In times of crisis, drug policy regression in Greece.

Tomorrow, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) will release its 2011 Annual Report. If we are to follow the hints from both last year’s report (discussed by us then) and a myriad of alarming articles from all over Europe, the issue of designer drugs as well as the control of their chemical precursors will be, once more, a top priority. But there appears to be another [linked] trend that might be reflected by the report: the irruption of highly lethal ersatz drugs and their generalised used amongst an already marginalised population at risk. Two cases are particularly salient: that of “krokodil” (a form of desomorphine) in Russia and “sisa” (for which the chemical nature remains obscure) in Greece. Both drugs seem to have surfaced as a result of soaring heroin prices, hard to obtain substitutes (such as methadone) and plunging purchasing power amongst these countries’ poorest.

While less publicised than the Russian, the Greek case is also a recipe for disaster. On the one hand, the austerity mandate negotiated by Greece and its European partners to palliate the economic crisis keeps deteriorating both health and social policy public expenditure and general purchasing power, reducing the availability of treatment while driving its costs up. On the other hand, the increasing performance of specialised police corps in heroin seizures (which have witnessed the sharpest increase since 1985 during the last three years) makes high-purity heroin rarer and more harmful alternatives progressively attractive/demanded. In parallel, disturbing consequences are starting to reach alarming levels; HIV infections as a result of drug use have risen dramatically, especially in the fringes of society (illegal immigrants, prostitutes, homeless persons).

With the recent approval by the Greek Parliament of a new austerity plan amongst violent protests, the subsistence of treatment programmes led by the responsible national entity (OKANA) seems doomed; a situation that presages further intensification of what has become a sanitary emergency.

Photo by: greekadman