22 Dec Russia has five million drug users
Moscow: Russia has about five million drug users, said the country’s drug controls chief.
“We have about five million drug users,” Viktor Ivanov, head ofRussia’s federal drug control service, said at a government meeting Tuesday.
“Not all of them have become real addicts,” he, however, added.
There have also been hundreds of thousands of HIV and hepatitis infections as a result of rampant drug abuse in the country.
Ivanov said while about 100,000 people are prosecuted for drug dealing every year, there remained a permanent “social order” for drugs inRussia.
Russia has been one of the countries hardest hit by heroin production in Central Asia, and President Dmitry Medvedev has called Afghan heroin a threat to Russia’s security.