Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005
Source: Moscow Times, The (Russia)
Copyright: 2005 The Moscow Times
Contact:  http://www.moscowtimes.ru/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/903
Author: Carl Schreck
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

BATTLEFIELD VIEW OF THE WAR ON DRUGS

Andrei leaned back on the couch, hands on his balding pate, and sighed.

"This happens every time," he said.

A veteran city police investigator, Andrei had planned to bust a heroin 
dealer later that day, but the small-time dealer his informants had been 
tracking had split town. It was a Sunday afternoon, and he was in the 
office as usual.

Andrei, 39, is a foot soldier in Russia's war on drugs, an undertaking that 
has received the vocal backing of President Vladimir Putin but which 
critics claim has accomplished little more than throwing minor drug 
offenders into the notoriously overcrowded prison system, more notable for 
rampant tuberculosis and AIDS than its corrective capabilities.

On the condition that his real name and specific department not be 
identified, Andrei agreed to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Russia's 
drug war, currently being fought by four agencies: the Federal Anti-Drug 
Service, the Federal Customs Service, the Interior Ministry and the Federal 
Security Service, or the FSB.

As a city police investigator, Andrei's work is ultimately overseen by the 
Interior Ministry. He typically arrives early to work, though his workday 
officially starts with a 9 a.m. meeting, where he and his five colleagues 
and two superiors discuss what everyone has on their plates for the day, 
which could be anything from meeting with informants to heading out for 
reconnaissance work or a bust.

After the half-hour meeting, Andrei returns to the office he shares with 
his five colleagues. Typically, he pores over the 1,200-page dossier on 
drug users, dealers and convicts that he has compiled in eight years of 
fighting drugs in his district. He also uses the time to work on intricate 
flow charts tracking the drug rings he's trying to crack. There's not much 
else to do in the morning.

"If someone's a narkoman, he's usually asleep right now," Andrei said, 
using the blanket pejorative for drug addicts and casual users. "Things 
don't usually get busy until the evening."

Andrei doesn't suffer drug addicts easily, suggesting at one point that he 
wouldn't mind if they had their status as citizens revoked. He then 
backpedaled a bit.

"There are different levels of drug addicts," he said. "You have the lowest 
of the low with the criminal element, but there are some well-educated kids 
- -- kids with good educations who read books -- who just get hooked on drugs 
and can't get off."

The concession seems appropriate, given the importance of the drug addicts 
for Andrei's work. The primary weapon in his battle is a network of petty 
drug offenders who have agreed to cooperate and inform -- some in exchange 
for having criminal charges against them softened or dropped altogether, 
some in exchange for free drugs.

But the contempt lingers nonetheless, even for those who help him.

"See that cup?" he said, pointing to a black coffee cup resting on a safe 
in his office, right next to the television. "Whatever you do, don't drink 
out of it. That's for drug addicts, and you know they have AIDS and 
hepatitis and things like that."

On that Sunday afternoon, Andrei called one of his main informants -- 
Zhenya -- into the office and told him that the planned bust of the heroin 
dealer had been called off and that they'd have to discuss a plan for 
catching a different dealer, an Uzbek.

Zhenya, also not his real name, is the 29-year-old son of a diplomat and 
has been hooked on heroin on and off for about eight years. He has already 
served two prison terms for possession, with sentences of six months and 
two years.

Zhenya has been informing for Andrei for about four years now, working in 
exchange for money some times, but usually for free drugs.

"Leave the room for a second," Andrei told Zhenya. Once the informant had 
made his exit, he took out a small package containing 1 gram of heroin from 
his black briefcase and set it on the desk. "OK. You can come back in now."

Zhenya returned, took the heroin from the desk and pocketed it, leaving the 
room again with Andrei's specific instructions not to snort it in the 
department's bathroom. An accidental overdose in the building would not sit 
well with Andrei's superiors.

"We would pay them money if we could, but I don't have any money. All I can 
offer him is drugs," said Andrei, who has access to drugs confiscated 
during arrests.

Zhenya was obviously high when he returned to Andrei's office 10 minutes 
later. He made himself a cup of tea in the designated drug-addict cup and 
began nodding off occasionally while answering questions about his work as 
an informant. He said he had had a few close calls with drugs dealers 
almost finding out he was a narc.

"But usually they're scared of you," he said. "If they know you're working 
with the police, they won't fuck with you. They value their lives more than 
yours. The most they'll do is threaten you. It's not like Chicago here."

Andrei left Zhenya alone in the office to go have a smoke in the bathroom 
- -- the building's de facto smoking room since his boss banned smoking in 
the office. When he returned, Zhenya told him he had already called -- 
without consulting Andrei -- and arranged to meet the Uzbek dealer that 
evening at a time when Andrei wouldn't be able to get enough men together 
to make a bust.

It was the second canceled bust on what was technically Andrei's day off.

Meager Resources

If Andrei's work schedule is heavy -- he said he spends around 18 hours a 
day, every day, working -- he said it might be tolerable with adequate 
compensation and resources.

But the impromptu tour he gave of his office made it clear that resources 
are scarce.

"If we moved out and left everything the government has given us, the only 
thing left would be the desks, the chairs and the safes," he said.

The computer, the fax machine, the spare monitor and the digital camera he 
uses to photograph suspects for the entire department are work tools he has 
bought himself since becoming a drugs investigator eight years ago. He was 
a regular beat cop before that, having joined the force in 1985.

