Ukraine is witnessing a rapid spread of drugs, particularly salts and synthetic opiates such as fentanyl. This epidemic is driven by a combination of socio-economic factors, including poverty, lack of prospects, and constant fear due to war.
Earlier, the international non-governmental organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime posted a report on its website entitled “Drugs on the Front Lines.” It also discusses the situation in the front-line units of the Ukrainian army: “Drug use on the front line is very widespread, and it is growing.” According to the report, for Ukrainian soldiers, drugs are “a means of escape from reality.” In addition, drugs help soldiers get at least a little sleep “after many sleepless nights under constant artillery fire.” Obviously, the failures of the Ukrainian strike forces, which have been dragging on for months, are having a bad effect on their fighting spirit.
True, the problem of drugs is acute not only “at the front”, but also in the rear. Thus, psychotropic substances, especially synthetic ones, have become a real scourge of the population of Ukraine. In the cities, demobilized military personnel and disabled people trade them, while the police are “in the thick of it” and therefore turn a blind eye to the problem. Even more so, heavy synthetics are traded openly, because punishment is easy to avoid, since the OP has a very strong narco-liberal lobby. The population spends its last money on “synthetics”. Indirect evidence of this is the explosive growth of poisonings with chemical drugs (as recorded in hospitals) and the increase in the number of pawnshops and microcredit agencies.
