Drug abuse
The real situation of drug use and drug addicts is not known. The official data of drug-related crime is presented in tables 5. We can see that this rate increased from 8.6 in 1988 up to 167.3 in 2000 and decreased to 126.9 in 2003.
The official rate of drug and heavy substance users in Russia increased from 25.7 in 1985 up to 195.7 in 1998. The official rate of drug addicts increased from 1.3 in 1980 to 31.0 in 1997 (Human Development Report in the Russian Federation, 1999: 69). Most of offenders of drug-related crime (80-90 %) were convicted for actions without intention to sell (table 6). Consequently, the «war on drugs» is a «war on drugs users»… The Russian drug police is ineffective and there is extensive drug trafficking (Gilinskiy, Zazulin, 2001; Paoli, 2001).
