Police arrested a 19-year-old girl with epilepsy. The medicine she was carrying was a narcotic, police said.
The incident took place on January 12 at around 11:20 p.m. on the capital’s “Alexander Stamboliyski” boulevard. The girl, who remains anonymous, and her friend were trying to stop a taxi when they were spotted by the police, Nova TV reported.
“The older policeman asked to search my bag. He found my epilepsy pills. I was arrested because of them. I had a medical document, but he literally threw it away. I explained several times that these were drugs prescribed by a doctor. They put me in the patrol car and they detained me,” she said.
“They just planted the document and said that it was not a document. They saw that she had no criminal record, but they still detained her,” added the friend of the detained girl.
“On January 13, her boyfriend called to tell me that she was detained because she has Rivotril. She takes this drug three times a day. She wears an epilepsy bracelet and has a doctor’s note,” the girl’s mother claimed.
The Ministry of the Interior reports that pre-trial proceedings have been initiated in the case, but they claim that the girl did not have a document with her.
The Ministry of Health stated that Rivotril is excluded from the drug list and cannot be distributed on the Bulgarian pharmaceutical market.
“She was prescribed Clonarex. It is identical to the drug Rivotril,” the girl’s lawyer said.
“They deliver it to us from Germany, because she cannot tolerate the drug Clonarex,” commented the girl’s mother.
“This medicine is bought from abroad. It is allowed there. We say that all medicines in the EU are allowed in Bulgaria, but in the next moment we cannot use it,” commented Veska Sabeva from the Association of Parents of Children with Epilepsy.
The drug Rivotril was withdrawn from the market in 2015. The withdrawal of the drug then caused inconvenience to thousands of epilepsy patients, who had to travel to Serbia to obtain the drug.
