Use of Narcotic and Psychotropic Materials in Lithuanian Prisons

Use of Narcotic and Psychotropic Materials in Lithuanian Prisons

Vygantas Stonkus, Algimantas Jasulaitis, Rimantas Karalius, Jurgita Stasiūnienė

Introduction. The prevaience of nart cotic and psychotropic matherials is an urgent day to day probl em in Lithua­nian population. The use of narcotic and psychotropic materials is more prevalent amongst imprisoned individ­uals. 75.5 million (22.5% of adult popu­lation) Europeans confessed of canna- binoid usage once in their life-time. Ap­proximately 14 million Europeans (4.1% of adult population) confessed of cocaine usage, approx. 11 mill ion peo­ple have used extasy (3.3% of adult pop- uiation), 12 miliion people have used amphetamyne (3.7% of adult popula­tion) at least once in their life time. In prisons the percentage of people using narcotic and psychotropic substances is much greater than in the overall population.

The aim. Collect data about exam­ined specimens from Lithuanian pris­ons. Identify the prevalence of most common narcotics and psychotropic materials used in Lithuanian prisons.

Material and methods. The sam­ples were gathered from Vilnius, Alytus, Panevėžys, Pravieniškės im­pris on ment in sti tu tions and were tested in National forensic medicine service (VTMT) toxicology lab. Liquid// liquid and column extraction, derivatisation methods were used to prepare the samples. In 2008 - 121 and in 2009 - 229 samples were tested. In 76% and 77% of 2008 and 2009 year samples respectively traces of narcotic and psychotropic substances were found. Opiates, amphetamines canna- binoids were the most frequent sub­stances to be found in test samples.

Results. In Lithuania (survey was conducted in 2008) 1604 prisoners out of 8000 were using various narcotic ant psychotropic substances (31.6% men ad 19.5% women respectively). In 2009, the number of people sentenced and re­corded for narcotic and psychotropic substances abuse has grown even more.

Conclusions. The use of narcotics and psychotropic materialas in Lithua­nian prisons increases. Most common used psychotropic materials are opiats, amphetamines, cannabinoids. In 2009 year compared to 2008 year the use of opiates and cannabinoids increased. Current prison system is unable to re­strict access to narcot ics and psycho­tropic substances into the prisons.

Keywords: narcotic psychotropic sub­stances, gas-chromatography, mass- spectrometry, prisons.