Romania

Use and Treatment

Romania's first general population survey in 2004 recorded only 1.7 percent of those aged 15–64 using cannabis at least once. Rates for other illicit drugs were below 1 percent. A second general population survey in 2007 showed 1.5 percent for cannabis and less than 0.5 percent for the others. Surveys of students 15 and 16 years old took place in 1999, 2003, and 2007. Romanian youth had relatively low use rates but percentages were rising—cannabis from 1 to 4 percent between 1999 and 2007.

The major drug abused since the early 1990s is heroin, mostly through injection. In 2007 Bucharest had between 11,500 and 31,625 users but a rate among the lowest for European cities. In 2007 the Ministry of Public Health provided care services, as did the National Anti-Drug Agency through its centers to improve psychosocial and medical service access.

Of the 1,891 clients in 2007, 1,126 were first timers, and opioids were the primary drug for 70.8 percent, with cannabis at 7.8 percent. Romania began methadone treatment in 1998 and buprenorphine in 2007. Simplified procedures for getting treatment were created in 2005, but only 639 patients got methadone in 2007. Thirty-eight percent of clients were under 25.

[Page 699]In 2006 Romania eased restrictive policies that made access to pain relief difficult for patients with AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. Romanian law since 1969 had banned prescription of opioids for chronic pain. The paper trail was so cumbersome that patients often died before relief could be approved, giving Romania one of the worst records in Europe for providing pain relief drugs. An early effort at reform began at a World Health Organization (WHO) workshop on opioid use for palliative care in 2002. Romania also participated in a partnership called “Fighting Against Drugs Trafficking and Abuse” with France and Spain in 2004 and 2005. One element was legal narcotics and psychotropics, and Spanish and French experts gave Romania a draft law. The change came about through a three-year collaboration of Romanian health officials with the University of Wisconsin and the WHO. The new law simplified regulations for prescribing opioids such as morphine.

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