They are sold without a prescription in pharmacies, are useful in relieving pain, but can lead to death when these codeine-based drugs are misused or diverted from their main purpose.
This is what happened to Pauline, tell today The Parisian. This 16-year-old girl is the latest victim of this fashion for purple drank. The mixture of cough syrup, antiallergics and Sprite gives a cocktail with devastating effects. A slowing of the heart rate then a coma which can prove to be fatal.
Five cases of serious poisoning including two deaths have been reported since the beginning of the year to the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), underlines the daily.
This report, which worries the authorities, is far from calming the ardor of an increasingly young population and in search of new sensations. Other more dangerous psychoactive substances based on codeine tablets are arriving on this “recreational” market. If it is snorted or injected, the effects are multiplied, confides to the journalist Florence Vorspan, addictologist at the Fernand-Widal hospital, in Paris (AP-HP). With, as a result, a dependency that sets in.
For the moment, health actors are disarmed. “Professionals have the right to refuse if they have any doubts,” recalls Alain Delgutte, member of the National Order of Pharmacists. And the authorities do not hide their embarrassment. “We have to find a balance between, on the one hand, restricting their access to young people, summarizes Nathalie Richard, member of the ANSM and, on the other, not depriving ourselves of effective treatments against pain”.
