Numerous Finns getting their sedatives from Tallinn

A couple of hundred Finns regularly visit five Estonian psychiatrists for prescription medication

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Collecting various mood-affecting drugs - such as stimulants, depressants, and tranquillisers - from the Estonian capital of Tallinn has become a popular reason for certain Finns to travel regularly across the Gulf of Finland.
      The authorities confirm that a group of people living in Finland visit Estonia regularly, for example to collect prescriptions for sedatives such as benzodiazepine from several Tallinn-based psychiatrists.
      The cruise lines operating between Finland and Estonia know some of these problem tourists. When such a person tries to get on a ship he or she is turned away by the shipping line staff.
      In recent years, the Finnish authorities have paid more and more attention to the manufacturing of prescriptions. As a result, fishing for medication has become increasingly difficult in this country.
     
"This is not a question of medical treatment but narcotics traffic", says Dr. Peeter Mardna, head of the Supervision Unit of the Health Care Board at the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs. In Mardna's view, the Estonian legislation is powerless to tackle the business surrounding sedatives. The authorities fear that some of the drugs end up on sale on the street in Finland.
      Mardna has archived a boxful of prescriptions for medication sold to Finnish customers from four pharmacies in downtown Tallinn during three autumn months.
      The box contains no fewer than 2,500 prescriptions. They show, for example, how the same customer has picked up the same anti-epileptic drug from three different chemists in the same day. A vast majority of the prescriptions have been written by five Tallinn-based psychiatrists. They have been prescribed to a group of 200 or so Finns.
      The medications in question are primarily various benzodiazepine derivatives, such as Alprazolam, Dormicum, Diazepam and Rivatril.
      In the same fashion, the Finnish drug travellers have previously acquired the buprenorphine product Subutex from Estonia. Subutex is a powerful medicine used in substance abuse rehabilitation, but it can also be wrongly used as dope.
     
After Estonia tightened its drugs legislation, the Finnish Subutex travellers headed for Tallinn's Wismar Psychiatric Hospital. It now has the same number of Finnish patients as the Tallinn pharmacies used to have Finnish Subutex buyers. Of late, a limit has been set to the number of new Finns admitted to the hospital.
      In Finland, especially the import of tranquillisers and Subutex together is seen as a major problem.
     
According to the Tallinn-based Finnish police liaison officer Ari Lahtela, around 7,000 Subutex tablets find their way from Tallinn to Finland each month. The Finnish police and Customs intercept some 25,000 tablets each year.
      Lahtela claims that some of the customers finance their journey to Tallinn by selling Subutex in Finland.
      According to the Wismar hospital chief surgeon and part-owner Valdur Jänes, the hospital is ready to quit treating Finns if it emerges that some of the drugs end up in street sale. Jänes is of the opinion that the substance abuse rehabilitation offered by the hospital is merely tapping into the growing health-travelling boom among the Finns, and is no different from visiting a dentist or a health spa.
      At Finland's request, Latvia recently tightened its Subutex legislation. Its legislation is now tighter than that of Estonia, and the Finns' Subutex travelling to Latvia has clearly decreased.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Prescription drugs in Estonia less of a bargain for Finns (11.8.2003)

Helsingin Sanomat