Law enforcers of Caspian states focusing on Afghan drug threat.

12/10 Tass 15

VOLGOGRAD, October 12 (Itar-Tass) - Head of the Russian Federal Drug
Control Service (FSKN) Viktor Ivanov on Tuesday is taking part in a
meeting of officials of law enforcement agencies of the Caspian states, at
which issues of stopping the illegal flow of Afghan drugs through the
Caspian Sea are under discussion, the FSKN press service department for
the Astrakhan region told Itar-Tass.
"Taking part in the meeting are representatives of the competent
bodies of the Russian Federation, Republic of Kazakhstan, Republic of
Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran and Republic of Turkmenistan," the
press service said specifying that the meeting will end on October 13.
Specialists of the FSKN note that Afghanistan accounts for 95 percent
of the world heroin production. Russia consumes 35 tonnes of heroin every
year. In the per capita opium consumption Russia is first in the world.
About 2.5 million Russians are drug addicts, and almost 90 percent of them
use heroin. As many as 30,000 drug addicts die each year, but 80,000
people test drugs for the first time.
Viktor Ivanov said earlier that "since the beginning of September
alone, 110 kilograms of heroin, about 6 tonnes of marijuana, nearly 100
kilograms of hashish and 1.6 kilograms of desomorphine, what in total is
equivalent to 20 million single doses, have been confiscated in Russia."
Generally, since the beginning of the year about 30 tonnes of drugs have
been confiscated in the country, including 6 wholesale batches, activity
of 12,000 criminal groups has been stopped and 5,500 drug dens have been
liquidated.
Ivanov particularly stressed that the demand for desomorphine is
growing among drug addicts. "As many as 35 kilograms of it have been
confiscated since the start of the year, which is four times more than
over the whole past year," the FSKN head noted. "It is not accidentally,
because the volume of sold codeine-containing medicaments in pharmacies
has increased nearly 10 times over the past five years." The agency's head
is certain that this growth of sales "is caused exclusively by the demand
of drug addicted persons."
The Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation is a
federal body of executive authority responsible for drafting state policy,
legal regulation, control and monitoring in the sphere of combating
trafficking drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors. The
Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation is specially
authorized to address and solve problems in the sphere of traffic in
narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors, as well as
in the field of combating their illicit trafficking.
-0-ezh