Yle recently visited the infamous Vaasanpuistikko in Helsinki's Kallio district - also known as Piritori ("Amphetamine Square" or "Speed Square") - to explore the impacts a police crackdown last spring had on the substance abusers who tend to gather there.

Local residents have complained for decades about the unrest caused by open drug use in the square and its vicinity.

Between 16 May-5 June, Helsinki police carried out an intensive surveillance of the surroundings, resulting in the removal of a total of 1,166 people from the area. The crackdown resulted in the recording of 45 drug-related offences, and referred 40 individuals to substance abuse treatment services.

The effort was prompted by feedback from residents earlier in the year, about how open drug dealing was causing unrest and disturbances around the area, including the Sörnäinen metro station and surrounding parks. At the time, 91 percent of the 2,772 respondents to the police survey felt that visible drug use was causing trouble.

In a later poll of the area's residents, 51 percent said thought the surveillance period had improved local security.

Inspector Katja Nissinen of the Helsinki Police said cooperation with residents and local actors will continue.

"The aim is to work together to find ways to improve the safety and well-being of the neighbourhood in the longer term," she said.

According to police, the situation for drug users is challenging.

"Simply removing the people who are causing disruption from the area and sending them elsewhere does not help the overall situation. There needs to be extensive cooperation between the various actors involved. These people should have a place to go and get help for their circumstances. The best way to find solutions is to work with them," Nissinen said in a statement issued earlier this summer.

Life in Vaasanpuistikko

A few weeks after the police crackdown, 30-year-old Maria Angelica went to the square to pick up a clean syringe offered by an employee at the Deaconess Foundation, a human rights NGO.

Angelica said she has been homeless for five years and currently lives at the Koisonranta housing unit in Vantaa.

"[That place] saved my life. You can stay there, you get breakfast, a meal for the day and a snack for the evening."

Angelica said she would like to have her own home once she gets better. "Once I no longer feel the sadness of not having anyone coming home."

Her husband died in Riihimäki prison two-and-a-half years ago, and Angelica said she is too depressed to live alone.

One recent morning 28-year-old Lauri woke up in Imatra. He had fallen asleep on the train, missing his hometown stop in Lahti. He said the atmosphere at Vaasanpuistikko has changed since the police crackdown and made local residents more paranoid about the drug users.

"It doesn't matter if the police are here or not. People avoid us by going a hundred metres in the other direction, and everything goes on as usual" Lauri said.

Drug are generally used in the city's green public toilets, Lauri said, adding that everyone who uses the green toilets goes past the kindergarten just around the corner.

"There are children and families passing through," Lauri noted. If there was a place to go for a dose, the environment would become safer for outsiders, he explained.

"The government promised to provide drug use rooms, but they never came."

In order to trial supervised drug consumption rooms, Helsinki requested a separate law from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in 2019 that would allow them, but the issue never progressed at the government level.

"I don't know what is more unpleasant, the use of the rooms or the fact that a group is openly shooting up in front of a police vehicle and the police don't care," Lauri said.

Henry said he visits Amphetamine Square a few times a week. He has an apartment, but it is so far away that he feels lonely.

Henry lived in Stockholm for 30 years. "I got depressed living there among the grannies, my friends are in Helsinki."

"In the wake of a bit too much partying, I asked to go to rehab. I was told that you can't continuously gain access to those services," Henry said, noting that he has asked for help once over the past decade.

However he did have an idea about how to bring some peace to the infamous square.

"I understand that [the activity there] disturbs people when they have children with them or are rushing to work," he said, suggesting that a secluded area, like an abandoned park could be a more suitable place for drug users where they could be left alone.

Drug consumption facility idea rejected

In 2019, the City of Helsinki helped to propose legislation allowing a trial of drug consumption rooms. However, the issue did not progress at the ministerial level.

In such facilities, which are utilised in several countries, drug users can consume illegal substances under the supervision of health care professionals. However, Finnish MPs familiar with substance abuse issues have expressed mixed support for introducing such spaces.

According to a 2020 survey, half of people in Finland supported the idea of making such facilities available to addicts.

In January, the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said the facilities were one of its recommended methods to prevent drug-related deaths.

Drug fatalities in Finland have increased throughout the 2000s. According to Statistics Finland, 258 people died in Finland due to drug-related causes in the year 2020.

Compared to the rest of the EU, as well as Norway and Turkey, Finland had the highest number of drug-related deaths among people under the age of 25, according to the latest European Drug Report.

However, in July, Finland's Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Aki Lindén (SDP), said he does not believe that supervised drug consumption facilities were the answer to the country's growing number of drug-related deaths.

"This kind of legislative preparation takes time. Moreover, drug consumption facilities are not the solution to a serious drug problem. The focus should be on prevention, access to treatment and increased cooperation between authorities," Lindén said at the time.

Jenny Kaasinen-Wickman, who works for human rights NGO the Deaconess Foundation's so-called "Mother ship" project, told Yle that in her experience, the duration people are homeless is lasting longer, and there are more young people on the streets than before.

The project is a substance abuse outreach prorgamme, funded by Funding Centre for Social Welfare and Health Organisations (STEA), and operates in the cities of Helsinki, Tampere and Lahti.

"Our people are very tired, mentally and physically," Kaasinen-Wickman acknowledged.

After working in the field for five years and meeting drug-users every working day, Kaasinen-Wickman says she believes they would not use drugs if they did not have to.

"These people use drugs to protect themselves, either from trauma or from life."

The homeless and substance abusers should have access to low-threshold services, places where they can spend time and get help, according to Kaasinen-Wikman. Additionally, she said the city should pass legislation that allows drug use rooms.

"If you have to spend the night in a green [public] toilet, the substance abuse is just a coping mechanism at that point."

Intravenous drug users do not want to use the public toilets, Kaasinen-Wikman said, adding that the toilets are a health risk.

"These people also deserve dignity," Kaasinen-Wickman said.

Troubled history

The area around "Amphetamine Square" has been a troubled area for decades and its reputation as a tough place remained intact into the 2000s, even though a grocery store and a 24-hour gym now sit right next door to a sex shop.

Throughout the years, the neighbourhood gradually gentrified and has become increasingly known for its locally-produced events and activities popular among younger people. Trendy cafes and second-hand shops now populate once-empty storefronts in the neighbourhood as well.

Yle reported on a competition for proposals to make the square more welcoming in 2015. Among other things, there were suggestions to cover the area with LED lights and convert the attics of the surrounding buildings into coffee shops.

The City of Helsinki began a major renovation of the Sörnäinen metro station and surrounding Vaasanpuistikko in 2021, an effort that is scheduled to conclude next year.