Mazan rape case: smell, texture, color… ANSM encourages laboratories to modify the appearance of certain drugs

Psychoactive drugs used in chemical submission are often odorless and colorless. The French Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) is urging laboratories to remedy this.

To combat chemical submission, the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines (ANSM) has urged laboratories to modify certain drugs by changing “the odor, texture, aroma or color”. These measures must be implemented within “less than six months”, despite the many challenges they entail, recalls the HuffPost.

Leïla Chaouachi, founder of the Reference Center on Substance-Facilitated Assaults, observes that “attackers use odorless, colorless, tasteless, water-soluble substances to trap the victim”. Her annual report on chemical submission, presented after the trial verdict, reveals that psychoactive drugs remain the main agents of these attacks, surpassing certain illegal drugs.

She advocates for “systematic measures, for the large classes of drugs that have always been identified as agents of chemical submission”.

Among the substances considered to be at risk are benzodiazepines (sedative and anxiolytic effects), antihistamines and opioids, used for their sedative properties. Bromazepam, known as Lexomil, is at the top, followed by tramadol, codeine, zopiclone and hydroxyzine.

ANSM asks laboratories to “implement measures to limit their diversion”. According to the Leem union, they have “less than six months” to propose solutions.

Several avenues

Several avenues are being considered, according to our colleagues: adding colorants (like the blue coloring integrated into drinkable Rivotril to limit its criminal use), incorporating bittering agents (to make the taste bitter), or using gelling agents and tracers. However, “not everything will succeed” , warns the Leem.

Changing the dissolution of drugs to form visible deposits is “much more complicated” than adding a coloring agent, and the use of bittering agents remains limited to prevent patients from abandoning their treatment. Any change in formula must preserve the efficacy and tolerance of the drug, as shown by the example of Levothyrox, a reformulation of which had caused adverse effects.

Leïla Chaouachi underlines the scale of this project, which could “engage Europe” and concern both existing drugs and those in development. If the reflection is collective, each laboratory will have to assume responsibility for clinical trials for the new formulas.

The ANSM cannot impose these changes but can encourage them, recalling that there is a “public health interest” and reputation for laboratories to take up the issue.

However, “it is not a coloring or a bittering agent that will prevent crime”, qualifies Leïla Chaouachi. The attackers can hide the color in an opaque drink or mask the bitter taste in grapefruit juice. These changes therefore fall under “risk reduction measures”, even if “the medicine, however regulated it may be, remains within reach in the family medicine cabinet”.