Statistics prove that promotion and excessive use of these medicines have drastically increased. This plague is threatening society in Tamanrasset and this calls for the alarm bell to ring and action to be taken.

Doctors and specialists are unanimous: Diazepam, Rivotril and Tramadol are among the most consumed drugs for their hallucinogenic virtues among young drug addicts in the region. These are medical products, which are prescribed to patients with severe mental or neurologic diseases. When healthy people take these drugs, this is akin to an act of addiction.

In theory, anyone cannot access easily these medicines. First of all, they are sold only in a limited number of pharmacies in the wilaya - province. Second, one needs a medical prescription to buy these. However, many youth in the wilaya are using these drugs unabated; thanks to traffickers who import them from sub-Saharan countries.

According to figures in 2014, security services in Tamanrasset dealt with 16 dossiers linked to the trafficking of this type of medicines. Result: 77 211 hallucinogenic pills were seized, 92 793 pills presenting a danger to health. As to the national Gendarmerie, they seized 76 .912 hallucinogenic pills. Perhaps, one could note that medicine usage is replacing other ‘traditional’ drug abuse.

Affordable price

Hakim, 38, from Tamanrasset, goes to the rehabilitation centre France Fanon in Blida. He reveals that «his own story with these pills start back when he was 19. Then, I was preparing baccalaureate (end of secondary school exam) at a time when hardly anyone could succeed and pass» he said. «It was a male nurse who gave them to us. He stole them from the hospital stock to sell them to us. At the age of 23, he goes on, I did my national service. In order to resist conditions, I started to take Rivotril in drinkable form to the rhythm of 15 drops twice a day; and I also took the same medicine in pills ».

Hakim underlines that these medicines were cheap and as such, have offered an alternative to the youth keen to be addicted to drugs but without the money. He goes on : «I’ve chosen these drugs because I could have the Red, the Yellow and the Blue, ie respectively Rivotril, Diazepam and Tramadol, with 200 to 350 dirhams, and the all blister pack at 1 500 dirhams». He usually swallows them with coffee, wine or tea.

Hakim points out that the Red –Rivotril – is the most dangerous of all these pills. Specifically when it is dissolved in wine. According to him «most Algerian youngsters who are committing crime while drunks are in fact under the effect of this molecule as they swallow it soon before these acts».

The young man regrets his sorry state, as much as for his fellow drug addicts. This drug addiction turns the youngsters into as many puppets in the hands of pills traffickers. Dealers exploit them to illegal means: «This is what I understood when I was indicted, arrested during nine days and condemned to a suspended sentence of two months’ imprisonment».

Unknown molecules

Dr Ouqba Kounta Sidi Mohamed, neuro-scientist, notes that «the use of hallucinogenic drugs has increased sharply for a while among the youth of Tamanrasset». He calls for «immediate action to end this worrying phenomenon which is damaging both mental and physical health of human beings and isolate them from social contacts ».

Dr Sidi Mohamed notes that «most crimes which are committed by youth are in fact being incited by the abuse of these hallucinogenic pills; all the more when these pills are produced in Asian and African countries, de facto, with unknown ingredients ». The doctor insists on «the necessity to create and equip as quickly as possible a rehabilitation anti-addiction centre to counteract the spread of the phenomenon ».

Psychotherapist at the national hospital society, Touhami Salem, says his office welcomes many users of these medicines; and that the trend has increased recently.

The plague knows a worrying growth among the youth of the region. This constitutes a danger for society. Society is still too ignorant on the issue. Decision making spheres ought to provide answers and alternatives. Because the plague targets the back bone of the nation: its youth.