SY03-1-4 * ISAM FELLOWSHIP 5 YEARS OF LEGAL HIGHS IN ROMANIA - CONSEQUENCES AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Since 2009 "legal highs", mainly amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) have produced major changes in the epidemiology and morbidity of intravenous drugs in Romania. Unfortunately the authorities were not able to finance adequate measures for the challenge. METHOD: We have gathered all the evidence from different sources, official data, NGO's working in the field, published materials and also grey literature, in order to put up a real frame of the problem and try to convince in the last moment the authorities to finance the most efficient interventions. RESULTS: In the last 5 years we had a stable population of problematic drug users (PDU) of 20,000, but we have seen a shift from 96% opiate users to 49% ATS users. Due to an increase in the number of daily injecting to approximately 6/day and a cut in needle exchange programs (NEP) we have seen a 10 time increase in the number of HIV new cases and a doubling of the mortality among IDU's. DISCUSSIONS: After 3 joint EMCDDA, ECDC and local specialists meetings the necessity of a major increase in the NEP funding in order to reach 200 syringes/year/estimated POU and at least a doubling the numbers of OST places are urgently needed.