2023-08-09 13:41:34
Opioid
«We have been expecting to find fentanyl in Swiss coke for 15 years»
In light of the terrible drug crisis in the USA and a looming heroin shortage in Europe, concerns regarding opioids such as fentanyl are growing. An interview.
Published9. Aug 2023, 3:41 p.m
Since taking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban have banned the cultivation of opium poppies, the production of opium and heroin, and all smuggling.
The ban might result in a heroin shortage on the market by 2024 and push other, more dangerous drugs to the fore.
REUTERS
“Now we have to be alert to see whether anything will change on the market next year,” says addiction expert Frank Zobel. (Pictured: Used needles at the disused Letten train station are swept up in central Zurich on February 13, 1995.)
Archyde.com
It is still unclear whether the Taliban will actually implement the ban, especially since the opium poppy production provides the poor country with some income. (Pictured: Afghan children harvest in the opium field outside Jalalabad in 2015.)
REUTERS
“Then the question is whether there are still large, full heroin warehouses along the classic smuggling routes, which initially compensated for a drop,” says Zobel. (Pictured: blocks of cocaine in a coal storage facility in Mexico, 2014)
REUTERS
Also, Pakistan or the countries of the Golden Triangle might take over Afghanistan’s place as a heroin producer. (Pictured: Thai investigators with confiscated drugs in Bangkok, 2018)
REUTERS
“Even if there is a ‘heroin shock’, we have various means in Switzerland to intercept it.” In any case, the heroin problem is relatively under control here – in contrast to cocaine. (Pictured: drug addict in New York, 2023)
REUTERS
“There is heroin and cocaine laced with fentanyl in the United States, and we’ve been expecting that kind of thing to come to us for a good 15 years,” says addiction expert Zobel. «So far this has not happened. Of course, that can change at any time.” (Pictured: Cocaine seized in the port of Porto Empedocle, Italy, 2023)
via REUTERS
The fact that the opioid crisis in the USA has not yet reached Europe and Switzerland is due to the smaller and differently acting drug market. (Pictured: Anti-Drug Unit detecting illegal substances in Colima, Mexico, 2023)
In addition: “Swiss drug policy has many more resources in the social and health sectors and is much more efficient than American drug policy.” (Pictured: Drone transporting drugs from Syria, shot down by Jordan’s army in July 2023)
via REUTERS
From 2024, there might be a heroin shortage on the European market.
dangerous Opioide wie Fentanyl might then experience an upswing, fears the European drug monitoring agency EMCDDA.
Wait and see, above all, observe carefully, says Frank Zobel.
In the interview, the deputy director of “Sucht Schweiz” talks regarding previous “heroin gaps”, regarding who controls the heroin market in Switzerland, and regarding the danger of fortified cocaine.
Herr Zobel*, with the Ban under the Taliban a heroin deficiency is emerging, which is giving the experts a stomach ache. You too, as far as Switzerland is concerned?
When the Taliban banned opium poppy production twenty years ago, effectively less heroin came to Europe. Now we have to pay attention to whether something will change in the market next year and whether this effect of the shortage will show up.
What will you pay attention to?
To do this, it must be clarified whether the Taliban’s ban will actually be implemented, especially since the opium poppy production provides the poor country with some income. Then there is the question of whether there are still large quantities of heroin in camps along the classic smuggling routes, which initially compensated for a drop. Pakistan or the countries of the Golden Triangle (Thailand, Laos, Myanmar) might also replace Afghanistan as heroin producers.
“Are there still large quantities of heroin in camps along the smuggling routes, which initially compensated for a drop?”
Frank Zobel, Director “Addiction Switzerland”
What do people in Switzerland know regarding the consequences of such heroin gaps?
There was a heroin shortage in Switzerland around 2010/11. As a reaction to this, some heroin addicts reduced their consumption and went into substitution treatment. The situation has not deteriorated much as a result.
That is a big difference to the USA, since there is a large network of treatment centers and treatment options in Switzerland. “That’s why my fear is relatively limited,” says addiction expert Zobel. ‘Even if it’s to a ‹Heroin-Schock› should come, we have various means of intercepting it.” In any case, the heroin problem is now relatively under control in Switzerland – in contrast to cocaine.
“In Switzerland, there has been very little seized fentanyl and no drugs cut with it.”
Frank Zobel, Director “Addiction Switzerland”
Cocaine is enriched with opioids such as fentanyl, the users don’t know anything regarding it – isn’t that a danger in Switzerland??
There is fentanyl-laced heroin and cocaine in the US, and we’ve been expecting it to come to Europe and to us for well over 15 years. But so far this has not happened. This can of course change at any time. So far, fentanyl has appeared more as a warning in only a few countries in Europe. In Switzerland, too, very little fentanyl has been seized in the last twenty years, and no drugs laced with it either.
How do you explain this not spilling over from the US?
The drug market in Switzerland is very different from that in the USA, where the Mexican cartels, among other things, are much wilder. In Switzerland, heroin trafficking has been in the hands of groups from Albania, Serbia and Kosovo for regarding 30 years. Should there really be a heroin shortage on the market because of the Taliban ban, it would hit her particularly hard. They have been importing heroin from Afghanistan for decades and lace it with caffeine and paracetamol. Switzerland also has bad, heavily cut heroin that has remained relatively unchanged for decades.
“Thirty years later, that’s still unthinkable in the United States.”
Frank Zobel, Director “Addiction Switzerland”
The fact that the opioid crisis in the USA has not yet reached Europe and Switzerland is not only due to the smaller and differently acting drug market, but also to how society and the police deal with the drug problem, says Zobel. For example, Switzerland introduced heroin prescriptions in 1994 so that addicts might get the drug from a doctor. “Thirty years later, that is still unthinkable in the USA. Swiss drug policy has many more resources in the social and health sectors and is much more efficient than American drug policy.”
*Frank Zobel is Director of the «Addiction Switzerland» Foundation. Zobel studied sociology and public health at the University of Montreal. He worked for a long time at the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Lausanne and at the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). In 2014 he started working for “Sucht Schweiz”.
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