SISA – Greek fashion drug between myth and taboo

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As a Greek Chrystal Meth, the drug Sisa has gained international prominence. For the consumer it doesn’t matter. They are the victims of a taboo society.

On Aristotle street in Thessaloniki, the Statue of the former Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios is Venizelos. He is considered the founder of the new Greece: Christian, free, and modern representative of the ancient ancestors.

Here, in the shadow of his Statue, but is little felt, from the Hellenistic national pride. It is the gathering place of the “Petameni”, the “Discarded” as it is called; impoverished alcoholics and drug addicts, often of no fixed abode.

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Chrystal Meth is a drug for a severely destructive. Adulterated is the case on the death.

Insider knowledge: this is one of the Main hubs for a substance, which is under the name of “Sisa” and is known as the Greek Chrystal Meth, in the meantime, international awareness has gained is located.

Not a Greek invention

Only a stone’s throw away is the practice of the psychiatrist Kleanthis Grivas is located. He is considered an expert in Addiction and drugs, both of which are things that are a taboo in Greece like.

Currently Thessaloniki is considered to be conservative and secretive when it comes to sensitive issues. That’s why most of the claim that you can have with the infamous Sisa no problems. So the widespread opinion, was an Athenian affair.

About Grivas can only laugh. Could ever be for him, Dealing with the phenomenon of Sisa in his country much worse.

The finge is already in the name: The word Sisa comes from the Arabic. There, as well as in many Southeast European languages, it means “bottle” or “water pipe”.

“This is a label I don’t like. This only leads to confusion. Better man tells it like it is: straight methamphetamine.” Which makes it probably the most. Is stretched with everything you can imagine, chlorine, alcohol, battery acid. This pushes the price: Only two to three euros, costs a dose on the streets of Thessaloniki.

Also, that Sisa was a Greek invention, holds Grivas for a media-made myth: “The question is, where the actual active ingredient is produced, so the methamphetamine.” And that’s coming from abroad. In Greece, it would be stretched in a garage laboratory simply.

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Poverty and hopelessness are preparing the market for cheap and dirty drug.

At the end of the head

The consumer is likely to be no matter. Even the fatal physical side effects don’t seem to care. The drug works quickly, but also quick to effect.

So the addicts are continually on the search, at the Venizelos monument, or in the dark alleys around the station, in the district of Vardaris. Vardaris is a place that has little to do with national proud and self-image of the Greeks. Instead there Prostitution by transsexual, drug, social poverty.

Addicts are part of the usual image and is unlikely to fall. In the case of hard Sisa-consumer is different. The side effects of extended Methamphetamine the consumer in the shortest amount of time aging.

That’s why you stand out from the usual heroin addicts or alcoholics: Sunken facial features, damaged dentures, skeletal body.

“Sisa is addict the last step in the career of a drug,” says Damianos Douitsis. He was for many years alcohol – and substance-dependent and is now the private addiction help OASIS in the centre of Thessaloniki. Here Concerned are in the care of former addicts psychologically.

Sisa-consumers, but hardly to him and his institution. Most would have given up the fight against Addiction for a long time: “people come up with Sisa in contact, are no newcomers to the world of substances”, explains Douitsis. Their history includes marijuana, pills and alcohol.

Many of the Sisa User have a heroin career behind and could no longer afford the fuel. “These are people who take everything that gives you a Kick. You can buy what is offered to you on the street.”

More: Deadly Desire: The drug “Crystal Meth”

Offers of help for drug addicts, as this supply bus in Athens, only a few Affected.

State aid is insufficient

Douitsis know from my own experience, the Situation of addicts in his country: “When I was dependent, I have been looking for sometime to help. I was at the psychiatrists and in the facilities that existed at the time. But I have not found a solution.” You have not only looked at the physical sides of Addiction, but the psychological.

Despite the many therapeutic options that have been developed since then, have been done by the Greek state hardly anything. This hold the monopoly on addiction treatment and private initiatives, such as OASIS and leave very few opportunities for new forms of therapy to influence the System.

If politicians were interested, then this is dates, especially in the context of election campaign events and Photo. Problems and taboos to break? Fail display.

Kleanthis Grivas can only agree: “Really good help, you will not find here. In contrast to Germany, in Greece there are no institutions or foundations that deal with this topic.”

Add to this the bureaucratic mentality, not only in healthcare, but everywhere in the country. “If you ask here in the appropriate Places for help, you will not get them most of the time, even if it’s there. The mood is missing the public employees simply.” And in the health system, people who come with addiction problems would be treated as second-class people.

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Addicted to painkillers

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Addicted to painkillers

A lack of prospects after the economiccrisis

In Greece, the post – crisis Era after the debt crisis, the overall drug Trend, especially in gepantschter Form. The economic crisis has left the country in a disastrous state. The lack of prospects makes young people more and more often in the addiction spiral slide.

Although youth unemployment fell. However, the salaries are meager. It is often enough for a full-time, not even for her own apartment. The existence of fear, of uncertainty, given the presence has given way to the silent agreement that this is what the future will bring nothing Good.

Damianos Douitsis will understand. Although he knows, as a former addict that it is, in effect, to take responsibility for themselves, to overcome the disease.

However, he wishes for a more open approach to the issue, straight from the pages of the state: “The decision-makers need to be clear about where the real Problem lies. If you hear as an addict only monitory words, or is ridiculed, then it is not a solution. And if you say addicts, who know no measure,, stop with the drugs and drinking moderately prefer alcohol, then it shows that you have not understood, what it really is.”

It is for Douitsis: as Long as the actual problems would be a taboo, there is always a place for substances such as Sisa.

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