Designer drug Subutex takes its toll in Tbilisi. data/*supply & distribution

摘要

The south Caucasus state of Georgia is battling a sharp rise in drug addiction that has been linked to an influx of Subutex, a designer drug smuggled from western Europe. Tom Parfitt reports from Tbilisi.Crushed on pavements, tossed by the road, or in the corners of apartment-block entrance halls, the used syringes tell a story of rising addiction. The needles seen across Tbilisi, the capital of former Soviet Georgia, are discarded by addicts of Subutex, a treatment for opiate abuse that has ironically become the country's most popular new drug.Manufactured in the UK, Subutex pills are available on doctor's prescription in more than 30 countries worldwidje-including most of western Europe-as a supervised treatment for heroin withdrawal. Subutex contains buprenorphine-a synthetic opiate like methadone-that prompts a mild euphoria, and has been credited with a 79% decrease in overdose deaths from opioids in France during the past decade. But instead of being used to curb withdrawal, thousands of pills are being snapped up by so-called doctor shoppers, in countries where the drug is legal, who then sell them on to the black market.The pills are illegal in Georgia but first started appearing on the streets about 4 years ago. They are smuggled into the country by used-car dealers who sell them on at home for a huge mark up. Drug addicts then dissolve and inject the Subutex, often in dangerous cocktails with tranquillisers andantihistamines.