8-29-19 Out of a population of 200 million people, UNODC found that just over 14 percent of Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 abused drugs - more than twice the global average of 5.6 percent.
The maximum legal dose for a single tablet of tramadol is supposed to be 100mg, yet at one Nigerian port, we saw shipping containers that had been found to be crammed full with packets containing 225mg tablets.
We were told by doctors that they had seen tablets with doses as high as 600mg a pill and that some drug abusers were taking up to 10 of these a day. These dangerously high concentrations are predominantly manufactured illicitly in India and exported from there, via South East Asia, to Africa and the Middle East.
We wanted to know how billions of pills of tramadol get into Nigeria, how they are distributed and traded thereafter and, perhaps most importantly, follow up some of the disturbing stories we'd heard about the role tramadol might be playing in Boko Haram's rebellion in the north-east of the country.
We travelled to the four corners of Nigeria in search of answers. From Abuja to Lagos to Maiduguri to Kano, tramadol has seeped into the pores of a nation that has so much human potential yet is stymied by poor governance and pervasive corruption. It was genuinely shocking.
Over and over again we were told how the drug had become the popular tonic for a score of ills, the go-to palliative for sex workers, manual labourers, cooks and street cleaners, for bored young men and women, for the poor, the unemployed and desperate, and yes, even for Boko Haram rebels; all of them craving a tramadol fix and able to get one because a single pill is so cheap and so easily accessible from street drug dealers….
But what we found in Nigeria was something else entirely - how the very poorest have also now become major targets of those same criminal distribution networks, how a new generation of desperately poor consumers has been cleverly sold the idea that otherwise 'respectable' pain relief medicines are in some way a remedy for the day-to-day drudgery of lives without hope or opportunity. It doesn't take a genius to work out the thinking of those behind this trade; the value of each individual sale may be tiny, but make enough of them and the profits will really stack up.
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12-28-19 the Saltinho area at the Hotel Pousada Do Saltinho, close to the village of Sintcha Sambel—I soon learned that it never received tourists. It was a regular base for South American drug smugglers. Mostly from Venezuela, Brazil, and Colombia, they stayed anywhere between one and three months and waited for safe passage for drugs to Bissau, up through Africa and on to Europe.
Cartels had refined the delivery process. Drugs were dropped off by plane on the Rio Corobal. They came from Guinea-Conakry; often the Bissau port was heavily policed, though I heard that the port was increasingly used for smuggling, so it was easier to deliver the drugs near the hotel. A lieutenant-colonel from the Guinea-Bissau military often came from Bissau to oversee the smooth transfer of cocaine. He provided protection for the goods – sometimes up to 500 kilograms of cocaine – and ensured they were stored in safe houses in Bissau before leaving for other African countries.
Guinea-Bissau had perfected the trafficking of cocaine, but other drugs were also smuggled: morphine pills and tramadol, an opioid pain medication. Islamist fighters in Africa and the Middle East, including the Islamic State, loved this drug because it reduced pain in the case of injury – pills of abuse-grade strength, along with the amphetamine-type stimulant Captagon, gave militants an inflated sense of strength and bravery, with no need to sleep for days. Guinea-Bissau had perfected the trafficking of cocaine, but other drugs were also smuggled: morphine pills and tramadol, an opioid pain medication. Islamist fighters in Africa and the Middle East, including the Islamic State, loved this drug because it reduced pain in the case of injury – pills of abuse-grade strength, along with the amphetamine-type stimulant Captagon, gave militants an inflated sense of strength and bravery, with no need to sleep for days….
So-called humanitarian caravans have arrived from Eastern Europe in the last decade. People from Poland, Hungary and Romania fill a convoy with clothes, medicines and second- and third-hand ambulances to mask their activities, and they hand out these goods along the route from Europe to Africa.
They arrive in Guinea-Bissau to pick up drugs and receive around €10,000 for the work. They then take the cocaine through Mali and to the Toubou people living in Chad, Sudan, Niger and Libya. This group completes the mission towards northern Libya and then trusted smugglers take it on to Europe. Such a “humanitarian caravan” may seem like an arduous and dangerous path to ensure the safe passage of drugs, but the economics work out for the traffickers and the drug mules. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/guinea-bissau-drug-cartels-antony-loewenstein
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4-14-19 Among the former Boko Haram captives who introduced Tramadol to internally displaced persons in Madinatu is 19-year-old Adamu Musa, who spent months in a Boko Haram camp after being abducted, along with about a dozen others, from their home in Gwoza.
During his time in captivity, Musa said he joined fighters on forced missions to attack communities and abduct young men his age. His captors made sure everyone took high doses of Tramadol before embarking on any mission. He became addicted in the process and when he arrived in Madinatu after escaping, he introduced the drug to some in the camp.
"I wanted to help them forget about what they've been through," he said. "Tramadol helps you feel like you're on top of the world.”…
The drug can easily be bought from local pharmacies for as little as 30 cents for a strip of 10 tablets, mostly in dosages as high as 225mg - more than two times what is legally allowed in some other countries. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/escaping-boko-haram-nigerian-idps-addicted-tramadol-190413195130883.html
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