How the Covid pandemic has exacerbated drug use
Alessandra Servidori's post
In the Senate it went as it went . I am convinced that this government / recollected majority will not be able to cope with the many health and social emergencies that have exploded. Also because Conte did not talk about school and young people at all in his exhibitions and pseudo programming and young people are certainly the thorn in our hearts, often left to the solitude of their dramas, including social ones.
The 2020 Annual Report to Parliament on the phenomenon of drug addiction in Italy on 2019 data has not yet arrived. We only have the previous one on 2018 data. So a worrying void while the prosecutor Amato defined the drama of drugs on the rise.
In the very serious health emergency that our country has been experiencing since February 2020, the rules on "staying at home" set by the authorities have led to a significant decrease in the sale of drugs on the street but a scenario has exploded that was only a hypothesis and is now dramatically a reality. Consumers of drugs of abuse are turning to the illicit market in the "dark web" (submerged web, generally with illegal content, which can be reached through specific software, configurations and authorization accesses), to obtain classic drugs such as cocaine, hashish or heroin.
The market for new psychoactive substances, born on the internet, remains the prerogative of these areas, which still market these substances thanks to the camouflage in environmental perfumers, bath salts, collectible seeds, phytosanitary products, etc. The scenario, supported by data from law enforcement which is always very up to date, confirms that the alarm for the Covid-19 epidemic has facilitated the growth in drug demand through the web or computer applications.
Furthermore, it is plausible that, in a period of home confinement, habitual users of drugs of abuse, probably, no longer go in search of psychoactive substances to promote socialization in recreational environments (discos, pubs, bars, entertainment venues, etc. ), but of products to be consumed in solitude. In addition to those who take tranquilizers already available at home, the concern of practitioners working in the field of addictions is addressed to that segment of people who use narcotics, such as opiates (e.g. heroin), new synthetic opioids or new benzodiazepines. We are talking about substances whose illicit market had a great growth in 2019, according to data published by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon ( Emcdda , European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction).
In fact, in the last report of the Observatory, significant changes in the phenomenon and in drug use emerge. The new benzodiazepines (available in the street drug store) serve to appease opiate withdrawal. They are more effective but also more toxic sold as pharmaceuticals which also need a non-repeatable medical prescription. Interesting reports from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Nida), a US reference center for basic and clinical research on drug use, which addressed the Covid-19 problem, publishing a focus on the possible implications on its website.
Our health system is trying to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic with enormous efforts together with the Addiction Services (Ser.D.) for access to facilities and the possible administration of methadone to patients under treatment. But drug use among adolescents is steadily increasing, and public services and therapeutic communities are failing to intercept this unexpressed, and increasingly hidden, need for youth addiction.
The costs of drugs are lower and lower since the beginning of the Covid epidemic and the provision of websites many new illegal substances have joined the traditional ones, but the territorial services have remained the same with few funds for prevention, a law that dates back to 90 and then modified in the distant 95 and without adequate tools to help these children since the system is based and has remained "plastered" on the figure of the heroin addict.
Already the Parliamentary Commission for Childhood and Adolescence in the context of the fact-finding survey on pathological addictions widespread among young people also stops at the official data for 2018, reported 880 thousand children who declared that they had used illegal substances, equal to 1 out of 3 boys among those who go to school between 15 and 19 years and the operators in the field explain that the phenomenon is constantly increasing and the age has dropped more and more, involving those who are in reality little more than children and are between 11 and 14 years old.
The public services currently existing have important shortcomings and enormous difficulties because very few young people go to the centers spontaneously. Out of 300 thousand people (2018 data) who turn to public services for addictions related to drug use, less than 10% are under the age of 25. Therefore, the range of adolescents has remained squeezed between children and adults and also subjugated by legal substances: alcohol, opiate analgesics, benzodiazepines and other psychotropic drugs that are taken in a mix. And precisely the so-called polyconsumption is the behavior most at risk for adolescents.
The only way is to act on the territory and build relationships, above all the classic services must be rethought based on these new youth trends, specific structured prevention paths must also be activated for minors with addictions given that there are few in Italy and they are almost absent in some regions such as Abruzzo, Basilicata, Sicily, Calabria and Puglia despite the fact that the numbers have doubled.
We also report an almost zeroing of economic resources for prevention since the national anti-drug fund merged into the fund of national social policies. Covid has also created further problems in residential services for minors because, as in the RSA for the elderly, meetings with their families of origin have been reduced and because the youngest are struggling to understand that they have to respect the rules imposed by the epidemic; voluntary abandonments have thus increased and re-accepting them has become more complicated due to compliance with the quarantine.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/blog/come-la-pandemia-covid-ha-acuito-il-consumo-della-droga/ on Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:09:34 +0000.