The new drugs (poisons) of the economic crisis and despair…

 

I came across this image in an article published online in a Greek newspaper (Ta Nea) on Friday 22 December. I thought it was a powerful image. The article was entitled ‘ The new poisons of the economic crisis are drugs made of bleach and battery metal liquids’.

(www.tanea.gr/ellada/article/?aid=4777237)

In the article, a Greek psychiatrist from a Greek organisation supporting people over 18 with drug addictions, gives an alarming account of how the economic crisis and the ensuing despair, meaninglessness and hopelessness that have come to characterise  the lives of a large number of young people  in Greece, have given rise to a new type of drugs made by very dangerous concoctions of substances – drugs that are very cheap and hence easily  affordable as they are produced by desperate amateur youngsters in their home kitchens.

An example of such drugs is ‘sisa’, made of metamphetamine mixed with battery metal liquids, bleach, gasoline or even strychnine, which costs 1-5 Euros per dosage. Drugs like ‘sisa’ are easily affordable for young kids, the poor, the unemployed, the disaffected, those that cannot afford other kinds of drugs…they are very toxic,  they affect vital organs such as the brain, the heart and the liver, and furthermore they can cause mental health difficulties. Such drugs – that are fatal and can kill fast- usually become available in the market when there is a major economic crisis prevailing.

Characteristically, one of these drugs of the economic crisis is referred to as ‘exterminator of the poor’; because of this drug an entire generation in Argentina was annihilated back in 2001.

 

Black Death Ravages Europe in  the 14th century

(http://history-world.org/black_death.htm)