Prescription drugs from Tallinn a familiar sight at Helsinki drug rehabilitation clinics

Many patients get pills from both cities

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The out-patient clinic for substance abuse psychiatry at the Helsinki University Central Hospital is visited regularly by patients who have acquired tranquillisers and prescriptions for the drug withdrawal medicine buprenorphine from doctors in the Estonian capital Tallinn, or at the Wismar Psychiatric Hospital in Tallinn.
     "Patients are thus in double treatment. The fact that they bring pills from Tallinn to finance their drug use is also apparent", says head physician Sami Pirkola.
      Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Wednesday about Finns who travel to Estonia to buy prescription drugs.
     Buprenorphine, sold under the brand name Subutex, is used in helping heroin addicts give up their habit. It is also the most popular opioid drug on the illicit market in Finland. Many Finnish addicts acquire prescriptions in Estonia, but Pirkola says that it is fairly easy to get drug substitution treatment in Finland, if certain criteria are met.
     The patient first needs a referral for an assessment of the need for treatment. These assessments are concentrated at the Helsinki University Central Hospital. It usually takes a month to get an appointment for an assessment, and treatment can start in three to six months.
     To be eligible for drug substitution therapy, a patient must first have tried another type of treatment.
     
Finnish officials are unable to influence drug treatment that takes place in Tallinn, or to monitor the situations of Finns being treated there.
     It has been suggested that Estonia might enact Finnish system of of pharmacy agreements. Under the arrangement, users of certain types of prescription drugs are required to have their prescriptions filled at a certain specific pharmacy. This allows for more scrutiny of the use of the drugs. Pirkola says that the system works well in Finland.
     The National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs (TEO) says that such pharmacy agreements are used mainly in large cities in Finland.
     
An estimated 800 people in Finland are in drug substitution treatment.
      Mika Paasolainen of the Drug Addiction Clinic for Acute Care run by the Deaconess institute also believes that most Finns who abuse Subutex and tranquillisers get their drugs from Tallinn.
     Patients often have large piles of prescriptions, and Paasolainen says that abusers of Subutex also use "massive amounts" of tranquillisers.
      Tarja Holl, deputy director at TEO, says that the authority takes a hard line against doctors who hand out prescriptions too easily.
     
Pharmaceutical tourism as well as Internet sales of medicines, are growing phenomena. Tallinn is the main travel destination, while Thailand, Russia, India, and China are key sources of medicine.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Numerous Finns getting their sedatives from Tallinn (21.2.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat