Non-Subscriber Extract
Route of the problem - Trafficking and addiction threaten Russia
By Mark Galeotti
28 October 2009
Young demonstrators hold banners printed with slogans against drugs as they take part in a march marking the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Moscow, on 26 June 2006. Russia's health ministry estimates the country has 2.5 million addicts out of a population of 140 million, while the Federal Narcotics Control Service estimates 10,000 people die each year of drug overdoses and a further 70,000 deaths are drug-related. (PA)
In early October, Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Narcotics Control Service (Federalnaya sluzhba narkokontrolya Rossii: FSNK), accused the United States's counter-narcotic policy in Afghanistan of being "insufficient".
This represented an escalation of rhetoric from March, when Ivanov warned of an ongoing flow of Afghan narcotics through Russia, despite a 70 per cent rise in seizure rates. In a report he circulated at the time, he warned: "In recent years Russia has not just become massively hooked on Afghan opiates, it has also become the world's absolute leader in the opiate trade and the number one heroin consumer."
According to the Russian health ministry, the country has up to 2.5 million drug addicts out of a population of some 140 million, most aged between 18 and 39. However, other estimates place the figure higher and even Ivanov acknowledged in March that there are more than 5.1 million drug users in Russia, almost double the figures from 2002.