Teenagers are said to have taken oxycodone

After three young people allegedly took medication in a Hamburg park, one of them continued to be treated in the intensive care unit on Friday. A police spokesman said.

The 17-year-old was no longer responsive in the Langenhorn district on Thursday morning and had to be resuscitated. The teenager was taken to a hospital with another 17-year-old and a 14-year-old.

The second boy has since left the hospital, the spokesman said on Friday. The girl was also to be released shortly. According to the police, none of them could be questioned. The police initially erroneously gave the girl's age as 15.

The three teenagers collapsed in a park on Thursday. Passers-by had therefore first reported that all three young people in the park in the Langenhorn district were no longer responsive. Paramedics took her to a hospital.

A police spokesman said about the background of the emergency: "We assume that the medication has an influence." More could not be said yet. "We have to know what was in the blood." The results of what exactly the young people were consuming are not yet available.

According to the "Bild" newspaper, the three drugs that contain the opioid oxycodone are said to have been taken. Opioids, which also include heroin and methadone, have an analgesic, relaxing, calming and euphoric effect.

Drugs containing oxycodone are among the painkillers whose distribution in the USA has increased sharply since the late 1990s. Prescriptions developed into dependencies - up to the opioid epidemic with thousands of deaths from overdoses every year.

In Germany, about half of the 1,276 drug-related deaths in 2018 involved opioid overdoses. According to the Drug and Addiction Report 2019 by the Federal Drug Commissioner, 1.7 percent of adults in Germany have used opioids at least once in their lives.

It was only earlier this week that a 13-year-old had to be treated in hospital together with three men after suspected drug use. Rescue workers found a lifeless 22-year-old in a hotel room on the Reeperbahn on Tuesday.

Two other men, aged 19 and 21, were taken to the hospital along with the girl for drug poisoning. The body of the 22-year-old was taken to the Institute for Forensic Medicine to determine the cause of death.

A fourth man, who also slept in the room, woke up on Tuesday to find one of his companions dead, it said. He informed the hotel staff. This then called the emergency services.

According to previous knowledge, the room in the hotel on the Reeperbahn was booked for Monday to Wednesday. The four men and the girl are hamburgers.

The spokesman could not say what the relationship between the men and the 13-year-old was. According to a report by the Hamburger Abendblatt online portal, the police discovered drugs, pills and alcohol in the hotel room. In addition, all five people are known to the police for minor drug offenses.