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Psychiatrists insist and warn that Lithuanians who have taken pills for no reason can now replace them with devil’s drops.
Nurses are satisfied in the intensive care unit of Vilnius University Hospital (RVUL). The room is mainly connected to the apparatus by men with severe alcohol intoxication.
From time to time, nurses also have to save the lives of sedatives that have multiplied their compatriots. Especially if they give prescription drugs calmly, they are also mixed with the devil’s drops.
“It just came to our knowledge then. It happens that people get drunk, you know, all kinds of cases. And now it is very fashionable to get drunk on drugs: why drink? Because I really wanted to sleep,” says nurse Kristina Sacharevičienė.
Doctors have been talking loudly about the excessive use of sedative benzodiazepine preparations in Lithuania for many years. Dangerous poisonings are, of course, a rarity, but the scale of the abuse is staggering. Prescription sedatives are used regularly by 4%. Lithuanian. Although it must be taken for a few weeks, the drug is used for years, averaging up to seven.
With the entry into force of the procedure according to which benzodiazepines can only be obtained by electronic prescription since July, toxicologists now face a wave of patients suffering from withdrawal.
“Without receiving your medication at a scheduled time on a particular day, you experience extreme anxiety, insomnia, sweating, palpitations, palpitations, nausea, headaches before panic attacks, and extreme tremors,” says the Acute Poisoning Division of RVUL. host Gabija Laubner.
Doctors and pharmacists alike are not hiding: Lithuanians sometimes bought benzodiazepines with counterfeit prescriptions or took medications from family and friends.
“Those patients, or those people who took sedatives for their own discretion or self-medication, or for abuse, not by prescription, had trouble getting it,” he continues.
“When there were recipes on paper, we didn’t know if it was a fake recipe or not. Has that person already bought and perhaps bought those drugs 10 times already this month, because the deductions were not the same ”, says the pharmacist Jovita Aleknienė.
It is estimated that every month Lithuanians buy around 200,000. prescription sedative packs. This number increased by almost a quarter compared to last year.
“Around 2.5 million. Packages are sold per year, and the maximum consumption is 3 months, so even the figures are such that there would not be many people in Lithuania consuming it, if it were only 3 months. Consumption”, says Ignas Rubikas, Head of the Department of Mental Health.
“It just came to our attention then. Drugs that cause high dependence and strong abstentions. This is addiction and withdrawal from benzodiazepines is often even more serious than from alcohol,” warns psychiatrist Martynas Marcinkevičius.
He also warns of another threatening problem: compatriots who have not received benzodiazepines can relieve anxiety with devil’s drops: “We know how Lithuanians can effectively calm their anxiety without benzodiazepines: alcohol. This will be difficult to prove, but I think there will be quite a few people who will calm their cravings with alcohol without taking benzodiazepines. The consequences are very understandable to us. “
The psychiatrist welcomes the ministry’s desire to reduce the use of sedatives, but also receives criticism. Now, information about a legal prescription for a legal benzodiazepine gets stuck on a person’s card in eHealth, and that data needs to be hidden, making people afraid to see a doctor. The ministry promises to correct the error in the future.
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