Given the increase in the number of suspected cases of shipment of chemical substances, a scourge highlighted by the Mazan rape trial, the Medicines Agency (ANSM) is working on new measures to reduce the risk of drug diversion, it said in a statement. published this Friday, December 20.
As indicated to BFMTV, the ANSM “will ask, starting in early January 2025, laboratories holding a marketing authorization (AMM) for medicines with a risk of chemical presentation to adopt measures to limit their diversion.”
The ANSM works on “long-term solutions”
These changes may be related to visual appearance, using an unusual color or texture. They could also consist of the addition of an identifiable flavor or smell, says the ANSM, which also asked its European counterparts to share good practices.
“We are also working on long-term solutions so that new drugs that are marketed immediately integrate these characteristics so that their diversion is more detectable,” adds the Agency.
The latter recalls that chemical subjugation refers to “the administration of a psychoactive substance to a person, without their knowledge or under duress, with the aim of committing a crime or a crime, such as robbery, sexual assault, rape…”
The product can be added to a drink, food or injected with a syringe. The substance is usually a medication (antihistamine, sedative, benzodiazepine, antidepressant, opioid, ketamine, etc.), but can also be another substance (MDMA, cocaine, 3-MMC, GHB and its derivatives, alcohol). According to the latest survey, psychoactive drugs represented “56.7% of the substances involved.”
A 69% increase in reporting in 2022
If the number of cases remains difficult to quantify, an annual surveillance survey of addiction to “chemical presentations” – entrusted since 2003 by the health agency to the Paris addiction center (CEIP-A) – makes it possible to identify the substances , the context and evaluate the clinical consequences on the victims.
“The data for 2022 shows a sharp increase in complaints”: 1,229 reports of shipment of suspicious chemical substances in 2022, compared to 727 in 2021 and 539 in 2020, Céline Mounier, assistant to the deputy director general responsible for the operations of the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM). Between 2021 and 2022, this represents “an increase of 69%,” says the drug agency.
Calendar coincidence: the communication from the ANSM, which wanted to warn before the end of the year holidays, comes one day after the conviction of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men for the rapes suffered by Gisèle Pelicot, who was abused with anxiolytics by her husband. “After the tragic Mazan affair, perhaps we will have more news,” said Céline Mounier.
The telephone platform of the Paris addiction monitoring center, launched in mid-October, is already receiving numerous calls from women who fear they have been drugged or from doctors who fear they have wrongly diagnosed a chemical disorder. On November 25, Michel Barnier, then Prime Minister, also announced the reimbursement by Health Insurance of detection kits “in several departments”, on an experimental basis.
Source: BFM TV
