Cuba’s Popular Drug “The Chemical” Is Not Just for the Poor
A young doctor tells that among his colleagues “there are many hooked” on this cheap and highly addictive drug.
By Natalia Lopez Moya (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – “Time of death 2:32 in the morning, cause: cardiac arrest,” summarizes the death certificate of a young man from Havana, 28, who died earlier this year in the emergency room of the Calixto García, in Havana. The small print, however, hides a much more dramatic story of addiction, drug use and meager resources in the Cuban health system, faced with the spread of “el químico” [the chemical].
“I was on duty that night, and when he arrived I thought he had an asthma attack,” recalls Marieta, a nurse at the hospital center whose name has been changed for this story. “He came with two friends after midnight on a Saturday, which is usually a time with many cases of knife wounds, cuts from bottles thrown at some party and also injuries from domestic altercations,” she says.
When she graduated, two decades ago, Marieta remembers that on weekends in the emergency room of the central hospital, a few meters from 23rd street with its clubs, bars and recreational centers, most of the emergencies were from “alcohol and fights.” The newly recruited doctors and nurses received the hardest shifts. In those long hours of late Saturday and Sunday, they learned very well to “sew heads and knife wounds while the patient’s foul smell of rum almost asphyxiated us,” she recalls.
However, for some time now the uninvited guest of the night has changed. “More and more cases arrive of people intoxicated with drugs, especially the “chemical,” but in recent months we have treated cases of all kinds of drug mixtures,” she explains to 14ymedio. One of the serious problems faced by health professionals who assist these patients is the lack of information about what has happened to them.
“We know an accident victim has been run over by a car or hit by a motorcycle, because the people who brought him tell us and give us the details, but with drug addicts it doesn’t happen,” she says. “People have left them lying on the entrance ramp and run away so they don’t show their faces. Others come accompanied by friends, but these people don’t talk. They won’t tell us what happened or just say that the person started feeling bad.”
Not only do you see the progression of drug addiction among patients treated in the emergency room. The medical sector itself is also being rocked by the chemical, which is currently sold in Havana at a price ranging from 150 to 200 pesos per dose. A pound of beans costs more than one of those little pieces of paper that envelop the substance for its illicit trade. In a country where commodities are on the rise, this drug is still surprisingly cheap.
A young doctor tells this newspaper that among his colleagues “there are many who are hooked” on the addictive mixture. “It comes from the bad neighborhoods,” he warns. “My girlfriend and several friends in the healthcare profession are consuming it in an uncontrolled way; it is no longer just something for poor people.”
In the emergency room, a police officer takes note of patients arriving with knife wounds, gunshots or signs of violence, but the protocol for drug users who arrive in bad shape “is not so clear,” says the woman. “If it is a slight intoxication, the doctor himself doesn’t want to report it so as not to get into trouble with the patient, but there are some who arrive in an obviously very high state, and there is no way to hide it.”
Among their more complicated cases are those who come in with serious breathing problems and heart failure after having consumed the chemical, the most popular drug right now in Havana. With a formula that may vary depending on who prepares it, its base is synthetic marijuana mixed with drugs, some intended for the treatment of epilepsy, tranquilizers for animals or compounds used in surgery. Once hooked, addicts try other very risky combinations, such as adding lidocaine, a local anesthetic that is readily available on the Island’s informal market.
“I saw a boy who was not even 18 take one of those lidocaine patches that you put, especially on your back, when you have some pain. He cut it into small pieces, ate it and immediately had neurotoxic and cardiotoxic reactions. When they brought him in, there was nothing that could be done,” he says. “They’re not just mixing the chemical with drugs that are hard to get or more expensive. Now even a less-controlled medication can be a hazard if it is consumed incorrectly or in conjunction with other substances.”
Among the products most imported by mules to the Island, protected by the exemption of tariffs on food and medicines, are not only coffee, spices and multivitamins, but also the popular lidocaine patches. In an aging population like the Cuban one, there is a wide demand. Light-weight, without customs controls and apparently harmless, in the wrong hands these patches become a danger.
“After oral ingestion, lidocaine enters the systemic circulation very quickly due to the extensive hepatic metabolism of the compound,” warns a patient from another hospital in Havana who prefers anonymity. “It begins its action very quickly, and the signs of intoxication begin to be noticed within the first 10 to 25 minutes. By the time these patients arrive at an emergency room, their clinical condition is very advanced.”
The code of silence spreads among addicts and those who accompany them to the hospitals. Describing what they consumed can draw the attention of the police, who will pressure them to report the dealer. The producers and sellers of the chemical, ambrosio* and other mixtures are mostly thugs who threaten to retaliate against the snitches and their families.
In a society that is very loquacious when it comes to defining illegal phenomena or the vagaries of the informal market, it is surprising that there is no clear term for defining the drug trafficker. This figure, who is known elsewhere with expressions ranging from the well-known “camel,” through “eraser” to the explicit “coke pusher,” has just begun in Cuba to have its own name. In a country where the illegal lottery, known as the “bolito,” has a wide range of terms, and prostitution also contains a vast vocabulary, the world of drugs, however, is more sparse. Perhaps the language has not evolved at the same speed as the spread of the chemical through the streets.
“Some say ’quimiqueros’,” advises El Pury, a resident of the Los Sitios neighborhood, who knows very well the damage that drugs are causing among the young people in his community. Proud to be “ten years clean” of addictions after spending time in the addiction ward of a psychiatric hospital, he now works as a stretcher-bearer. “I was inside the monster and I know its entrails,” he says, reinterpreting José Martí’s well-known phrase.
“I just have to see a little kid who arrives trembling, skinny because he barely eats and with skin the color of paper, and I know that it’s because of the drug,” he says. “It’s one thing to see it in the movies, or someone from abroad telling you about it, and another to experience it here.” Two weeks ago he had to carry a body from the emergency room to the morgue on a stretcher. The official cause of death was respiratory arrest, but El Pury knows that the young man died “from the shit that is killing everyone.”
———
*Translator’s note: Ambrosio is a mixture primarily involving drugs like Diazepam, Parkisonil, and Amitriptyline. Sprinkled with Ketamine, it is smoked in a roll or added to an alcoholic drink.
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.