Bulgarian Students are the First in the EU in Amphetamines Use

Society | December 13, 2018, Thursday // 14:22
Bulgaria: Bulgarian Students are the First in the EU in Amphetamines Use

Bulgarian studnets and young people remain at the top in Europe using amphetamines and anabolic steroids, according to data from recent drug surveys in EU countries.

The data is from a study among teenagers aged 15-16 years and adults up to 30 years old, BNR reports.

Every third of respondents indicated that at least once in their life they had used drugs, while for the other countries the average values ​​were nearly 2 times lower.

90% of the cases are marijuana and about 6% say amphetamines, methamphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine.

The first use is most often between 14 and 16 years.

The toxicologist from Varna Military Hospital, Dr Marieta Yovcheva, is categorical: "There is nothing merry or safe in the "merry tea ". On the contrary, under the term "cheerful tea", "herbal incense" and other street names is an extremely dangerous new group of drugs - synthetic cannabinoids. These substances are many times more poisonous than cannabis.

Toxicity of these ingredients used, etc. "Cheerful teas" and bath salts are many times higher than those we have seen in poisoning with marijuana and other hemp derivatives. "

Dr. Ivan Dobrinov, a psychiatrist at the state psychiatric hospital in Radnevo, is often confronted with the severe consequences of drug use: "They are basically importing these substances from China. They register them as something else and they cross the border like bath salts, such as flavors, flower fertilizer or anything else. Most often they are packed, cut and distributed here. For example, the synthetic cannabinoids are imported into a white powder which dissolves in some solvents here and soak or spray any dried substances that can be absolutely harmless - the plant incense, some tea, and can be processed and marijuana, which additionally gets a different effect from chemicals. This thing is dried, packaged and distributed as smoking mixtures.

Here is the big risk because nobody really knows what exactly is contained in the particular package. We have a dozen people in the ward who have come here exactly from synthetic stimulants, including severe psychiatric disorders and severe aggression. "

A former drug addict said it had taken more than five years to stop using drugs.

He was as a student when he started using, but the enjoyment of the experiences lasted only the first few days.

Bulgaria is one of the few countries that are targeting drug trafficking victims, said Dr. Stanimir Hassardjiev, President of the National Patient Organization.

"Drug traffickers and chemists constantly invent new and new molecules, and it is very complicated for governments to quickly adapt their legislation and these drugs to be adequately prosecuted by law. It is even more serious in Bulgaria because we are among the few countries in the world, not to say the only one in Europe where our legislation pursues victims - dependent people, rather than pursuing with the same force those distributing and producing drugs. In the best systems in the world, things are quite reversed - people who are victims of trafficking, the law does not pursue them, but on the contrary they are partners of the state and the state supports them in many ways. When they get a drug on the street, they have the opportunity to go and explore what it is, to be given instructions on how to accept it so they will not get killed.

The important point is that the state is getting information - the day the new drug comes out, this new drug is already known. As soon as the distributors arrive, the legislation is rapidly changing. Here's exactly the opposite to what we did. According to recent data recently released, over 80,000 young people for the past 10 years have been convicted of being victims and being sick. Dependency is a disease that has its ICD! For the first time, I hear someone being convicted of being sick and not being convicted of the one who actually did it, "Hassardzhiev said.

So the youngsters are trapped and treated as criminals, not looking for the real sources of crime, Hassardjiev warned.

Dependency programs are also not enough, as there are only for those dependent on intravenously administered drugs.

"There are no programs for so-called" party drugs "that are widely used - cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines and new synthetic drugs."

Hasardzhiev pointed out that often law enforcement officers are waiting for young people at the entrances of discos and do not hold them for having drugs in exchange for money.

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