Drug Abuse in Russia Increasing – Official Figures

Text of report by Russian news agency Interfax

Moscow, 21 July: Over the past 10 years the number of people in Russia using drugs for non-medical purposes has gone up nine-fold and has reached six million people, a source within the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances has told Interfax.

The federal target programme, called Comprehensive Measures for Counteracting the Abuse of Drugs and their Illegal Trafficking for the years 2005-2009, submitted by the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances is to be discussed at a government sitting today.

The source noted that in 2004 the number of those suffering from mental and behavioural disorders linked to drug use amounted to 493,600. Sixty per cent of them are between 18 and 30 years old. The average number of drug users countrywide amounts to 379 people per 100,000 of population.

The source within the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances noted that one of the aims of the programme is to reduce the scale of illegal drug use in Russia by between 16 and 20 per cent, relative to 2004 figures. If the programme is implemented successfully, the reduction in the number of drug users will amount to between 950,000 and 1.2m people.

According to the data of the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, the illegal turnover of financial resources linked to illegal drug trafficking amounts to between 10bn and 15bn dollars a year.

The source said that currently approximately 300,000 people in Russia are registered as infected with AIDS. Sixty per cent of them caught AIDS following intravenous abuse of narcotic substances.