed during a cultural, leisure and gastronomy festival last weekend, caused outrage among experts and the opposition alike.
“Risk and harm reduction campaigns must promote healthy habits and health care. Never drug use,” said Carlos Damin, doctorresearcher in toxicology at the Faculty of Medicine of Buenos Aires and chief of toxicology at Fernández Hospital , reference in the capital.
“If they recommend going slow [com a cocaína]tell you how to start using drugs.”
For the deputy and former governor of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal, “one is a harm reduction policy, the other is to encourage consumption in a place where there were children”. “That wasn’t a mistake.”
Waldo Wolff of the opposition coalition Juntos pela Change announced that he would file criminal charges against Morón’s authorities for “crimes of hate speech” and “drug advocacy”. Jorge Macri, Minister of the Federal District of Buenos Aires, accused the campaign of “promoting consumption among young people”.
Risk Mitigation Program
In a note, the community justified the campaign by saying that “useful information is part of a program to reduce the risks and harms associated with the use of licit and illicit psychoactive substances, aimed at protecting the health of drug users.”
The municipality’s Minister of Health, Martín Latorraca, argued that “the project is aimed at a drugusing public”, although at the festival where the leaflets were distributed, most of the participants were families with children.