Russia: victim of narco-aggression (The Hindu)

[reorg]

Russia: victim of narco-aggression
Vladimir Radyuhin

The U.S.-led NATO forces have not only failed to eliminate the terrorist threat from the Taliban but have also presided over a spectacular rise in opium production in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s narcotics have struck Russia like a tsunami threatening to decimate its already shrinking population. In a country of 142 million people, there are about 6 million drug-users — a 20-fold increase since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Overwhelmed by a flood of drugs from Afghanistan, Russia says it has fallen victim to “narco-aggression.”

The illegal drug turnover in Russia is estimated to be between $10 billion and $15 billion, discounting transit trafficking. The Federal Drug Control Service said earlier this month that as many as 30 million to 40 million people in Russia may have tried drugs at least once. Annually, some 80,000 Russians die of drug-related causes. One in five crimes committed in Russia is related to drugs.

Narcotics have become an integral part of the youth subculture. In Moscow alone, narcotics are sold at about 100 discothèques and cafes frequented by the young, the city drug control service reported last month. About 45 per cent of Russian university students use drugs, according to Russian Minister for Education and Science Andrei Fursenko. He described the situation as “critical.” The Moscow city government plans to introduce mandatory drug tests for all students in the Russian capital this year. Schoolchildren may be next in line for screening: some surveys indicate that four out of five young Russians are familiar with drugs. The Russian Parliament is planning to discuss a law to allow compulsory treatment of drug and alcohol addicts.

President Vladimir Putin has described the drug abuse problem in Russia as a “national calamity.” The catastrophic rise in drug addiction in Russia has been spurred by the painful transition from socialism to capitalism that Russia has been going through since 1991. But external factors have played a crucial role. Last year, Mr. Putin bluntly stated that Russia and Europe faced “narco-aggression.”

read more ... (The Hindu, Opinion page, Monday, February 04, 2008)

[libodem]

1. I wondered what we were doing with all that Heroin

silly me, I figured we were making Morphine, for all our wounded soldiers. We should be flooding poor, Baghdad. Those poor schmucks could use it. Who wouldn't want to OD, when being poisoned by sewage, is the alternative.