By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Drug addiction in Russia has increased almost tenfold since 1990 with significant impact on the country’s economy, the drug control authority said Wednesday.
Drug addiction costs the Russian economy around 1.5 trillion rubles ($54 billion) each year, or 2.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, Victor Ivanov, head of Drug control Service said.
Up to 30,000 people die a year from drug-related complications in Russia, he added.
Drug trafficking from Afghanistan has become an acute problem for the Central Asian republics, especially for Tajikistan, Ivanov said.
Since the Taliban regime was overthrown during the 2001 US-led campaign, Afghanistan, with almost all its arable land diverted to illicit poppy cultivation, remains the world’s leading producer of heroin.
Drug production in Afghanistan has increased 44 times since the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was deployed in the country, Ivanov said, stressing that the issue should be discussed at a session of the UN Security Council.
Ivanov said drugs kill tens of thousands of people across the world annually which is comparable to the destruction in a nuclear war in terms of human lives and loss of national resources and urged the to take up the issue with urgency.