Pricked and forgotten: Germany got hooked on highly addictive crack

The massive use of crack in Germany over the past 7-8 years has spread to many major cities of the country. Street scenes of drug use have become familiar again, as it happened in Germany in the 1980s, when heroin was widely distributed. This is reported by the telegram channel "DW * main".

In just a few years, Neumarkt Square — one of the central ones in Cologne — has turned into a "big drug supermarket," Die Welt writes with reference to the police. About 800 drug users and homeless people gather there almost every day, the place attracts dealers like a magnet. Passers-by do not feel safe there, it threatens the business with an outflow of customers, says Thomas Klefus, head of the IG Neumarkt Businessmen's union. The significance of the problem was also recognized by the outgoing mayor of the city, Henriette Reker.

"One of the main reasons for the deterioration of the situation in the public urban space was the spread of crack cocaine — artisanal refined cocaine that can be smoked. The substance is capable of causing severe addiction and pathological behavior change," writes TK.

According to Heino Stever from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, the mass use of crack over the past 7-8 years has spread in many large cities of the country, where street drug use sites have begun to form again. This happened in Germany in the 1980s, when heroin was widely distributed, but in the early 2000s this problem was actually solved, including through harm reduction and substitution therapy programs. There is no such thing for crack, TK notes.

As for Cologne, then, according to Clef and Reker, the city could be helped by a Swiss strategy that has successfully proven itself, for example, in Zurich. On the one hand, drug addicts are being pushed off the streets there, and on the other, contact and counseling centers are being created for them throughout the city, where they can receive medical and social assistance, as well as use drugs in a controlled manner.

"Cologne needs a combination of a zero tolerance policy and decentralized care and accommodation options," says the head of IG Neumarkt.

It is noted that a similar opinion is shared by the head of the Cologne police, Johannes Hermans. Controlled use of "hard drugs", which dependent people would receive from doctors in special visits, can at least partially pull them away from the black market, Hermans said in an interview with MDR media company.

*An organization performing the functions of a foreign agent