According to official statistics the Hungarian man overdosed on Ecstasy – in reality, he was run over by a train.
According to official statistics the Hungarian man overdosed on Ecstasy – in reality, he was run over by a train.
In the member states of the European Union the national focal points are resbonsible for reporting reliable data that meet the standards of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). The National Reports of the focal points play a crucial role in policy making in domestic and EU level – they suppose to be the number one source of credible information on the drug situation in a given country. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) used the help of the Freedom of Information Law to see if these data are really always relaible.
According to the 2006 National Report of the Hungarian focal point, there were 28 direct overdose deaths in Hungary in the year 2005. From these 28 persons, 3 people did allegadly overdosed on Ecstasy, while 2 persons overdosed on illicit hallucinogenic drugs. (The fatalities caused indirectly by drugs were presented in another talbe). HCLU issued a FOIA request to the Focal Point in order to see the background information of these 5 casulties. The response was astonishing: neither of these 5 fatalities were proven overdose deaths. In one case the deceased person was somebody who was known to suffer from chronic depression and probably had suicide attempts before. A large dose of MDMA was detected in his blood, therefore the cause of death was registered as overdose. The report does not mention the specific circumstances of his death. The second person committed a suicide – he opened his veins. Again, the autopsy detected a large amount of MDMA in his blood – so the case was registered as an overdose fatality. The third case is the most bizarre: a person, who was high on MDMA was run over by a train. Officially, the main cause of death was drug overdose again, only because he used MDMA before his death.
The stories of the two hallucinogenic overdoses were not less interesting. As the investigation of the focal point demonstrated they were no illicit drug overdoses at all. Two persons were walking in a forest and picked up a plant which happened to be autumn crocus – this plant contains a toxic substance called colhicine, which is used in medicine to treat gout. The symptoms of colchicine poisoning resemble those of arsenic and there is no antidote.
The Hungarian National Focal Point acknowledged the flaws in the data collection system and promised to build tools which can effectively control and filter information. They mandated the Hungarian Institute of Addiction Sciences to double-check all data related to drug related morbidities and mortalities. We hope this reform will help to improve the quality of data in the drug field. However, civil society has a crucial role in testing if evidence-based drug policy is really based on evidence, and freedom of information laws can be our useful tools to accomplish that.
Peter Sarosi
