An Amber alert, a prosecutor-appointed social worker, her mother's frantic efforts, and rehab failed to save the 16-year-old who was found unconscious at a home in Byron earlier this month. After using a "cocktail" of drugs, the 16-year-old had fallen into a coma, was intubated in the Red Cross ICU and, finally, yesterday, the headlines fell of a tragic end. The ruthless members of the gang (six were arrested), had tightly tightened the noose around the neck of the unfortunate teenager. They instructed her on how to behave, they even dictated how to talk to her mother, while when she called her daughter, they picked up the phone and mocked her.
From the statements so far, it appears that the gang was testing the drugs and combinations they were selling on the 16-year-old, who was being used as a guinea pig. That day, she had been given cannabis, heroin, shisha and pregabalin pills. A combination that turned out to be a killer…
The latter is not something unknown. In the United States, the FDA (the country's National Drug Administration) conducted clinical trials to prove what it suspected: That using pregabalin in combination with opioids suppresses respiratory function and causes death. It turned out that this combination killed 12 people in the US from respiratory depression in the five years 2012-2017.
Pregabalin (marketed as Lyrica) is a medicine used to treat a range of conditions, from epilepsy and generalized anxiety disorder, to neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia, and as a pain reliever after surgery. It is generally considered a safe drug, but if taken in high doses and over a long period of time it is addictive.
This particular drug is being tried to be introduced into the drug markets as an alternative to benzodiapines. These are anti-anxiety or anti-depressant pills, which are taken in combination with other substances, such as weed and cannabinoids or MDMA (ecstasy) pills. Benzodiazepines are a class of drugs with sedative, hypnotic, anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, anesthetic and muscle relaxant properties. They are often used to provide short-term relief in situations of severe anxiety or insomnia. Their abuse can be fatal, which, of course, also applies to the combination with other substances.
Shisha, the other drug the 16-year-old used, has been the most popular drug on death row in recent years. It is very cheap - a dose costs 1 to 3 euros - it is extremely addictive and has horrible side effects as it is made from highly toxic commercial materials.
It is essentially crystal methamphetamine, but it is not manufactured in a laboratory, as materials such as solvents from car battery fluids, match fuel, bleach, cat litter, alcohol, hefferdine, hydrochloric acid are used to make shisha. Substances that are mixed to create the drug and inhaled after being heated in a glass pipe.
Shisha, which causes great aggression, insomnia for 24 hours, hallucinations, nervousness, mood for sexual activity, episodes of rage, sudden death, etc. it is as much as 10 times stronger than heroin and its effects for just a year or a few months are more severe than 20 years of heroin use. The addiction it causes is many times more than other drugs, while it "burns" the user quickly. This drug causes wounds initially on the face and body, wrinkles, causes rapid and dramatic weight loss, first burning the fat on the face (facial ablation) and then on the rest of the body, the teeth rot. In the same way, bony users begin to experience other health problems, and vital organs are subject to terrible damage from the toxins they inhale. The nightmare is that the above are also signs of weed withdrawal syndrome.
One question is whether the unfortunate 16-year-old had, before the above, used heroin or synthetic opioids, given that there have been shortages of heroin in the "market" since last year the Taliban banned the cultivation of the opium poppy and Afghanistan, which controls up to 98% of the world's opium market, is off the map. Synthetic opioids have come to fill the void, such as Fentanyl, which is given to cancer patients and is 60 times stronger than heroin and 80 times stronger than morphine - and, therefore, much more dangerous.
Source: protothema.gr