A silent scream

Production and consumption of methamphetamine in the Czech Republic

“Drugs take everything and give nothing”

William Burroughs, American writer and inspiration of the Beat generation, as well as drug addict, with this phrase as didactic as it is sharp, manages to describe what having an addiction to narcotic substances entails.

Methamphetamine is the most consumed synthetic stimulant drug in the world and the latest data indicate a constant expansion of the market in the European Union.

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of methamphetamine seizures in the EU more than doubled (from 3,000 to 6,200), while the quantities seized increased by 477% to 2.2 tonnes in 2020.
Of the 60 cities with data on methamphetamine residues in municipal wastewater for 2021 and 2022, 39 reported an increase, 6 reported a stable situation, and 15 reported a decrease.

The 3 cities with the highest loads are all located in the Czech Republic.

Due in part to a past as the Eastern Bloc's center for pharmaceutical production, the Czech Republic has the largest methamphetamine problem of any European country, also being its largest supplier and with nearly 90% of illicit labs dismantled in 'EU every year are Czechs.

To understand the Czech primacy in the production of this drug we need to go back to the 70s and 80s, when what was then Czechoslovakia was cut off from international drug trafficking routes.
Those who wanted to use drugs therefore only had the option of producing them in an artisanal way, easily synthesizing them by chemically reducing ephedrine, a substance present in common cold medicines which, among other things, was in operation near Prague is one of the main ephedrine factories in the world.
The tradition of domestic methamphetamine production laboratories remains from the old days and their diffusion has now become widespread.

In the Czech Republic, methamphetamine costs 1500 Czech crowns (approximately 60 euros) per gram and data indicate that the average age of consumers is 32 years and among those who take this substance, 75% are men and 25% are women.
Furthermore, of the total drug users, 77% consume methamphetamine and in 2021 of the total drug deaths, 33% died from this substance.

Being very powerful stimulants they cause very strong effects and among the most common long-term effects are memory loss, mood changes, anxiety and mental disorders and the withdrawal syndrome after prolonged use consists of a serious form of physical depression and psychological which can even last months.

Drug addicts are often not considered people by the prohibitionist epistemology but are identified with their problems, caged in a role and looked at as a problem to be hidden, ghosts that wander among us and live in the shadows of the corners of life.
Demonization condemns drug addicts to clandestinity and pushes them towards life-threatening practices, in the absence of health protection, where they consume in the dark, surrounded by an aura of shame and without the possibility of controls on quality and dosages.

We should then ask ourselves whether substance addiction should be seen as a structural fact of our society and whether it would therefore be better to move towards a different interpretation of drug addiction?

It is very difficult for a drug addict to find that strength within themselves to ask for help, a help they need and not our pity, so that their cry does not remain a silent scream.