More young people are being introduced to hard drugs, according to support workers in the capital.
Mija Alho, Helsinki and Espoo director of Vinkki, a national network of support centres for people with substance abuse problems, says the last two years have seen patterns of drug use changing among younger people.
”There is now a trend that a young person’s first drug experience will be where an older person injects them with something straight into the vein. It’s very worrying,” Alho says.
Both officials and field workers say they are encountering more and more drug users who are buying substances over the internet, in particular so-called ‘designer drugs’ whose contents can be impossible to be sure of.
According to Alho, designer drugs can have a catastrophic effect on a person’s physical and mental wellbeing.
”Sometimes clients can come in to us seeming absolutely normal one day, and completely delusional the next,” she says.
Vinkki specialises in supporting intravenous drug users, and has a low threshold for those it offers help to. The centre in Helsinki and Espoo receives between 80 and 120 visitors every day.
Drugs busts on the increase
Meanwhile police and customs officers report that the drugs market continues to thrive, with growing amounts of drugs confiscated. ”We made more seizures in 2013, with the largest increase in khat related substances. In total, Customs seized over 5,000 kilos,” Customs anti-crime chief Hannu Sinkkonen said. In addition to khat, seizures of ecstasy quadrupled since 2012.
However, researcher Jussi Perälä, who specialises in looking into the Helsinki drugs market, warns against drawing too many conclusions from the figures. He says that seizures reveal more about the activities of law enforcement than about what’s really happening on the drugs market.
”If a dry seaon comes along, users will turn to alternative substances, which could be made up of anything – designer drugs are an example. There will be new supply routes and new products. There’s little evidence that drug seizures have any long-term effect on the market, because it will quickly adapt to new situations,” Perälä said.
