Russian drugs abuse “catastrophic”—police
Drug abuse in Russia has reached “catastrophic” proportions, posing a threat to national security, a top anti-narcotics police officer was quoted as saying on Friday.
Viktor Khvorostyan, head of the Moscow section of the Federal Narcotics Service, said some four percent of the population, or about six million people, are addicts. The average age of teenagers first trying drugs had fallen dramatically, he said.
"This is catastrophic. In the last year in Russia around half a million drug addicts were registered. But in reality there are many more,” he told the Moskovskiye Novosti weekly.
“The question is not just in the rise in numbers, it is also in their getting younger. The age of people first trying drugs two or three years ago was 17 years, now it is already 14-year-old kids.”
Drug use was largely unknown in communist times, but exploded after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991—going hand-in-hand with a sharp rise in HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which affects around 300,000 Russians.
Drug overdoses kill 70,000 Russians every year—or close to 200 people a day—according to Federal Narcotics Service figures.
Russia has also become a major drug transit route for heroin from Afghanistan, and reports of major drugs seizures are common. Local media said 240 kg (529 lb) of heroin had been seized in the Moscow region two days ago.
Afghanistan is the world’s leading producer of heroin, and the drug trade dominates its economy, the United Nations says.
“In recent years the flow from Afghanistan has strengthened. I would call this narco-aggression. Almost all the heroin used in the capital comes from there. The flow is so great that you can talk about a threat to national security,” Khvorostyan said.
He said corrupt police and state officials were complicating attempts to crack down on the drug trade, but that the Federal Narcotics Service was committed to finding them.
“Last year we sent the prosecutors material on 55 officials from the law enforcement bodies, the security services and the military who decided to make money from drugs,” he said.
“This year we have uncovered another 12 people.”
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