Pill Fails to Cure Occupation

GAZA CITY, Oct 21 2012 (IPS) - It’s being taken as an antidote to the stresses of Occupation. But the prevalence of the painkiller Tramadol in the Gaza Strip has more to do with its ease of availability than its singular effectiveness as a reality-numbing substance.

Under siege since early 2006, means of relaxation are scarce, and even some of the most resilient and educated people in the Strip have sought in Tramadol a break from the dire realities of trauma, manufactured poverty and continual stress.

A synthetic drug often prescribed for pain-related ailments, the innocuous pill comes in a second, more potent and potentially lethal variety: the illegal black market kind.

“Every week, we get three or four overdose cases, most of them young men,” says Abu Yousef, 34, a paramedic for over ten years. “Patients are sweaty, delirious, are vomiting, have abdominal pain, and may be hallucinating…it’s morphine after all, it has many side effects.”

Although never addicted, he himself took prescription Tramadol after his release from years in Israeli prisons. “I was taking tramadol for abdominal pain after I was released. But I stopped taking it, I take an analgic now,” he says.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/10/pill-fails-to-cure-occupation/

Mods: Didn't really see this as an IP thread (more a psychology/medicine/coping) thread. If you all reach consensus to lock (or have me move it) I won't mention any names in a meta thread about it LOL