• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Legally Available Narcotics Fuelling Youth Drug Addiction Warns Russian TV

Posted on: Thursday, 20 January 2005, 18:00 CST

Excerpt from report by Russia TV on 20 January

[Presenter] A potent narcotic substance is openly on sale and, it turns out, it can be obtained without a prescription. In Moscow, three fledgling drug addicts have been arrested who, however, don't regard themselves as such. The pharmacists also do not describe the substance that they sold to the children as a narcotic. Here with the details is Oleg (?Murashev). [Passage omitted]

[Correspondent] Police officers found Aleksandr and his two friends in the doorway of an apartment block. The teenagers were sleeping. The detectives say it was a drug-induced stupor. They only regained consciousness at the police station. Aleksandr says he is not a drug addict. He bought the product completely legally.

The police went to find out exactly where he had got the substance from. It turned out to be a nearby pharmacy in Paveletskiy station. There it was confirmed that the medicine is freely on sale.

[Karina Popova, employee at pharmacy kiosk] This is a product that can legally sold without a prescription. You simply come and ask for it.

[Correspondent] Doctors say that such medicines are used in the army. It is found in their first-aid boxes and used to prevent severe shock when soldier wounded a long way away from a hospital. Detectives have evidence that this product was bought for the terrorists prior to the events in Dagestan [the Makhachkala house siege on 15 January]. Experts know how this medicine acts on a healthy person. If used regularly it definitely functions as a narcotic.

[Yevgeniy Bryun, director of the Moscow health department's centre for scientific and practical drugs studies] It is classified as a potent medicinal drug and there are special prescription forms [for this]. Pharmacists should only accept these forms, they have no right to distribute this substance without a prescription.

[Correspondent] This is not the first time the employees of the Federal Service for Drugs Trade Control have heard such a story. However they cannot do anything about it. In fact, sales of the substance are unrestricted.

[Ivan Yelisavetchenko, deputy head of the service for controlling the legal trade in narcotics, Moscow directorate of the Federal Service for Drugs Trade Control] This issue has been raised on several occasions by Interior Ministry agencies and more recently by the drugs control agencies. However, the decision to include this medicine on the list of controlled substances has not yet been taken.

[Correspondent] According to the police officers, the case of the arrested teenagers is typical. And there is a whole list of other similar substances which are well-known to experienced drug addicts. The use of such substances by school children often precedes the use of heavier drugs.

Now Aleksandr, Yevgeniy and Vasiliy will have to attend a rehabilitation course. The experts say that in their case all is not already lost.

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

More News in this Category