Pubdate: Mon, 05 Aug 2002
Source: Santa Fe New Mexican (NM)
Copyright: 2002 The Santa Fe New Mexican
Contact:  http://www.sfnewmexican.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/695
Author: Judith Ingram, Associated Press

RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES STRUGGLE TO HOLD BACK A RISING TIDE OF DRUGS

MOSCOW-Hidden inside cabbages, hollowed walnuts, even the bellies of 
desperately poor pregnant women, Afghan heroin steadily flows into Russia, 
joining a stream of illegal drugs that officials warn is a growing threat 
to the nation's stability.

Over the past half decade, Russia has become a major way station on the 
trafficking route from Afghanistan to European markets.

After a monthlong lull at the start of the war in Afghanistan last fall, 
the trade has picked up again, Russian police say. They report seizing a 
half ton of heroin so far this year, along with more than 940 kilograms 
(2,068 pounds) stopped on the border between Afghanistan and the former 
Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

"We expect a flood of drugs, which are now growing in Afghanistan, in the 
second half of the year," said Oleg Kharichkin, deputy director of the 
Russian Interior Ministry's narcotics division.

Afghanistan isn't the only culprit. Traffickers use organized crime 
channels to ship cocaine from Latin America through Russian seaports to 
Europe and the United States. Peddlers bring in ephedrine from China. 
Amphetamines and other synthetic drugs come from Europe, especially Poland. 
Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Belarusians smuggle in poppy straw.

But it is Afghan heroin that has become the narcotic of choice for addicts 
in Russia, where more than 3 million people are estimated to be hooked on 
drugs. That is nearly 2.1 percent of the population, which compares to 1.6 
percent in the United States, as estimated by the U.S. Office of National 
Drug Control Policy.

Just as worrisome, the heroin trade finances numerous militant groups along 
Russia's restive southern flank, threatening security within Russia and its 
neighbors.

"Extremists need a lot of cash. For them, drugs are fast, easy, good 
money," said Lt. Gen. Konstantin Totsky, chief of Russia's border guards.

Carried by donkeys and human couriers across the Pyandzh River and the 
rugged Pamir Mountains, which form Afghanistan's northern border with 
Tajikistan, heroin is then smuggled over the mountains of Uzbekistan or 
Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan, and from there across the sparsely patrolled, 
7,000-kilometer (4,435-mile) frontier with Russia. The U.S.-Mexican border 
is half as long and "10 times less rugged," an American embassy official says.

Russia has 10,700 border guards monitoring the Tajik-Afghan border, along 
with 10,000 Russian soldiers. Hardly a day goes by without a skirmish. Some 
drug couriers are killed, while others escape back into Afghanistan, 
abandoning their precious cargos for the troops to burn.

"At present, on the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, there are about 
seven tons of opium and almost two tons of heroin already warehoused and 
ready for transport to Russia and Europe," said Kharichkin, the Interior 
Ministry official.

Russia is seeking money from the United Nations and Western nations to beef 
up security on the drug routes. Negotiations also are under way to provide 
satellite imaging information on poppy cultivation to the Afghan 
government, said Lt. Gen. Alexander Sergeyev, chief of the Interior 
Ministry's anti-trafficking department.

In the meantime, smugglers are spreading drugs across Russia. Besides 
selling in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large transport hubs, heroin 
gangs concentrate on cities in the oil and gas regions of Siberia and the 
Far North, where salaries are higher and potential markets richer.

One major crossroads in the trade is the Ural Mountains city of 
Yekaterinburg, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the Kazakh border 
and a gateway between Asia and the more densely populated European part of 
Russia. The city is a magnet for seasonal workers from Central Asia, and 
police say they run drug-smuggling businesses out of the city's wholesale 
produce market. Men, women and children take part.

"More and more we're seeing women in early stages of pregnancy carrying 
drugs. For 500 dollars they're prepared to carry heroin in their abdominal 
cavities," said Fyodor Anikeyev, an officer in the Yekaterinburg narcotics 
squad. "Seeing their pale, unhealthy look, agents (at the airport) 
naturally pick them out, but doctors refuse to X-ray them so the babies 
won't be harmed."

Official corruption also plays a role. Nazir Salimov, head of the 
Yekaterinburg squad, said two top Tajik police officials were arrested in 
the city in June for trying to sell a large consignment of heroin.

The same month, in Tajikistan, a former deputy defense minister was charged 
with drug trafficking after allegedly ordering use of a military helicopter 
to drop off 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of opium and 0.5 kilograms (1 pound) 
of heroin.

Activists working with addicts allege Russian officials are deeply 
involved, too.

"There's a huge level of corruption in law enforcement agencies at all 
levels in Russia," said Father Anatoly Berestov, a neuropathologist and 
Russian Orthodox monk who runs a drug treatment center at the 17th century 
Krutitskoye church in central Moscow.

Interior Ministry officials deny the charge.

Berestov and others also complain that the main police effort appears aimed 
at punishing drug addicts, not traffickers.

People charged with possessing even a small amount of marijuana face up to 
the three years in prison. If they help a friend get the drug, they can be 
sentenced to seven to 15 years for distribution.

"Why is there enough money to maintain these prisoners but not enough for 
real anti-drug campaigning?" said Anna, a 23-year-old former heroin addict 
who works at the Krutitskoye center.

Prevention programs are nearly nonexistent, and the decade following the 
collapse of the Soviet Union has seen the steady closure of 
government-funded youth clubs and recreation centers that kept many 
children and teenagers out of trouble.

Seventy percent of Russia's 450,000 officially registered addicts are 25 
and younger, and most start using drugs at age 14 or 15.

Experts and addicts alike say the spiritual crisis and particularly the 
permissiveness that gripped the country after the Soviet collapse - 
including an explosion of pornography, movie and TV violence, and 
unfettered teenage drinking - have fueled the problem.

"This atmosphere of 'everything is permitted' has overwhelmed everyone," 
said Anna, who declined to give her last name. "Plus there's the situation 
at home, where parents are running around trying to figure out how to make 
enough money to feed their children."

Rehabilitation programs are few, and patients must pay for treatment in 
almost all of them, in contrast to the Soviet era, when alcohol and drug 
treatment were not only free but also mandatory.

The program at Berestov's 4-year-old center, which is financed entirely by 
donations, includes psychological and medical counseling, work at the 
center or a nearby monastery, and a heavy regimen of prayer. He claims an 
80 percent cure rate for the 3,000 addicts treated.

Traveling widely throughout Russia, Berestov appears often on television 
and radio, prompting a stream of tearful mothers dragging hollow-eyed 
children to the Krutitskoye center.

"They're all former criminals, even murders," the monk said matter-of- 
factly. "But I'm not a police officer. I'm a priest, and my role is to repair."

The police say their interdiction efforts are beginning to bear fruit. 
Heroin is becoming harder to get, and its price is rising - reaching about 
935 rubles (dlrs 30) per gram (0.04 ounces) in Moscow, three times the 
price in 1999.

Doctors say that the number of newly registered drug users 18 and under 
fell by about a third last year and that deaths by overdose, arrests of 
suspects in a drug-induced state and drug-provoked psychoses are also down.

But Berestov, who gets new patients every day, says he hasn't seen any 
letup. If anything, he and other experts say, young people are just turning 
to different substances, including strong over-the-counter medicines as 
well as Russia's traditional addiction - alcohol.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth