fact finder
Status: 10/14/2021 3:35 p.m.
The SPD health expert Lauterbach has campaigned for the legalization of cannabis because it is increasingly contaminated with heroin in illegal street trade. But experts do not know anything about such dealer tricks.
In the debate about the possible legalization of cannabis, the SPD health expert has brought a warning: In an interview with the “Rheinische Post” he pleaded for a controlled distribution to adults. “More and more often, the illegally sold street cannabis is being mixed with a new type of heroin that can be smoked. This quickly drives cannabis users into a heroin addiction.”
Heroin as a diluent to addict cannabis users? That sounds like a dangerous development. But anyone who asks the investigative authorities how big this problem is, receives unanimous answers, for example from the Federal Criminal Police Office: “The BKA has no knowledge that cannabis has recently been contaminated with heroin.”
The State Criminal Police Office in Lauterbach’s native North Rhine-Westphalia also waves it aside: “So far, the Criminal Science and Technology Institute of the LKA NRW has not come across any case of cannabis mixed with heroin.” A chemist and forensic toxicologist in the chemistry department of the LKA of Rhineland-Palatinate makes it clear: “In the timely close exchange with toxicology colleagues from forensic medicine and other LKÄ from all over Germany, such cases – which would really be newsworthy – were not reported.”
Are the police overlooking a new development?
The police may not be the first to notice every new trend, especially when it comes to a drug like cannabis, which is mainly used by young people. The Stuttgart drug advice center Release sees itself with its ear close to this scene. She has been campaigning for so-called drug checking for a long time.
What is banned in Germany has long existed in Switzerland and Austria, for example: Small samples of drugs from the possession of consumers are checked for purity without the investigative authorities having to be involved. Because it is a dangerous reality that illegal drugs such as amphetamines, ecstasy, cocaine or heroin in street sales are “stretched” by intentional admixtures of other substances in order to achieve a higher profit, knows the association’s board member Bernd Klenk.
A drug myth
The extenders for cannabis, however, are weight-increasing agents such as lead, sand, sugar or, in the worst case, broken glass. Heroin is not one of them, says Klenk SWR-Question clear: “The story that dealers choose this ‘sales strategy’ to attract new customers, in our view belongs to the realm of drug myths and keeps coming up.” Mixing cannabis with the opiate heroin, which has a completely different effect, in order to ultimately draw users into heroin addiction does not suit the social behavior of young cannabis users, says Klenk: “As a rule, cannabis use begins in the peer group, that is, in the group of Peers instead of and not by acquiring the substance from unfamiliar people. ”
Even if drug checking is still banned in Germany, there have been websites for a long time that take on a similar function, in that drug users publish laboratory results of their samples there. The website Dirty-Weed.com, for example, lists 24 substances that have already been found in cannabis from street sales, from lead and fertilizer to henna and wood chips to starch and sugar – but here, too, heroin is not mentioned.
Both the Release drug advice center and police investigators, however, point to a different development in connection with cannabis excipients. The forensic toxicologist of the LKA Rhineland-Palatinate reports that there is actually cannabis on the market that has been mixed with potentially dangerous synthetic agents – so-called new psychoactive substances, NPS. “These are often so-called CBD hemp, the flowers of which have a high CBD content with a very low THC content and which in itself is not suitable for intoxication. These flowers are mixed with synthetic cannabinoids.”
US agency: No heroin in cannabis
Did the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach confuse synthetic cannabis with heroin in the newspaper interview? An opinion on the SWR his office refuses, referring to Lauterbach’s “numerous statements on this matter”. In fact, in an interview with “zeit.de”, he had specified that in the USA “heroin was sprayed on joints” and that he was referring to investigative circles.
The USA laments a devastating wave of opiate addiction with up to 90,000 deaths a year. The addiction often begins there with legal tranquilizers containing morphine and then leads to the cheap heroin substitute fentanyl. But the “National Institute on Drug Abuse” (NIDA) does not mention a single case in its publications in which cannabis was diluted with heroin or synthetic opiates.
Lauterbach’s statement was quickly questioned on social media. One commentator wrote: “That is exactly the problem with our politicians: confusing heroin with NPS … Wow, end the clown show and inform yourself properly a leading SPD politician speaks positively for new paths. ” The founder and operator of the German Hemp Association, Georg Wurth, has been campaigning for the legalization of cannabis for years with his lobby organization. Compared to the SWR Wurth comments on the statements of the SPD politician: “Lauterbach hits the bull’s eye, even without ‘heroin in the grass'”.