PRIME MINISTER CALLS FOR EFFICIENT MEASURES TO COMBAT DRUG-RELATED CRIMES








MOSCOW, March 13, 2001. /From RIA Novosti correspondent/. Drug-related crimes have today acquired a tremendous scale in Russia and constitute a real threat to the health of citizens and the country's future, said Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Tuesday. He was opening this year's first meeting of the government commission to counter-act drug abuse and drug-trafficking.


	Kasyanov believes that for combating that evil it would be  necessary to mobilize all resources, and not only those of the law-enforcement bodies, but also those of society as a whole.


	The Premier said that the use of drugs for purposes other than medical had grown more than 20-fold in Russia over the past few years.  The number of officially registered drug addicts totalled 450,000 as on January 1 of the current year. But that figure does not comply with the real state of affairs, stressed Kasyanov.  


	The Prime Minister noted that drug addiction provokes the spread of drug-related diseases, such as AIDS and Hepatitis.  According to expert forecasts, he went on, unless the situation is drastically changed, the number of AIDS-infected people may reach one million people by the year 2005.


	What causes particular concern is the spread of drug addiction among young people. Thus, went on the Prime Minister, the health of future generations is being jeopardized. At the same time drug addiction is spreading from large cities to the provinces.


	According to the law-enforcement bodies, said Mikhail Kasyanov, the annual volume of the illicit drug business runs into 70 billion roubles, which are in the hands of criminal dealers.  "Today Russia has become not only a country for the transit of drugs, but also a huge market for their consumption," stressed Kasyanov.


	The Prime Minister noted that the law-enforcement bodies have done a lot to combat that evil. In particular, last year more than 50 tons of drugs and psychotropic substances were confiscated, but that, said Kasyanov, is not even half the entire illicit traffic in drugs.


	To counter-act the spread of drugs is a task not only for the law-enforcement bodies, went on Mikhail Kasyanov. Much depends here upon the active social policy, the preventive and medico-social rehabilitation of addicts, for which coordinated actions of the bodies of health care, education, social protection, culture and sports organizations are imperative.


	"It is necessary to prevent drug addiction from becoming   an alternative to the healthy way of life, and the state must create conditions under which prerequisites would be created to enable the younger generation to conduct a healthy way of life," said Mikhail Kasyanov.  Society must help drug addicts to combat the evil, said the Prime Minister with conviction.


	The progress of the fulfilment of the federal program to counter-act the spread of drugs and their illicit traffic is, in particular, also discussed at the meeting of the government commission.