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Why are Polish so obsessed with Russia [46]
Since someone brought up Krokodil:
articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-03-30/news/8601230379_1_addicts-drug-treatment-clinic-drug-abuse
"But today, the problem is especially worrisome in a country where one-third of the nearly 40 million population is aged 16 to 35 and there are numerous reports of children as young as 9 or 10 who get high by sniffing glue.
Using a chemical process that takes less than an hour and can be done on a kitchen stove, the straw is boiled down into a thin but powerful injectable substance called kompot--a slang reference to stewed fruit, a popular Polish dessert--that is 30 to 70 percent pure heroin.
Ten grams of it, enough to satisfy the daily demands of a hard-core addict, costs about $3.50.
A less potent morphine version, known as soup, is even cheaper. It requires no chemical additives and is drunk in large quantities. Authorities say it`s a favorite of high-schoolers.
In general, though, young people experimenting with drugs go straight to the hard stuff.
``The tragedy of Poland`s drug problem,`` Kotanski said, ``is that unlike in the West, people here mostly begin with heroin because it`s so easily available.``"
And a newer article:
aliciapatterson.org/stories/crisis-polish-drug-abuse
"The reputation of Polish heroin has spread beyond the country's frontiers: in the West, the heroin-making process developed by the medical student is popularly known as the "Polish method," and drug users and dealers who flock to Warsaw for bargains have dubbed the East European capital "little Nepal." "You can buy a gram for a dollar here, and you're fixed for days," says Michal, 22, a Warsaw drug-user who has twice tried to kick the habit, but has come back to it both times because, as he puts it, "There's no point to life, but at least when you're taking, you don't worry about that."
It was never supposed to happen in a Communist country, but drug abuse has come to Poland with a vengeance. Not just a minor problem of a fringe group, it has spread to near-crisis proportions among Poles of the younger generations. Estimates of the numbers of young Poles experimenting with drugs range from 200,000 officially to 600,000 unofficially in a total population of 37 million. Hardcore addicts are said to number about 120,000, and the number of drug-related deaths has reached as high as 100 a year. By contrast, the U.S. has about 500,000 heroin addicts and 5.8 million cocaine users, according to The National Institutes on Drug Abuse.
In almost all cases, kompot, or Polish brown sugar, is the drug of choice. Reputed to be three to four times more potent than heroin available in the West, it is easily made on a kitchen stove from the straw and husks of wild poppies, which have traditionally grown abundant and free in Poland's vast fields. While some drug abuse, mainly of pharmaceuticals, LSD and marijuana, existed in Poland as far back as the '60s, the development of kompot by a medical student in Gdansk in 1975, and its cheapness and availability, opened up a tragic vista to a whole generation of bored, frustrated and depressed young people.
Nowadays, drug-taking is so common an act in the major cities that society turns as blind an eye to it as it has for years to the alcoholism that plagues older generations. On Nowy Swiat (New World) Street in downtown Warsaw, dealers openly offer their goods to eager buyers right under the noses of indifferent passersby. Not far away, young boys shoot up in broad daylight in the hedges that encircle the city's monumental Palace of Culture. One day last summer, a speeding ambulance pulled up on the sidewalk beside one such hedge, and workers jumped out to drag out the body of an overdose victim as a crowd gathered to watch."
