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Actifed – cheap option for a high

June 13, 2007

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Drug addicts in Gori found a new practice for the safe cough medicine for children – Actifed. After mixing Actifed with Russian Aspirin this medicine becomes narcotic.

Incorrect usage of Actifed causes lessens mental capacity and results in symptoms of craziness. A lot of young men in Gori have become sick already from Actifed’s high. 

Human Rights Centre’s Gori office has discovered 5 young men have died from Actifed. The majority of the Actifed users have psychological disturbances. Users can easily buy this medicine in drug stores without prescription for only 4.50 lari.

Ketevan Bidzinashvili, chief of the psychiatric information and assistance office in Gori, declares that there are about 3000-3500 opium users in Gori, and the number of the Actifed users is unknown.

“Last year November, for clearing up how many one gram needles were being sold, we held the monitoring in Gori drug-stores, we  and calculated the terrible figure – 3500. As a rule one gram needles are used by opium users and diabetics. It is impossible to conduct such kind of monitoring on Actifed users, because they use 10 gram needles, which are also used for common medicine. We have 310 patients in our registration. The majority of them are Actifed users, though the statistics never fit reality. The worst aspect of Actifed is that after drug test, this medicine does not appear in the blood. There are some fatalities in Gori from Actifed.”

The Gori office of damage reduction conducted another monitoring in drugstores one and half month ago. The monitoring showed that 70 boxes of Actifed are sold in an hour.

According to toxicologists, Actifed is addictive. After the taking it, person has a flood of energy: “It important to know, that common drug users have low sexual drive, but Actifed users have no such problem. In addition, sharing needles among Actifed users, increases the danger of spreading various viruses. The users of Actifed think that this is the cheap alternative for a high, but considering that they use it a minimum of 10 times in a 24 hour period, this high is not cheap at all,” says Bidzinashvili.

The users of Actifed practically cannot be cured. They behave inappropriately.

“Methadone was considered the most serious narcotic to date, though, at present Actifed has replaced Methadone. Besides this, it is terrible that students also can buy Actifed and there are some incidences in Gori,” says Bidzinashvili. According to her, their organization appealed to the Ministry of Public Health to require that Actifed be sold with a prescription, though to no avail.

Thea Tedliashvili, Gori

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