The epidemic of cases and deaths in the USA due to the abuse of Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, “frightens us because what happens in the United States soon happens in Europe and Italy. This epidemic will take a short time to cross the border Ocean, so it is right to be prepared and the Government Plan is currently acceptable. We are treating an anesthesiologist who abused it, he is better today – he suffers and takes methadone – but the effects of this opioid are certainly devastating, much stronger than heroin. We don’t think it’s a drug problem, we’ve seen some people who use Fentanyl patches which can be purchased, like everything else, on the web. The concept is that it’s ‘as good as heroin’it is used to have pleasure and often also to avoid being overwhelmed by problems”. Massimo Barra, founder of Villa Maraini-Croce Rossa Italiana in Rome, which has for years been a reference center for drug addiction, explains this to Adnkronos Salute.
Who uses Fentanyl
But who uses Fentanyl today? “There isn’t a category, but we certainly can’t think only of drug addicts – replies Barra – It’s not like someone wakes up in the morning and takes Fentanyl”. But thinking of preventing this phenomenon “is impossible also because on the web – a ‘sewer’ where you can find everything – it is possible to come into possession of it”, she points out. According to Barra, the right action “is the cure and we can cure it for better or worse, the message must be to assist these people without having bureaucratic paranoia – he warns – which does not make Italy a cutting-edge country, rhetorical reflections which increase costs and they do not produce solutions. Knowing and treating is not unachievable and this is our strategy, we treat ‘drug addicts’ because not doing so is doubly dangerous. Today there is no epidemic but we cannot afford the risk of not preparing.”
For Barra, the race to discover new synthetic drugs is unwinnable. “Today everything is done by hand – he continues – when a substance is included in the United Nations tables, and even a year passes, they have already placed another 10 on the market”.
The Villa Maraini Foundation collaborates extensively with other similar centers in the USA. “The Americans have a historical fault – says Barra – of having underestimated the drug phenomenon until the epidemic of deaths from Fentanyl broke out. And in fact, President Biden has addressed the problem head-on in his latest speeches to the nation. And so the USA has made a commitment, and therefore the entire international community, to fight Fentanyl”.
“The Italian response is also partially induced by this. But I must say that the choice, present in the Plan launched by the Government, to use naxolone in an intelligent way to combat Fentanyl is very right. It will not only be used to save drug addicts in overdose but for those in the police force who are contaminated by Fentanyl, naxolone is an antidote since it is able to reverse the effect of narcotics”, concludes Barra.
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