It is well known to epilepsy patients but also unaccompanied unaccompanied minors (unaccompanied minors).
If for the former, Lyrica, white and red capsules, available only on prescription, treats intense neuropathic pain and generalized anxiety disorder, for the latter it is a drug with devastating effects.
A week ago, this drug, also known as Pregabalin, was classified "assimilated narcotics due to the risk of drug dependence, abuse and misuse".
"We realized that there was traffic concerning this product," notes Pierre Béguerie, president of the order of pharmacists.
The ANSM (National Medicines Safety Agency) also lists, in a press release on its website, "234 reports of cases of abuse, dependence and misuse in 2019, against 106 in 2018 and 18 reports in 2016 ”.
From May 24, therefore, to obtain these capsules or cachets, it will be necessary to present a secure prescription whose prescription is limited to six months, as is already the case for Rivotril.
A substance "prized in the Maghreb countries where other drugs are too expensive", according to David Mété, addictologist who studied the subject.
“It is not surprising that this consumption is found among unaccompanied minors from North Africa.
It creates havoc.
"
"He'll get some for you, wait five minutes"
Despite this dangerousness, it is quite easy to get these drugs on the street.
To verify this, we looked to buy some.
Direction the 10th and 18th arrondissements of Paris, where almost everything is, sold on the sly.
First of all, there is the facade, packets of cigarettes or tobacco handed to passers-by, metro tickets or even wireless headphones.
Then there is the back room and what is sold more discreetly, transactions hidden from view.
This is the case for drugs.
One thus finds Subutex or methadone, which substitute an addiction to heroin.
But also antidepressants like Xanax, painkillers like Tramadol.
And, those powerful antiepileptics that are Rivotril and Lyrica… or when the street becomes an open-air pharmacy.
Pregabalin, generic drug of Lyrica, sold in the street, which we bought near La Chapelle (Paris XVIIIe) in thirty minutes.
LP / NG
The pads are not visible in the hands of the sellers.
But on the ground, empty aluminum packaging that contained capsules or tablets litter the sidewalks of Boulevard Barbès.
It is on the way back down to the Gare du Nord that we come across cigarette sellers.
At the first, we ask if he has any medication.
" No !
He says.
Same answer from the second.
The third, knowing smile, gauge.
He indicates a place: "You have to go to the square, where there are the Arabs (sic)."
They are Afghans, recently arrived in the capital.
Every day, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., they offer passers-by cigarettes at five euros a packet.
We had already left when the first signaled us to retrace our steps.
The third speaks: “If you give him 20 euros, he will get some for you, wait five minutes.
»Deal!
It will actually take him a quarter of an hour.
The surrender is stealthy.
A handshake, then the emissary shows us that we must not linger.
In a small blue aluminum packaging, like those which cover the chocolates, two capsules on which is indicated "Pregabalin 300 mg".
The financial margin is enormous since according to the medical book Vidal, the box of 56 capsules of 300 mg, reimbursed by social security, costs 23.51 euros on prescription in pharmacies.
In the street, the price of this drug is not yet well known, but it takes between five and ten euros for similar products.
"I sleep outside, it helps me get to sleep"
For consumers, "mostly young men including minors in a precarious situation, and sometimes in detention or administrative detention centers", describes the ANSM, the Lyrica, is a way to face a harsh reality, in a state " high, euphoria and / or hypnosis ”.
Newsletter Essentials of 75
A tour of the news in Paris and in the IDF
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
At the beginning of January, during a hearing in the Paris court, Abdérahïm, who claims to be a minor, tried in immediate appearance for a violent assault, briefly explains his consumption of Lyrica: "I sleep outside, it helps me find the sleep.
He is not the only one to have succumbed to these drugs.
Most unaccompanied minors are dependent on it.
One evening in September, we had met a few, mostly from Morocco but also from Algeria and Tunisia.
Often looking vague, everyone said they were "very tired".
One of the causes according to an educator on site: “Their heavy consumption of narcotics.
"
Real doctors or fake prescriptions
This drug trafficking is very well organized.
“First there are the collectors, unaccompanied minors, foreigners paid by the day, in product or even in exchange for protection - there is human trafficking in some cases -, according to what has been observed. Yannette Bois, deputy commissioner at the Central Office for the fight against environmental and public health attacks (Oclaesp).
They multiply the visits to the doctors to obtain real prescriptions, then scour the pharmacies where they are sent and collect the boxes of Rivotril, Lyrica… ”
Or, these collectors, to whom we provide a “war cell phone”, these prepaid card telephones dedicated to these “missions”, are provided with “false prescriptions, bought in the street in 18th century Paris for example, on the Internet or else. arising from thefts from a hospital or a doctor '.
“It is the most widely used system today,” notes Yannette Bois.
The ANSM confirms: "429 falsified prescription declarations were collected in 2019 against 226 in 2018 and 26 in 2016".
This molecule, for which there is no counterfeit, thus becomes the first substance subject to falsified prescriptions in France.
International traffic
It must be said that this is an illegal trade of international scope.
"The collectors forward the products to a wholesaler who will ultimately export them by mules or by container where Pregabalin is widely consumed, in northern and eastern Europe and in the Maghreb," describes Yannette Bois.
Fighting more effectively against this drug trafficking, the initial investment of which does not represent any cost, unlike drug trafficking, is not easy.
Especially since the criminal risk is moderate, "from three to five years in prison" against ten and a fine of 7.5 million euros for stup.
The order of pharmacists is campaigning for the establishment of "a secure electronic prescription planned for 2024" and recalls that "pharmacists who do not comply with good dispensing practices may be subject to a disciplinary sentence".
Sometimes, traffickers use themselves directly in pharmacies by committing burglaries.
Thus, between 2019 and 2020, in Paris and in the inner suburbs, break-ins increased by 205% over the first six months of these two years.
If in some cases, these acts are actually committed by unaccompanied minors as in the 7th arrondissement of the capital, in most cases, thieves mostly get their hands on the fund.
A year ago, burglars arrested in the act in a 16th century pharmacy were planning to leave with razors, a few rolls of coins… and a box of Doliprane.
