They call it ‘purple drank’ or ‘lean’. It is a concoction, never better said, that, due to its mixture, is extremely dangerous: it combines the active ingredient of codeine in the form of syrup with soft drinks. It is a modality that had been seen in some cases and parts of Spain, but now, reliable police sources report, it is found in leisure spaces and even in bottles in Madrid. Like any phenomenon of this type, it was only a matter of time before it appeared in the capital and surrounding areas.
What those who consume it do is acquire, usually illegally, coughin, a compound that is dispensed with a prescription in pharmacies and that is ingested (in its medical use) to combat cough. Then, it is poured into soft drinks such as Coca-Cola or Sprite, and the cocktail is ready. “Young people use it especially to get high as soon as possible,” says one researcher. This is what is really new now in festive settings, both at nighttime gatherings and in discos. And yes, in people who gather to drink in the streets.
Despite requiring a prescription, it is not difficult for the pharmacist in some pharmacies to turn a blind eye and sell it without a prescription, as coughin apparently does not pose the danger of other compounds that also have parallel illegal uses, such as anabolic steroids. “This is getting high for the sake of getting high, and there are more and more cases, it is a trend, and it cannot be ruled out that there are minors who are taking it,” the informants add. It is something comparable, to a certain extent, with the fashion that occurred in areas of young and foreign tourist influx such as Ibiza or Magaluf with helium shots in balloons, which are sold on the streets.
The National Police has already begun to arrest young people who show up at pharmacies with falsified prescriptions for tosein or syrups with the Paracodina trademark. Normally, they use prescriptions signed by private healthcare doctors. In another case, in Molina de Segura (Murcia), the Local Police arrested a 25-year-old young man who was carrying 44 false medical prescriptions and 26 bottles of a syrup used to manufacture drugs. And a group of boys have also been caught trying to fly to the United Kingdom with the compound already mixed, presumably to resell it in that country during their stay.
Codeine is an opioid analgesic, the abuse of which is widespread in the United States. Its intake associated with carbonated drinks (less frequently, with alcohol) causes euphoric effects at first; but then taking it with a higher dose causes sedation. If combined with other narcotics, the risk of dying from respiratory failure is exponentially higher.
Above, recipes, ‘purple drank’ and fake stamps seized by the Police. Below left, a batch of Rivotril and hashish to make ‘karkubi’; right, cough for sale on Telegram
ABC
Precisely, this month of March, during the Infarma Madrid 2024 pharmacists’ congress, the chief inspector of the Consumer, Environment and Doping Section of the Central UDEV of the National Police, Juan José Castro, gave the following figures. Illegal drug trafficking crimes increased last year to reach 5,063, while in the first quarter of 2024 it is estimated that there will be 6,000, due to the upward trend of these practices.
Coughin, originally used for coughs, causes sudden euphoria when ingested, for example, with carbonated soft drinks.
This smuggling of medical prescriptions is even more notable in the case of Rivotril, a benzodiazepine that is increasingly being mixed with hashish. It is the so-called karkubi, previously known in Morocco as the poor man’s drug. It began to be known because it was consumed on the days of the African national team’s soccer match, when fans were looking not for effects such as euphoria, but for hallucinogenic and stimulant effects; above all, among a young population with low purchasing power.
“The ‘modus operandi’ has changed: if before they were North Africans who obtained the pills with false prescriptions, now laboratories of this medicine are beginning to be detected in Eastern European countries,” a police officer explains to ABC.
‘karkubi’ is a mixture of hashish and benzodiazepines, an increasingly widespread practice imported from Morocco
A kind of route has been created, which varies depending on where there is more pressure from the authorities, which if before came from the south of Spain now does so in a detour. For example, quantities of Rivotril leave from Hungary and other places along the former Iron Curtain and arrive by road. Other times they do it in the form of hidden orders in packages and even in washing machines. Controlling everything is impossible, given the enormous number of shipments, millions, that are made daily throughout the continent.
In any case, the falsification of medical prescriptions and doctors’ stamps continues to occur; An example: in several towns in the mountains of Madrid there have been robberies in health centers to obtain doctors’ checkbooks. Not only for Rivotril, but to get steroids or Viagra. As for its way of consumption, the normal thing is to smoke the ‘karkubi’, but it is also dispensed in pita bread and even in tortillas.
Operation Prada
The Prada operation, of the UDEV Central, revealed that a mafia also took advantage of the connivance of unfaithful employees to obtain part of the consignment of this anxiolytic by removing it from the warehouse. There were 28 detainees and it was found that they moved up to 20 and 30 boxes a day.
The agents carried out four home searches (two in Madrid and two in Parla), where 33,000 pills, 581 medical prescriptions, nine doctors’ stamps, 14 health cards, more than 48,000 euros in cash, six high-end vehicles and a die-cutting machine were seized. of registrations.
These medications could have reached a value of 150,000 euros on the black market, according to information detailed by the National Police. The mafia bought with the recipes in Madrid, but also extended its radius of action to the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.
However, the criminal organizations that are dedicated to moving it (that is another difference with respect to tosein, whose trafficking these groups have not been detected) go more to the origin of the product than to the pharmacies. And consumers are no longer just Moroccans; Now its use and commercialization is much more widespread. There are Spanish people from other European countries, generally young people, who are looking for a quick high and, in addition, they mix karkubi with other drugs, which worsens the obvious risk of its consumption.
The experts at UDEV Central do not believe that there is an increase in the intake of this mixture as such. But Spain has issued an alert to pharmacies to be alert to clients suspected of acquiring Rivotril fraudulently. “At that point we are with respect to the karkubi,” they say.
