Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Kyiv residents fill their drug prescriptions at a kiosk pharmacy in an underpass in the Pozniaky district. Dozens of such pharmacies sell prescription drugs illegally, experts said, an option increasingly popular among teenagers. Courtesy photo Addiction to a cheap, widely available prescription pain killer, Tramadol, is on the rise, and the government has no plan of action to stop it, experts said.

>

Teenagers and young adults are the primary users of a prescription drug called Tramadol, an opiate analgesic considered to be 10 percent as potent as morphine, and is used to treat mild to severe pain.

Ukraine produces 90 million packages of Tramadol annually, said Vitaliy Kravchenko, a former officer at the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), with 20 five­centigram capsules per package costing a few US dollars.

Of that amount, only a small fraction (about five million) was consumed by individuals needing treatment.

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities suspect that significant amounts are being smuggled out of Ukraine, or consumed by addicts.

Today, no statistics exist on how many Ukrainians are addicted to Tramadol, but it is a significant problem among the country’s drug addicts, medical experts agreed.

At a March 18 roundtable addressing drug policy problems and addiction rehabilitation, participants effectively shrugged their shoulders on the fight against pharmacies illegally circulating drugs.

Kravchenko suggested the problem has escalated because top officials have a financial interest.

“It’s a profitable business that often involves high­ranking government representatives,” said Kravchenko, a whistle blower who publicly accused Ukraine’s former president, Leonid Kuchma and top security officials, of wrongdoing years ago.

“Many government officials themselves use drugs,” Kravchenko added.

About 150,000 new cases of drug addiction in Ukraine are officially registered annually, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Health.

However with each officially registered person, about 10 remain unaccounted for, estimates Hennadiy Zilberblat, chief neurologist at the Kyiv State Administration.

About 1.5 million people, or 3 percent of Ukraine’s population, are addicted to drugs, Zilberblat says.

Several factors prevent law enforcement bodies from effectively combating drug traffic, said Semen Gluzman, chair of the Psychiatrists Association of Ukraine.

Monitoring and clear statistics on types of drugs abused is absent, he said, as well as which members or classes of society are involved, especially regarding officials.

A third factor is inconsistency in legislation, which makes Tramadol a legal drug but does not provide regulatory authority to punish abuse, Gluzman said.

Ukraine has not conducted specific research on the drug usage rate, he said.

In Kyiv, dozens of pharmacies sell the drug illegally, without a prescription, Kravchenko said.

Pharmacies are making a large profit selling Tramadol and other prescription drugs illegally, and hide it from regulating authorities, Kravchenko said.

The highest sales are in so­called bedroom communities, he added.

According to unofficial data, two­thirds of schoolboys aged 12 and older have tried Tramadol at least once, said Gluzman and Zilberblat.

Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolayiv oblasts are most affected by drug addiction to Tramadol, Gluzman added.

Drug addiction is in general more prevalent in southern and eastern Ukraine than other areas of the country, he said, and Tramadol addicts rarely go to clinics,.

There were 9,572 officially registered drug addicts in Kyiv at the end of 2007, said Iryna Karol, a rehabilitation specialist.

Only seven rehabilitation centers, organized by parents and former drug addicts, serve the drug addicted, she said, and services at the centers cost from $300 to $600 per month for medical and psychological treatment.