GATE, launched in 2022 to tackle drug problems in Brussels, will expand with a new centre next year due to its success and high demand.
Since opening its doors a stone’s throw from the Brussels South train station, GATE, the first safe drug consumption space in the Belgian capital, has provided refuge and hope to the rising number of crack cocaine addicts in Brussels.
Euronews visited the medical centre and spoke to social worker Bruno Valkeneers to hear how the ‘safe space’ actually works.
“People who are coming inside here, they can use their own drugs, the drugs they buy on the illegal market,” he explained.
Bruno says that the majority of users are homeless and can use drugs safely at GATE, which offers them a break from the hardship of the streets.
From boarding games to cooking activities, addicts can come and go as they please and receive access to doctors, nurses and mental health support. However, when the centre closes, they must leave the premises and go back onto the streets of the de facto EU capital as GATE does not provide accommodation. Bruno says GATE is the only place in town where they receive a warm welcome.
“The drug users, what we call party drug users, we will never see them here. We are working with people with a very heavy addiction to cocaine and especially crack, because 80 percent of the people coming here do use crack,” he said. “That means that they smoke cocaine and it’s very problematic. In their testimonials, when we ask them why they use so much cocaine, they say, because I’m living on the street and I have no hope and with that use, I forget everything, I feel better.”
Bruno Valkeneers says GATE is only a small part of the solution and that more investment and cooperation is needed to provide residential care to the increasing number of homeless across the city.
Antwerp port has become Europe’s gateway for drugs, mostly coming from Ecuador. The Belgian government is trying to fight cartels hand-in-hand with the Dutch. But with an illicit retail drug market worth €30 billion a year and drug traffickers more and more violent, the challenge is immense.
