Home » Addiction to fentanyl and more: how to prevent the American massacre from reaching Italy too

Addiction to fentanyl and more: how to prevent the American massacre from reaching Italy too

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Addiction to fentanyl and more: how to prevent the American massacre from reaching Italy too

More than 100,000 overdose deaths in the United States last year. Two out of three deaths are caused by fentanyl. And it’s not just an American issue. Whether from substances such as tobacco, alcohol, drugs (including new psychoactive substances) or behavioral ones (gambling, food, internet and new technologies, doping), addictions are, unfortunately, constantly increasing in Italy too. probably also as an effect of the pandemic, creating concern and sometimes concrete problems for families and society. Yet, while the phenomenon of substance consumption and addictions changes every day with the arrival of new harmful substances, the intervention system in Italy is governed by rules dating back to the 1990s that no longer work effectively. Topics at the center of the National Congress FeDerSerD, a leading scientific society among the professionals of the Italian Addiction Services that celebrates its twenty years of activity this year.

Addictions in Italy

Almost one in five students between the ages of 15 and 19 reported having taken illegal psychoactive substances in the past year, according to the report from the Department of Drug Policy of the Presidency of the Council, mainly cannabis, but also much more. close-up the deadly crack. According to the same report, one fifth of student users already have drinking habits at risk of developing addiction. And crack use is on the rise even among 14-15 year olds with immediate and largely non-reversible brain damage.

An old law

Three hundred thousand young and old every year turn to almost six hundred public addiction services, the SerD, to tackle treatment and resocialization paths. Unfortunately, the sector is regulated in Italy by a law (309/90) that is over thirty years old, which everyone is asking to update, but it still remains there showing all its inadequacy. “In this historical moment, still shaken by a dramatic pandemic and a war that deeply wounds in different ways – he declares Guido Faillacenational president of FeDerSerD – the NRR, with a view to overcoming the gap between hospital and territory, can offer an opportunity for renewal of the National Health Service, starting a redesign of the system that we hope and commit ourselves to include in the the system of dependencies is also correct and desirable “.

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Addiction to opiates

One of the most worrying problems, also in consideration of the fact that the Italian population is aging more and more, concerns the addiction to opiates (including methadone, fentanyl and hydromorphone but also heroin, buprenorphine and morphine) , used in the management of chronic pain and in palliative care for the terminally ill. Unfortunately, opioid drugs are characterized by the problem of addiction and abuse, that is, the development of a behavior that leads to the continuous search for the drug even when it is no longer necessary from a medical point of view.

The stigma of agonist drug treatment

One of the medical strategies used for this type of addiction is based on the use of opioid agonist drugs. In practice, opioid addicts are treated with an agonist drug that simulates the drug itself. The FeDerSerD Congress will also discuss this with a focus on the fact that the treatment of opiates with agonist drugs still pays, albeit to a lesser extent than in the past, the cost of the stigma and reprobation that have always accompanied these diseases and these patients. “This is a situation that leads to the marginalization of patients with difficulty in being able to access adequate treatments provided by competent personnel”, note the experts of the Federation who add: “In a constantly evolving scientific landscape, the availability of new formulations drugs for Opiate Use Disorder, gives the possibility to modify the therapeutic trajectories of some types of patients for the better, making their access to therapies possible. An effort to further improve the safety and personalization of the treatments that professionals aim for in Italy”.

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The synthetic opioid overdose epidemic

What is causing concern is what is happening in the United States where according to data provided by the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the course of 2021, the estimated deaths from overdose throughout the country were 107,622. A theme also touched upon in the documentary All the beauty and the bloodshed from Laura Poitras which won the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice Film Festival and which also includes a recent public campaign to denounce the hundreds of thousands of deaths from legal opiate overdoses in the US.

Damn fentanyl

According to the CDC, fentanyl is the real problem: the synthetic opioid, originally used as an analgesic, is in fact responsible for over 70,000 deaths from overdose, practically two thirds of the total. Much cheaper than heroin and ten times more potent, fentanyl is now found not through legal channels, but through smuggling from Mexico, India and China, and is also used to cut out other drugs. Nora Volkovdirector of the National institute on drug abuse (Nidra) which will be a guest of the FeDerSerD Congress, called the latest numbers “truly astounding”, which surged “just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic” which, evidently, acted as a accelerator of a discomfort already strongly present in American society, since “this is but the continuation of a terrible trend that has been increasing for decades”.

The appeal to politicians

While waiting for the new government to be born, an appeal comes from the Federation of Serd: “First of all, citizens must ensure that the services provided for by the old and new Lea are required throughout the national territory. The development of prevention and prevention activities is essential. early care of young users and multidisciplinary specialist interventions to counter the spread of new psychoactive drugs and drugs of potential abuse and addiction “. And then fundamental is the strengthening of the role of the Addiction Services – SerD in the field of public health and the development of services and proximity interventions in order to be able to intervene early.

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Train new young experts

During the congress, an important proposal for the reorganization and development of the training offer will also be presented: the “Rita Levi Montalcini” high school of FeDerSerD is born, named after the Nobel Prize who was honorary president of the scientific society. “Within our training plan – explains President Faillace – a specific course is dedicated to the training of professionals under 40 because we want young people to fall in love with our discipline, to increase the ability to assist young and old with problems of addiction or harmful consumption “.

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