THE CROATIAN DRUG-ADDICT METROPOLIS

AIM, SPLIT, September 30,1994

The "Delfin", a not much frequented restaurant in Split, in the settlement of Bacvice, which the inhabitants of Split used to call the annex of the Yugoslav People's Army Center, is sometimes visited by policemen from the nearby Second Station, believers after mass in the adjacent church of Our Lady of Pojisane, and city officials who in the same building, the City Hall, hold their meetings. Nevertheless, the "regulars" are drug addicts who spend more time there then the waiters on one shift, and most often drink only water. It follows, instead of watered wine, a "fix" in Delfin's toilets which were until recently - for preventive reasons - lighted with a bluish milky light which made it harder to find the veins. This area now has the usual lighting, and the young unfortunates take drugs under a "white" light. Those who should care for them, i.e. who care for them with poor success, have their drinks in the "Delfin", and go on. To a more respectable place.

"Kuzma & Shaka Zulu", a new composer tandem of Split reality, singing warning songs far from the bright Mediterranean colours of Oliver Dragojevic or the loud patriotism of Misa Kovac can be heard on "Delfin's" loudspeakers.Among other things they sing: "... In the bus a girl ended up in my lap, when I looked better I saw she had taken a fix". The heroine of the song is just one of the 3,000 Split drug addicts registered by the police. Those versed in the problem say that the tip of the iceberg should be multiplied by five, giving the figure of 15,000 addicts. According to the same method, they include 5,000 heroin addicts, like the girl in the song.

Split is Croatia's addict metropolis - Split has 3,000 registered addicts, while Zagreb, several times larger, has only 1,500. According to three years old data, 400 heroin addicts were subjected to methadone treatment in Split, with only 20 in Rijeka, which is in many respects similar. These are old figures used only for comparison, while the latest report of the State Commission for the Suppression of Harmful Narcotic Substances warns that not only in Split, but in Croatia as well - drug abuse is alarmingly rising. According to this report, the number of drug addicts has increased fourfold as compared to the previous yaer. The president of the Commission, Dr. Slavko Sakoman, states that Croatia is, according to the number of addicts as compared to its population, first among all former communist European countries. Police sources register about 10,000 grave addicts, of which only 4,000 are receiving medical treatment. Clearly, the number of non-registered and potential ones is much larger. This alarming warning is made by Tomislav Stanic, chief narcotics inspector in the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia who says that, due to the ever stronger infiltration of narco-mafia into Eastern Europe - a drug abuse boom is yet pending.

Confirmation of evil forebodings can be found in black columns: in the middle of the month, two Croatian sailors were caught on Crete with a dilapidated ship and a cargo of five and a half tons of hashish. Koper was the port of destination. The penetration of the narco-mafia into the large market of Eastern Europe is logical from the standpoint of that "business". And that drug business knows no borders is seen on the experience of Dubrovnik. Well informed people say that only drugs grew cheaper during the siege of the city. The war was conducive to the spreading of addiction due to the stresses it caused, the feeling of hopelessness, and because of the overall relaxing of social controls, which favours the development of different forms of crime.

The war interrupted, especially around Split, initiatives for organizing colonies for treating addicts, which exist by the thousand in Europe. The first was started in Cista Velika near Imotsko, organized by nun Bernardice Juretic, a well-known fighter against drug abuse, on the model of the Italian "Community of Meeting". After being dismantled in the summer of 1991, the community was recently re-established. The war also disrupted the self-organization of the Kasteli addicts in the former camp of scouts from Nis near Split airport. "The Society of St.Baro", as they called themselves, dispersed when shooting around the airport started, and their leader Ivica Dzolic - Dzola was killed as a Croatian soldier on Tmor hill near Slano. This undoubted anti-hero of the Kasteli streets used to say: "It is difficult to change people. We want to change the environment here. To eliminate heroin. We brought it, we shall eliminate it".

There are only two addicts' communes in Croatia today. Dr. Mijo Milas, who claims that hospital treatment is very expensive and non-efficient is in favour of them as are medical experts who increasingly give priority to therapeutic communities and communes.

Prevention? It is the best cure, but even in richer and more organized societies its results are not adequate. But there is nothing else to be done. Dr. Slavko Sakoman points to the need of the earliest possible adoption of a national drug control programme. Especially in schools, because research shows that almost 85% of the addicts come into contact with drugs for the first time at 14 or 15 years of age. Dr. Miroslav Mrass from Split goes further - he claims that preventive education should begin with young married couples. Are parents the key link?

• "One wishes to believe one can trust one's child"
• says a father. "One does not wish to believe that it will lie, cheat and steal." The mother of a girl in Cavio, an addict commune near Rome, in her apartment at Susidar in Split, one of the drug infested quarters of the city, says: "Perhaps we are the most to blame. When you notice that your child is an addict, you harbour false hopes that it will stop, that things will be better. That is worst of all, there is no return, things can only be worse and worse. I could not accept the fact that my only child, the apple of my eye, had fallen so low". She lives in fear of the doorbell ringing, of the return of her daughter from the commune in which life unfolds pursuant to the rules of the Franciscan order from 1357. "Whenever I hear that one of them has returned from that road, I feel as if pierced by a cold blade. For months I have been dreaming that my child has appeared at the door. But, I know if she returns, if she gives up, that is the end of me too. The surroundings here are cursed, I know she will not be able to resist, that she will start all over again".

And the circle goes on. It does not close, because the society disturbs "their circles" by weak interventions. From attempts to cure them, to police actions. Croatian Interior Minister, Ivan Jarnjak, stated that eight kgs.of cocaine and nine kgs. of heroin were confiscated in Croatia this year. Experts say that the seized heroin would, with additional mixing with sugar and other substances, meet only the one-and-a-half-month needs of the Split market. Naturally, much larger quantities than those seized reach the addicts. If the police manage to break a chain, new ones emerge. Because big drug business is in question: a kilo of heroin bought somewhere in Turkey for DM 100,000, after a series of reselling and mixing reaches an eight times higher price in the Croatian market.

Minister Jarnjak also said that five persons died this year of overdose. Ivica Dzolic - Dzola used to say: "Everyone has to make something in the dealer chain - someone a dose, someone money. Until it reaches the final consumer, the dose is constantly diluted. In the end, someone might take only white powder with almost no heroin in it. And you know how it is: you looked for money all day, God knows what you did to find it, and then you buy it and then nothing. You could kill him at that moment, you would certainly kill him if you could find him. You don't know what is worse: to come across a real dose, which could lead you to a coma, or to take a blind shot."

Pure heroin makes you die quickly, diluted slowly. Victims of drug addiction should include suicides, traffic accidents, murders, other diseases...A Split doctor Dr.Borben Uglesic, reminds of global statistics according to which the life span of heroin addicts is between nine and twelve years and ends with death. In that period a heroin addict drags a further eight to nine new dependents into this vicious circle.

Part of this horrible dependency can be encountered in the Split restaurant "Delfin". And part of the infernal indifference: of policemen who come there for breakfast, of communal officials who come for their espresso in breaks...This indifference hurts, although the mother of the girl in the commune in Cavio might be right: "Believe me, no one can help them unless they decide so themselves. Unless they do, everything else is futile".

GORAN VEZIC