Alert to the ‘clonazepam challenge’, the dangerous challenge on TikTok that is scaring Peru due to its deadly consequences

A new viral challenge in ICT Tacknown as the ‘clonazepam challenge‘ or ‘Whoever falls asleep last wins’, arouses disturbing interest among minors, aged 12 to 17, from different countries. Chile, Ecuador and Mexico have already recorded cases of schoolchildren who joined this dangerous “game” and ended up intoxicated. Although this type of event has not yet been officially reported in Peru, health authorities fear that it could happen again.

in this popular social redthere are several videos of teenage girls and young women openly talking about their experience of taking this anxiolytic, which should only be available by prescription due to its powerful calming effects. Ingesting it goes beyond believing it’s just a challenge, as in large doses it can lead to coma or even death.

Mexican authorities discovered that high school students were trying to introduce this type of medication. The goal, as detailed, was to complete the challenge together to see which of all the miners present suffered the most tranquilizer effects. Of the ‘whoever falls asleep last wins‘. At least eight students from this country have already ended up drunk and in hospital.

In Ecuador there Chile Situations similar to those mentioned have been recorded: more intoxicated schoolchildren and parents desperate for the health of their children. Here in Peru, the concern lies in the fact that social networks do not know borders and it cannot be excluded that this viral challenge I arrived.

GlobeLiveMedia contacted the public health expert, Marco Almeriwho explained that clonazepam, alprazolam or diazepam These are drugs that “are mainly used to manage anxiety” and that “if a person takes them for more than three months in a row, they are addictive”.

“That is to say, the person can no longer live without using this drug. Then, when the minor or the adult self-medication, because he can fall into a situation of drug addiction. And this situation leads them to a spiral from which they cannot escape and in which their lives are destroyed,” he said.

When asked if these anxiolytics can be deadly, the doctor assured that yes, especially if they are mixed with alcoholic beverages, energy drinks or another drug. In this sense, he recalled that calls ‘blackmail‘ mix precisely clonazepam with any type of drink to put their victims to sleep, who – in many cases – even lose their lives.

It specifies that low-dose clonazepam generates drowsinessbut taken in excess, the person “can come into garbagei.e. a disconnection from the environment, but I still live and sleep a lot more than usual.”

“But if we are talking about more than four tablets, you can even go into a coma, when mixed with alcohol or energizers. So from coma to death there is already a small step,” said he added.

This challenge of ICT Tac it also brought up the disturbing number of people who treat themselves in our country. The expert revealed that “currently in Peru out of 100 people, 62 go in search of their own medicines”.

“What percentage of Peruvians are self-medicating? 56% before the pandemic, 62% after. During the pandemic, there was a peak of 80% self-medication. People were buying their paracetamol alone… Well, we is 62% of self-medication“, he detailed.

There World Health Organization (WHO) defines self-medication as the use of drugs without a prescription. This, says the expert, “is a risky practice in Peru that dates back many years”.

“What consequences can self-medication have? In practice, what we see when the self-medication patients it’s that they mask their underlying disease. For example, they have appendicitis and this results in abdominal pain, they take painkillers and suddenly the symptoms subside, but then they arrive late at the hospital because it is no longer appendicitis but peritonitis” , he commented.

Despite the fact that the sale of clonazepam, alprazolam and diazepam is regulated in Peru, there is a black drug market at various points in Lima where these types of drugs can be purchased without a prescription.

According to what Dr. Almerí explained, the following is happening in our country: the big laboratories are the ones that import huge quantities of these drugs and with this they meet the needs of the big chains. However, pharmacies or apothecaries in the capital’s cones are not taken into account in this purchase process.

For example, a box of 100 tablets of clonazepam 0.5 milligrams or alprazolam, also 0.5 milligrams, costs eight soles. Therefore the pharmacy small ones, which have only one owner and are on the outskirts of Lima, which are not part of a chain, because they do not form something attractive for these large laboratories to bring you a box of 100 tablets for eight soles, which they could buy a month,” he said.

“What he College of Pharmacists of Peru denounced is that these large laboratories bring products with which they supply the large pharmacy chains and the rest goes to a black market that we all know is in the center of Lima, on Capón and Mesa Redonda streets. And there, these small pharmacies which are not part of the distribution chain of the large laboratories, this is where they get their supplies, ”he added.

He said that these small pharmacies get these medications and in selling them they do not ask for a receipt, but in exchange they distribute it at a higher price so that their profit is justified.

“A 0.5 milligram clonazepam tablet at a pharmacy in Carabayllo or Puente Piedra costs 50 cents. So when they sell 10 tablets, it’s already five soles, and if they sell 100 tablets, it’s already 50 soles. And they bought it for eight or ten soles. Of course, obviously the payoff is much higher,” he said.

“This black market could also be the one that finally, if this challenge of the ‘clones’ arrived in Peru, would provide these kids who would look for where to get these drugs without a prescription, even if it is at an extra cost, and who could finally put in endanger or endanger the health of these young people,” he noted.