From: insthemp@igc.org (Institute for Hemp)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: oscows Gowing Drug Problem
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:19:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1301300176:000:3213
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!insthemp    Jul 22 18:19:00 1992


Moscow Drug Culture pops up as old police grip slips Sunday June
21,1992 St Pioneer Press T. Elaine Carey Cox News Service Moscow
Now that the Soviet police state is gone a fledgling drug market
is taking root in Moscow.

More people are growing, making and taking drugs, said Nikolai
Osipov, the deputy director of RussiaUs version of the Drug
Enforcement Agency.

And, for the first time, drug dealers are using Russia as a
transfer point in shipping drugs from one western countri lo
another.

The Russian Par{lament itself last summer accidentally encouy)ged
drug abuse by dropping laws against consumption (though no against
production or sale) of drugs, as part of the process of restoring
long-absent human rights.  Foreign rights lawyers have since
advised Russia that making consumption of drugs illegal would not
be frowned upon by the international community.

Ironically, public drunkenness, with which the Russians had much
more experience, is still a crime.

Drug-related crimes in Russia Trippled!yn 1991, after averaging
about 6,000 cases a year in the 1980s, Osipov said.  About 52,000
drug addicts are registered.  That figure should be at least 1.5
million, said Osipov, who said all official figures are far to
low.

Because there is little money to police drug sales and perhaps a
lack of political will, health and governmental officials fear
that the problem will mushroom in this decade.  Osipov estimates
that drug crimes will at least double their 1991 level by 2000.

Russia has more than 2.4 million acres where cannabis grows wild,
and poppies grow wild and under cultivation in many of the Central
Asian Republics.  In the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow simply
ordered planes to fly over all these areas and defoliate them.

Although all former Soviet republics have agreed on paper to
cooperate on drugs, it is not clear that those fields will be
sprayed regularly.  The poor and tribal Central Asian republics
may not want to deprive their people of a lucrative source of
income.

Russians use mostly marijuana or a weak, barely processed
derivative of the poppy, Osipov said.

RWe donUt have gourmet drugs like you have.  . . . So we havenUt
even reached the heroin level yet,S Osipov said.  The jump in
consumption is among the under-30s, mostly in the big cities.

Virtually all drugs sold in Russia pass through Moscow, but more
than 90 percent of those arrested for selling are from outside the
city, Osipov said.

Some of the more refined drugs come from Afghanistan, Iran,
Pakistan, Osipov said.

And there are more cases of shipment through Moscow such as the
one earlier this year when 650 pounds of hash made in Jamaica was
shipped first to Moscow so it would be less suspicious when it
arrived in London.

Producing, supplying, or growing illicit drugs is still a crime,
despite elimination of the law affecting users, Osipov
emphasized.

Anyone producing drugs can be sentenced to up to 10 years in
qprison for the first offense and 15 years for a repeat.

Anyone selling or offering drugs to others - whether in their own
homes, at parties, or in drug houses - can be sent to jail for up
to 10 years.  The penalty for planting cannabis is up to eight
years.

@ZEND
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,sci.psychology,talk.politics.drugs