The rapid growth of the epidemic in Poland. The number of poisonings is shocking. The victims are mainly children

• The Chief Sanitary Inspectorate recorded 40 percent more poisonings with psychoactive substances and other narcotic substances last year than in 2023.
• Children are also reaching for deadly dangerous drugs - writes "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna"
• The epidemic of poisoning with psychoactive substances is particularly affecting the Lubuskie voivodeship (6.48) and Małopolska voivodeship (4.87), where the number of poisonings in relation to the general population is several times higher than the national average

The wave of poisonings with legal highs and other intoxicating substances (including medicines) is rising. In 2024, the System for Monitoring Information on Substitutes and New Psychoactive Substances run by the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate (GIS) received 2,719 reports of poisonings with such substances. A year earlier, there were 1,698. Last year's result was therefore close to the level of 2019, when 2,930 were recorded. These data do not include alcohol and drug poisonings - informs "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna".

As "DGP" writes, the number of poisonings with psychoactive substances alone is growing even faster. In 2024, 557 reports were recorded, twice as many as the year before. On average, in Poland, per 100,000 residents, 1.48 medical interventions were undertaken related to poisoning with psychoactive substances, or - as it is called in the documents - "substitutes and new psychoactive substances". The map shows strong regional differences.

The newspaper notes that the epidemic is particularly affecting Lubuskie (6.48) and Małopolska (4.87), where the number of poisonings in relation to the general population is several times higher than the national average. They are most often used by men, who were affected by 67.5% of interventions, and statistically the largest recipients remain people aged 30-39. It is in this group that the fastest increase in the number of poisonings was also recorded.

He adds that although adults lead in statistics, pediatricians are concerned about cases among children who poisoned themselves with psychoactive substances 92 times in 2024.