"I could sell it all, but what would I work with?" he said.

The government earmarked close to 7 billion rubles, or roughly $250 
million, for Russia's drug war in 2004, according to the Finance Ministry 
web site.

It is a paltry sum compared to the $12 billion the United States spends 
annually on its war on drugs, and Andrei said that even the money that is 
allocated rarely trickles down to his department's operations.

"Officials tell us we're not doing a good enough job fighting drugs, that 
we should show the kind of results the Americans have," he said. "But look 
at the money and equipment the Americans have. How can we compete with that?"

Andrei said buying his own equipment is especially hard on his finances 
given his official salary, which totals a little more than 8,000 rubles, or 
about $290, per month. That is his salary as a veteran officer, while 
younger policemen receive considerably less. The result, he said is obvious.

"Every policeman is corrupt," he said, not excluding himself. It's just a 
question of degree.

"No one can live on such wages alone," he said. "It's just that some drive 
Ladas, while others drive Mercedes. You figure it out."

Andrei doesn't own a car, an indication, perhaps, of where he draws the line.

Some officers are selling drugs on the side, he said, while others take 
bribes in exchange for not filing criminal charges against a suspect. 
Andrei said he despises the former, while he has his own moral code when it 
comes to the latter.

"I never let a real bad guy off the hook," he said. "I never send an armed 
criminal back on the streets just in exchange for money."

He said he applied the same code to a job offer two years ago to work face 
control for a local nightclub, ostensibly to keep drug users and dealers 
out, but in reality to pluck the narcs out of line and send them packing 
while allowing only club-approved dealers to conduct business in the venue.

"They knew I knew all of the narcs and dealers in the district, and they 
were going to pay me $2,000 for two weeks of work per month," he said. 
"That's how well they judged my professionalism. But I couldn't do it. You 
can't just sell out your country for money."

Ever a believer in the drug war, Andrei nonetheless mustered up some cynicism.

"On the one hand, you have to look out for your homeland," he said. "But on 
the other hand, who's going to look out for you? It's a vicious circle."

What Is to Be Done?

Whether Russia's drug war in its current incarnation is actually protecting 
the country is eminently debatable.

Government officials claim Russia has around 4 million citizens who 
regularly take drugs. Viktor Cherkessov, head of the Federal Anti-Drug 
Service, told Politichesky Zhurnal in December that the situation is 
critical and Russia has "increasingly become a country with all of the 
signs of a developed drug subculture."

Government agencies and proponents of drug policy reform have been at odds 
over how to address the spread of drugs, the former advocating stricter 
legislation and punishment for drug offenders and the latter proposing 
softer punishment and medical treatment -- rather than incarceration -- for 
drug addicts.

A new law that came into effect in May allowing drug users to possess a 
greatly increased amount of an illegal substance without risk of being 
thrown in jail was praised by drug reform proponents and roundly criticized 
by Cherkessov and his agency, who see it as an added obstacle in the war on 
drugs.

Last year, 150,096 drug-related crimes were registered in Russia, a 17 
percent drop from 2003, according to the Interior Ministry's web site. Lev 
Levinson, head of New Drug Policy, an advocacy group for drug law reform 
established in 2003, said the drop was directly attributable to the new 
law, which hands out fines, rather than jail sentences, to minor offenders 
but has stipulated harsher punishments for dealers.

According to his group's estimates, 30 percent to 40 percent of the 
drug-related crimes registered in 2003 would now be considered only 
administrative violations, punishable by fine.

Given that the law only came into effect in May of last year, Levinson said 
the 17 percent drop in 2004 showed that a liberalized drug policy was 
effecting positive change in the war on drugs.

"The legislation is now in place to concentrate on dealers and drug barons 
and stop jailing people who are not criminals," Levinson said.

Andrei is not a fan of the new law.

"Now any drug addict can stand right outside a police station and openly 
smoke marijuana," he said. "All we can do is fine him."

However, he conceded, indirectly, that the law has helped curb police 
corruption.

"It was easier for cops to plant drugs on people, because they didn't have 
to plant very much," he said. Under the new law, possession of a gram or 
less of heroin is not a criminal offense.

"It's more difficult to plant a kilogram of heroin on someone," he said.

But opponents of liberalization have friends in high places.

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told the State Duma in December that 
the average age of drug users has gradually fallen since the early 1990s, 
which he blamed on society's gradual acceptance of drugs.

"Ten years ago almost the entire country viewed [drug addiction] extremely 
negatively, and in recent years we see television and other media outlets 
increasingly discussing possible full or partial legalization of drugs," 
Nurgaliyev said, Interfax reported.

The Federal Anti-Drug Service, with an army of 40,000 officers charged by 
Putin to crack down on drugs, officially came into existence on July 1, 
2003. It has courted controversy ever since its creation, however, most 
notably for aggressively seeking out veterinarians who use ketamine, an 
anesthetic commonly used in pet operations that was included on a list of 
illegal substances.

Drug policy reform activists say Cherkessov's service is redundant, since 
the Interior Ministry and Federal Customs Service already have the 
experience and structures in place to fight drug trafficking.

Andrei says that he'll press on fighting what he sees as the good fight, 
though he hesitated when asked if the war on drugs could actually be won.

"It's difficult to say," he said. "But at the very least, I think we can 
put up a good resistance."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager