Addiction experts warn of a possible sharp increase in emergencies caused by the use of synthetic drugs: Opiates such as fentanyl are already leading to more deaths in Europe. The municipalities would have to prepare themselves.
Experts in addiction research and help warn of the spread of synthetic drugs, which could lead to a rapid increase in emergencies in this country.
In Ireland’s capital Dublin there were 54 drug emergencies within four days in connection with opioids – this indicates that these substances are on the rise in Europe, explained the Federal Association for Drug Work “Akcept”, the German Aids Aid and the Catholic University of North Rhine-Westphalia. Westphalia.
Synthetic substances such as fentanyl or nitazene, which are more than a hundred times more effective, are increasingly being added to heroin doses – there is therefore a risk for users of an incorrect dosage with serious health consequences or death. In Germany, too, admixtures of opioids were detected in heroin samples.
“We are already recording the highest number of drug deaths in 20 years,” said addiction researcher Daniel Deimel.
Increased emergency aid required
In view of an impending crisis, the addiction experts demanded that an infrastructure for drug emergencies must now be set up quickly: cities and municipalities should take appropriate precautions, and the federal and state governments should increase funding.
Specifically, Dirk Schäffer from Deutsche Aidshilfe called for, among other things, to expand substitution therapy and consumption rooms nationwide and to train first responders with the emergency medication naloxone as an overdose antidote, which can also be administered by laypeople as a nasal spray.
The nasal spray naloxone can also be administered by laypeople as an antidote to an overdose.
Opioid crisis in the USA
In the USA, opioids have been responsible for the majority of fatal overdoses for years. A few months ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the nationwide fentanyl crisis was spreading to the rest of the world.