Fiks Fare show on Top Channel tonight brought a serious issue such as the sale of the sedative Xanax in Albanian pharmacies without a prescription.
Xanax is the market name for alprazolam, a type of drug in the group known as benzodiazepines or ‘benzos’, commonly prescribed by doctors to treat anxiety syndrome.
The investigative show showed the messages it received from parents worried that their children were buying Xanax at the pharmacy with only a piece of paper imitating a doctor’s perscription with the name of the drug written on it. The show brought with sound and image the purchases in some pharmacies of the capital Tirana, of Xanax 0.5 mg only with a piece of paper that was shown in the pharmacy as a photo on the buyer’s phone.
In conversations with pharmacists, it was clear that it was a piece of paper with neither a doctor’s signature nor stamp, nevertheless the medication was requested by teenagers and was given without no much problem.
Pharmacists often discussed with the buyer about the medicine they asked for, saying that are not allowed to give it without a prescription, but in the end they sold it.
But what do the specialists say about the misuse of this medication?
Andrin Tahiri, Head of the Toxicological Service at QSUT hospital, says that the paper with which the medicine was taken is obviously not a prescription, and thus no pharmacy should give it away.
He adds that this medication creates addiction, especially in teenagers who have a history of abuse with narcotics.
“Many cases are presented to our toxicology ward, who have wanted to harm themselves with an overdose of Xanax, but there have also been many cases where teenagers have already become addicted by taking it indiscriminately, as a medication that helps them to detach from narcotic substances.
“Benzodiazepans are supposed to be taken for a short period. The problem starts when you have to take larger and larger doses to achieve the same effect,” says Dr Tony O’Neill, lecturer in clinical psychiatry at Queen’s University in Belfast.
After a longer period of Xanax use, the potential syndromes are insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks and confusion. Stopping immediately can also cause seizures. One of the biggest dangers of self-medicating with Xanax is that the studies done so far on the risks, are based on doses prescribed by a doctor, and not on cases where the substance is taken without a prescription. But even though the dangerousness of this medication is known, it is simply given in Albanian pharmacies, regardless of age.
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