Painkiller-addicted asylum seekers present problems in Swiss capital

The worst flashpoint of the problem is in the shadow of the Swiss Federal Palace. KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / PETER KLAUNZER

Police are concerned about the rising cases of asylum seekers who are addicted to the prescription painkiller Pregabalin in the Swiss capital city, Bern.

Pregabalin is a medication used to treat epilepsy, anxiety, and nerve pain. If used correctly it won’t cause any problems. But if the dosage is too high, it has an intoxicating, euphoric effect and, above all, is addictive. Anyone who consumes too much or is in withdrawal quickly becomes aggressive. And this is where the problem begins for the city of Bern.

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Pregabalin is being consumed more and more frequently by asylum seekers from North African countries. This leads to them behaving more aggressively. The cantonal police confirmed to Swiss public broadcaster SRF that they had to intervene several times at a small ski jump near to the Federal Palace – a popular drug trafficking site.

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Silvio Flückiger, head of the city’s social outreach group Pinto, has observed Pregabalin addicts. “Some are euphoric, others are absent, but when you talk to them they suddenly become aggressive.”

Knife threat

Dealing with this unpredictability is difficult – and sometimes dangerous. Most of the people Flückiger interacts with carry a knife. “We have to expect them to pull this out at any time,” he says. This has already happened to him twice. Presumably because those affected were “out of sorts,” as Flückiger says, and were suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

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An asylum seeker whom SRF meets at the small ski jump described the withdrawal symptoms: “If I don’t have a capsule for two days, then I become restless and sad.” The powder in the capsules is snorted. “It hits you like coke, it goes straight to your head.”

Pregabalin requires a prescription. However, it has recently stopped being handed out in asylum centers, says Samuel Wyss, spokesman for the State Secretariat for Migration, because it is addictive. “We found that people who did not have access to these medications became very aggressive.”

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Crime figures rising

It’s no longer that easy to get pregabalin these days; the medication requires a prescription. And yet it is still in circulation. When asked, the Swiss drugs regulator Swissmedic wrote that checks had shown that pregabalin is being smuggled into Switzerland in large scale from France or North Africa.

Anyone who uses drugs needs money, and asylum seekers usually obtain this illegally. The crime statistics from the Bern cantonal police also testify to this: in 2023 there were significantly more thefts, burglaries and violence, especially around the Bern train station.

“We must prioritise the asylum procedures. Quick decisions are needed. And once people are rejected, they must be removed,” said Bernese security director Reto Nause. However, the city, the canton and the federal government would have to work together to achieve this.

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Adapted from German by DeepL/mga