Turin's CIE - International University College of Turin

6. USE, MISUSE AND ABUSE OF PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATION
Several professionals and volunteers made serious allegations about a widespread and reckless
use of psychotropic medications inside the CIE, and our detainee interviews confirmed such
suspicions. Whilst official figures are not available, it has been alleged that one third of
detainees take psychotropic medication 77 , and one of our interviewees claimed that this
percentage is much higher 78 . In any case, the most controversial aspect is that these medicines
are given without prescription from a psychiatrist. There is no specialist inside CIE, nor are the
psychologists involved in deciding whether a detainee needs psychotropic drugs. For medical
staff it seems to be sufficient that the detainees request treatment and allegedly no further
investigation is carried out 79 .
The psychotropic medications used inside Turin’s CIE seem to be predominantly
benzodiazepines: “Rivotril, Tavor, Talofen... there are four or five kinds of medicines and they
always give them here” (Interview 22). Our evidence suggests that a significant number of
detainees who are transferred from jail to CIE ask for such medication immediately, since often
they are already used to taking it in prison. According to one interviewee: “their addiction to
psychotropic drugs originates there. In jail there is an abuse of psychotropic medication”
(Interview 28). Besides ex-prisoners, generally speaking CIE detainees “have in front of them the
possibility of spending eighteen months inside the centre, with no activities, with a family outside,
without having a clue of what will happen afterwards. From the psychological point of view it is a
tragedy. Psychotropic drugs become a refuge, a shelter” (Interview 28).
The detainees’ perspectives on this issue were quite shocking. Most of them consider
psychotropic drugs to be absolutely necessary to survive inside CIE: “I’m forced to take
medication because otherwise time does not pass. They give me forty drops of Minias and thirty
drops of Tavor every day in the evening” (Interview 25). A further example is that of an eighteenyear-old
detainee who at the time of our interview had been inside CIE for twenty-seven days.
Notwithstanding his young age and the relatively short time he had spent inside CIE,
psychotropic medication seemed to be essential and unavoidable to him: “Of course I have to
take psychotropic drugs because here if you don’t take the therapy you go crazy. You need
psychotropic drugs both to sleep and to keep quiet. Almost everybody here takes psychotropic
medication” (Interview 22).
However, the issue of psychotropic medication inside CIE should not be dismissed by making
reference to detainees’ expressed consent, given the fact that the problem clearly has a double
dimension, as one journalist observed:
“On the one hand, there is a strong request for psychotropic drugs from detainees
themselves [...]. On the other hand, in my opinion the problem is that doctors give
psychotropic medication too easily. Doctors admit it and they justify themselves by saying
that otherwise detainees would be more upset and aggressive and more keen to create
problems. [...] It is anyway more convenient to have a certain number of sedated detainees,
than to have people who are always ready to start a fight” (Interview 28).
77 Cosentino and Genovese, “Lo scandalo dei centri di identificazione dove gli ospiti diventano detenuti”.
78 “I think 70% of detainees take them” (Interview 28).
79 “What we stress is that the use of these kinds of drugs in such a situation requires the intervention of a
specialist, the presence of a psychiatrist able to evaluate on a case-by-case basis. In our opinion the lack of a
monitoring conducted by a specialist represents an extremely relevant problem” (Interview 29); “When I asked
for the medication, no psychologist came to talk with me [or] to ask me questions. And you know, these kind of
drugs should not be taken without the supervision of a psychologist” (Interview 20).
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