Poland’s health minister has announced a new program to monitor the online prescription of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl in an effort to crack down on drugs reaching the underground economy.
Fentanyl is the world’s strongest painkiller—100 times as strong as morphine and 20 to 40 times as strong as heroin. Dubbed the ‘zombie drug,’ it is highly addictive and extremely dangerous if used incorrectly. Fentanyl abuse is a growing crisis in the U.S. where it kills around 70,000 people a year as well as leading to a host of social problems. In Europe the numbers are smaller with only 163 deaths reported in 2022, but medical professionals fear its use may spread.
In Poland, media reports have rung alarm bells over the drug’s rising death toll, but experts warn that its potential for growth is high as synthetic opioids like fentanyl are generally available and often prescribed to people in pain, particularly cancer patients. One area of concern is the country’s e-prescription system introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Ministry of Health has said is insufficiently controlled and may be a source of drugs for unscrupulous dealers.
Ministry of Health data show that in 2023, 1.8 million prescriptions were issued for fully-paid opioids and 5.8 million for state-refunded drugs. But the system is open to misuse by online dealers and also subject to unprofessional behavior by some medics, experts warn.
Dr Eryk Matuszkiewicz, a toxicology specialist, told oko.press the e-prescription system was “an important availability channel and a serious problem.”
He went on to explain that “no one, or hardly anyone, verifies the indications for prescribing this group of drugs.” He also said that some people in the medical profession “will do anything for money.”
Poland’s health minister agreed that online prescriptions represent a risk and has announced news measures to address it. Izabela Leszczyna told a press conference on Monday that a new monitoring system has been introduced and that she will personally receive a daily report on the online prescription of opioids.
“From today, the e-health center is monitoring prescriptions of opioid drugs and psychotropic and narcotic drugs in general, and every day I get a report as the minister of health,” she said. “We are analyzing that report.” The minister explained that if her ministry’s analysis revealed disturbing conclusions, the report would be forwarded to Police Headquarters.
She also said that when the online prescription system was introduced along with telephone consultations with doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic, insufficient legal controls were introduced and the system was not properly secured.
Leszczyna explained that with the inception of e-prescriptions, a monitoring system was introduced but that “there was no procedure, no regulation, no order of the health minister to say, for example, over what periods reporting should take place.”
“There was also essentially no cooperation with the police and responsibility… for control was effectively dispersed between various institutions and it was not entirely clear who was responsible for what,” she said.
A growing problem
While in the USA, the synthetic opioid crisis has cost the lives of over half a million people, in Poland the numbers are less alarming. Official statistics put the number of fentanyl poisoning cases in 2023 at just 48. For comparison, in the same year the police opened 37,728 cases related to narcotics, only 20 of them concerning fentanyl.
The first confirmed fentanyl death in Poland was recorded in November last year when the body of a 19-year-old woman found in Poznan was discovered to have contained the drug. Since then, cases have risen with one town in the central province of Mazovia garnering particular media attention. As many as five people are believed to have been killed by fentanyl in the small town of Żuromin about 120 km from Warsaw. The phenomenon has prompted the province governor to set up a crisis management team.
The team, staffed by representatives of public services and institutions responsible for youth welfare, met for the first time on Tuesday.
“Concerning the situation in Żuromin, after the first signals of the situation in that district, we immediately entered into cooperation with the police and 32 schools were subject to preventative measures, there was training for teachers,” the local education chief, Wioletta Krzyżanowska, told the Onet.pl website.
Together with Krzyżanowska, Province Governor Mariusz Frankowski sent letters to organizers of youth recreational activities to raise awareness of the dangers of opioids.
In Poland, media reports have rung alarm bells over the drug’s rising death toll, but experts warn that its potential for growth is high as synthetic opioids like fentanyl are generally available and often prescribed to people in pain, particularly cancer patients. One area of concern is the country’s e-prescription system introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Ministry of Health has said is insufficiently controlled and may be a source of drugs for unscrupulous dealers.
Ministry of Health data show that in 2023, 1.8 million prescriptions were issued for fully-paid opioids and 5.8 million for state-refunded drugs. But the system is open to misuse by online dealers and also subject to unprofessional behavior by some medics, experts warn.
Dr Eryk Matuszkiewicz, a toxicology specialist, told oko.press the e-prescription system was “an important availability channel and a serious problem.”
He went on to explain that “no one, or hardly anyone, verifies the indications for prescribing this group of drugs.” He also said that some people in the medical profession “will do anything for money.”
Poland’s health minister agreed that online prescriptions represent a risk and has announced news measures to address it. Izabela Leszczyna told a press conference on Monday that a new monitoring system has been introduced and that she will personally receive a daily report on the online prescription of opioids.
“From today, the e-health center is monitoring prescriptions of opioid drugs and psychotropic and narcotic drugs in general, and every day I get a report as the minister of health,” she said. “We are analyzing that report.” The minister explained that if her ministry’s analysis revealed disturbing conclusions, the report would be forwarded to Police Headquarters.
She also said that when the online prescription system was introduced along with telephone consultations with doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic, insufficient legal controls were introduced and the system was not properly secured.
Leszczyna explained that with the inception of e-prescriptions, a monitoring system was introduced but that “there was no procedure, no regulation, no order of the health minister to say, for example, over what periods reporting should take place.”
“There was also essentially no cooperation with the police and responsibility… for control was effectively dispersed between various institutions and it was not entirely clear who was responsible for what,” she said.
A growing problem
While in the USA, the synthetic opioid crisis has cost the lives of over half a million people, in Poland the numbers are less alarming. Official statistics put the number of fentanyl poisoning cases in 2023 at just 48. For comparison, in the same year the police opened 37,728 cases related to narcotics, only 20 of them concerning fentanyl.
The first confirmed fentanyl death in Poland was recorded in November last year when the body of a 19-year-old woman found in Poznan was discovered to have contained the drug. Since then, cases have risen with one town in the central province of Mazovia garnering particular media attention. As many as five people are believed to have been killed by fentanyl in the small town of Żuromin about 120 km from Warsaw. The phenomenon has prompted the province governor to set up a crisis management team.
The team, staffed by representatives of public services and institutions responsible for youth welfare, met for the first time on Tuesday.
“Concerning the situation in Żuromin, after the first signals of the situation in that district, we immediately entered into cooperation with the police and 32 schools were subject to preventative measures, there was training for teachers,” the local education chief, Wioletta Krzyżanowska, told the Onet.pl website.
Together with Krzyżanowska, Province Governor Mariusz Frankowski sent letters to organizers of youth recreational activities to raise awareness of the dangers of opioids.
Source: Dziennik Gazeta Prawna,oko.press, onet
More In Society MORE...
