“Pilgrim” revives the action “Sick of it”
The action of public protest “Sick of it” against the drug sale in Mariupol gains momentum. The reason for it is that more and more often they started selling without prescription medications which contain drugs. The workers of the fund “Pilgrim” made some test purchases of medication one of ingredients of which is codeine in the drugstores of the city. The pharmacists sell those drugs without any prescription and in such a way violate the legislation of Ukraine.
Anna, the former addict: “I have been using injective drugs for the last 2 years, the common name for this drug is “crocodile” or “electroshirka”. It contains codeine. (Codeine or 3-methylmorphine is an opiate used for its analgesic properties. ( author’s note) Drug addicts make poison from codterpine and within my 15-year – experience of using drugs I haven’t seen such a horrific one before. It can’t compare in power with heroin or cocaine. What it does with human brain, with personality cannot be put in words. It literally eats up the parts of body. I saw a few people whose very flesh was falling off the bones. I myself had to go fix my jaw and maxillary sinus. This drug eats you up and you start decaying, your veins get burnt). To gain the crystals of pure codeine drug addicts have to boil it with household lye like Mister Muscle or iodine and red phosphor. After couple times of using it one gets addicted to it. Many people simply keep staying at their kitchen making this drug nonstop to get at least one hour of high at a time”.
Vitaly, the drug addict with 16-year- expertise: “For the last 4 years I have been addicted to codeine. We were spending 7000 hrivnas ( 870 US dollars) per months for this drug. You make one dose and in an hour you need another one. I am scared to go see doctor because I am sure every single organ in my body was affected. I had neither memory nor joy. I couldn’t help thinking about codeine all the time.”
Today the workers of the fund “Pilgrim” think about codeine all the time too. They are ready to confront those light- fingered pharmacists and owners of pharmacies who sell codeine without prescription and in any amount.
Lyudmila Kolesnik, a pharmacist: ”In September 2012 the Ministry of Health of Ukraine issued the law according to which all medications that contain codeine are considered drugs. They can be sold only if the customer has a prescription. And their sale can be allowed only in specialized drugstores by the definite hospitals. One can buy having a prescription only one pack of pills ( 20 pills in one pack). With the prescription they are not that expensive – just 20 hrivnas (2, 5 US dollars). Without the prescription pharmacies sell them much more expensive. It is tremendous scale of sales. Last year when I was looking for a pharmacist’s job in Mariupol I was enquiring those who work in drugstores how they get paid. And they said that they got an interest from the percentage of sales and 75% of this interest would be medications with codeine”.
The workers of the fund “Pilgrim” declares to all the publicity of Mariupol, to the city government and to the city police that the nearest several months they will do regular monitoring of the situation in order to detect illegal acts of pharmacists. As soon as such violation will be detected the workers of the fund will take radical steps. The action “Sick of it” gains momentum.
Gennadiy Mokhnenko, the President of the charity fund “Pilgrim”: “ If we see that the drug sale without prescription is taking place again we will protest right there around those pharmacies that sell the very drugs to the youth of Mariupol, there will be a lot of us. And let them be ashamed, as a minimum, and as a maximum let the cases against them be started”.
Gennadiy Mokhnenko also notified that in out city we have a great experience in solving the problem with illegal drug sale together with social organizations and the police. Several years ago by the fund“Pilgrim” the action of the public protest “Sick of it” was started. It was directed against uncontrolled sale of opiate drugs on streets of Mariupol. And in several years this was ended successfully – Tramadol and its analogies were recognized as drugs in the legislation of Ukraine and its open sale was stopped.
Today the workers of the fund “Pilgrim” are convinced that the problem of the sale of codeine containing drugs will be also solved successfully with the help of good will of all the people interested in fixing it.
Gennadiy Mokhnenko: ”We want to address the owners of drugstores and local police and demand to take under the strict control this situation and to prevent the development of illegal actions the result of which is the growth of number of drug addicts among the youth and teens in Mariupol. As soon as we come across a pharmacy which keeps selling illegal drugs we will work with this pharmacy in a completely different way – we are not going to just preach to them and tell that it is not good. We will act”.