Epress.am News from Armenia
The use of homemade petroleum-based drugs, taken by intravenous injection, is widespread in Armenia's second largest city of Gyumri. This practice is known to everyone, and according locals, if young people are seen begging on the street, then the money is needed to prepare the drugs.
In order to ease the situation, give addicts opportunity to receive medical help, Gyumri Mental Health Center has been providing methadone treatment in the city for the last two years, with financial assistance from the Global Fund. However, as Director of the Center Aida Vardanyan informed Epress.am, to date, only 37 people, mostly middle-aged men, have applied to receive treatment.
“We thought we would not have time to attend to everyone, that a lot of people would turn to us, but there are few of them. It is a matter of legal consciousness. In Gyumri, people encounter thousands of friends and neighbors before reaching our clinic. Families do not help either, they do not realize that the person needs help, and that he could be saved,” Vardanyan said.
Homemade petroleum-based drugs, according to the doctor, are some of the most dangerous kinds, since they cause severe damage to the visceral organs, including the heart, liver, and brain, as well as lead to gangrene of skin and bones: “The use of petroleum-based drugs leads to addiction 10 times faster. These addicts have a life expectancy of 3-5 years.”
Methadone maintenance program, as stated by Vardanyan, is much better than the previously used detoxification treatment. Detoxification cleanses the body, but it does not cure addiction. Methadone, though a narcotic drug which needs to be administered over a prolonged period of time, is made by physicians.
“Drugs made from petroleum products and sedalgin are simply incompatible with the so-called elite drug, since gasoline is not only incompatible with the body, but is also a source of infection, because it is sometimes made in unsanitary conditions,” Vardanyan stated.
Aida Vardanyan has conducted courses in the medical facilities in Gyumri, urging the personnel not to give up on people with related addictions, but rather direct them to methadone maintenance treatment; however, according to the doctor, much like the families of those suffering, non-specialized physicians are not particularly inclined to help them.