The tramadol crisis in Africa has spiraled so out of the control, it is afflicting schoolchildren and fueling terrorism, authorities say.
The man-made opioid tramadol was touted as able to relieve pain with little risk of abuse. Unlike other opioids, it was unburdened by international controls. But now countries are asking international authorities to intervene.
“This is a huge public health dilemma,” said Dr. Gilles Forte, the secretary of the World Health Organization’s committee that recommends how drugs should be regulated. Tramadol is available in war zones and impoverished nations because it is unregulated. But it is widely abused for the same exact reason. “It’s a really very complicated balance to strike.”, and the crisis isn’t killing with the ferocity of America’s struggle with the drugs. Still, individual governments from the U.S.
Police began finding pills on terrorists, who traffic it to fund their networks and take it to bolster their capacity for violence, Bawa said. Jorgensen compares claims that tramadol is low risk to those made by American companies now facing thousands of lawsuits alleging misleading campaigns touting the safety of opioids unleashed the U.S. addiction epidemic.
Grunenthal synthesized tramadol in the 1960s, as the company was embroiled in scandal over its marketing of the sedative thalidomide, which caused extreme birth defects in thousands of babies whose mothers took it. Tramadol was initially believed to have a low risk of abuse because initial trials studied injected tramadol, the most potent route for most opioids. But researchers later found that tramadol releases a far more powerful dose taken orally because of how it is metabolized by the liver.
Legitimate tramadol remains a lucrative business: market research estimates the global market amounts to around $1.4 billion, according to Grunenthal. The medication long ago lost its patent protection. It is now manufactured by many companies and sold under some 500 brand names. Grunenthal markets it as Tramal as well as Zaldiar, tramadol combined with paracetamol. In 2018, those products brought in 174 million euros , according to the company’s annual report.
Spokesman Stepan Kracala said regulation would not necessarily curtail illicit trade and could backfire: Some desperate pain patients turn to the black market if no legal options exist. Egypt’s long struggle with tramadol abuse is an example, he said. The country enacted strict regulation in 2012 and a later survey found some suffering from cancer using counterfeit tramadol for relief.
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