Author: Prof. Dr. Anatoliy Goncharuk
Date: 10-08-2026
“Hashish, marijuana, cocaine” – this was how Lisbon greeted me last year as I walked through the city centre. When I asked one of the sellers whether he was afraid of the police, whose car was parked only 50 metres away, he replied confidently: “No problem, it’s all legal.”
That statement was misleading. Selling drugs remains illegal in Portugal. The country decriminalised the possession and personal use of small quantities of drugs in 2001, but decriminalisation is not the same as legalisation. Drug trafficking and street sales remain criminal offences.
Nevertheless, the people approaching tourists in central Lisbon are often not conventional drug dealers. In many cases, they are scammers selling completely legal household products disguised as illegal substances. What appears to be hashish may be pressed bay leaves or pieces of a bouillon cube. “Marijuana” can be ordinary dried tea or a mixture of herbs, while supposed cocaine or amphetamine may consist of crushed chalk, flour, talcum powder or powdered paracetamol.
This explains why the police do not always arrest these street sellers. The officers are generally aware of their activities, but if the sellers possess no real drugs, they cannot be charged with drug trafficking. Selling flour or dried herbs is not a drug offence. At most, their activity may constitute fraud or unlicensed street trading, both of which can be difficult to prove without a formal complaint and supporting evidence.
The schemes used by these sellers can nevertheless be dangerous. Sometimes a buyer is allowed to smell or examine a genuine sample, but the package is secretly replaced with a fake during the exchange. The sellers may also cooperate with pickpockets: while one person distracts the tourist with an offer, another steals a wallet or mobile phone. Confrontations can become aggressive if a buyer discovers the deception and demands the return of the money.
The safest response is therefore to avoid interaction. Do not stop, argue or display curiosity. A calm “No, thank you,” followed by confidently walking away, is normally sufficient.
Behind this highly visible tourist scam, however, Portugal faces a much more serious problem. The country is increasingly used as a transit point for international drug trafficking, particularly for cocaine transported from South America to European markets.
Portugal and neighbouring Spain have become important entry points because of their Atlantic coastlines and connections with Latin America. Large quantities of cocaine have been seized in Portuguese waters and ports. As controls at major commercial ports such as Lisbon and Sines have intensified, trafficking organisations have adapted their methods.
One increasingly common method involves transferring drugs at sea. Cargo may be moved from large vessels to high-speed boats or fishing vessels, particularly in Atlantic waters near the Azores and Madeira. Packages equipped with tracking devices may also be dropped into the ocean and collected later. Occasionally, drug packages are found floating at sea or washed onto Portuguese beaches.
Another worrying development is the discovery of clandestine cocaine-processing laboratories inside Portugal. Traditionally, drugs arrived in a finished form. More recently, criminal networks have concealed cocaine paste or base in apparently legal shipments of materials such as plastic, textiles or wood. The cocaine is then chemically extracted and processed in illegal laboratories before being distributed elsewhere in Europe.
The high availability of illegal drugs has also affected Portugal domestically. Some areas of Lisbon and Porto have experienced more visible open-air drug markets, including the sale of crack cocaine. Reports of drug-related deaths and public consumption have intensified concerns among residents and created political pressure to reconsider how Portugal’s drug policy is implemented.
Hashish trafficking remains another significant problem. The Algarve, because of its proximity to Morocco, is a major entry point for cannabis resin arriving from North Africa. Traffickers use powerful speedboats to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and surrounding Atlantic waters. Joint police operations frequently result in seizures measured in tonnes.
Portugal’s experience therefore contains an important paradox. Its 2001 decriminalisation policy was designed primarily as a public-health response to addiction, allowing people who use drugs to receive treatment rather than face criminal punishment for possessing small quantities. It did not legalise drug sales or trafficking.
Today, Portugal must protect this public-health approach while responding to increasingly sophisticated international criminal networks. The street scammers encountered by tourists in Lisbon may sell little more than tea, flour or bouillon cubes, but behind them lies a genuine and rapidly evolving struggle against large-scale drug trafficking across the Atlantic and into Europe.
