Huge seizures of cocaine at the port of Antwerp, crack users near certain railway stations in Brussels and score-settling in the streets of the country’s two main cities: the issue of drug trafficking and the violence surrounding it regularly comes up in Belgian news.
The standard raised the appearance of a new substance among the police seizures in the capital: Lyrica. Also known as “poor man’s drug”, he is “available only on prescription”, explains the leading Flemish daily.
“This is the trade name for pregabalin, a substance used to treat neuralgia, epileptic seizures and anxiety disorders and which can also have a euphoric and disinhibiting effect, especially when combined with alcohol and opiates.”
Precarious population
In recent years, both the number of prescriptions and the quantities prescribed to patients have exploded. “In 2014, 23,485 patients had at least one prescription for pregabalin [en Belgique] ; in 2022, there were 165,485.”
And while the maximum daily dose of Lyrica is 600 milligrams, “the number of patients who are prescribed higher quantitiesIt ishigher has increasedIt is by 50% since 2018 in Brussels”, according to figures from an association that helps users. However, according to a Brussels commissioner, questioned by The standard, It is often patients who, by reselling part of their doses, are responsible for the introduction of Lyrica onto the black market.
As with crack, the segment of the population affected by this misuse tends to be made up of marginalized people or migrants. The newspaper reports that pregabalin is widely prescribed in refugee camps in Turkey and Greece to exiles suffering from post-traumatic stress or anxiety disorders. This means that addicts, once they arrive in Western Europe, often have no choice but to turn to the black market.
Finally, according to a recent statement by the Belgian police noted by the newspaper, Lyrica is also one of the products used by traffickers to enslave isolated minors from North Africa or Afghanistan and use them as labor.
