Afghanistan Heroin + Russia's Addicted Populace = U.S. Help?
Russia's proximity to Afghanistan has put its men and women at high risk of becoming exposed to heroin and this highly addictive drug is destroying lives to the point where the U.S. has been asked to intervene.
One aspect of the war in Afghanistan that is not receiving as much attention as 
other major issues are the effect of the country’s drug trade- specifically heroin.
Poppy seeds, which yield heroin, are a lucrative crop for Afghan farmers. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime estimated that in 2008, poppy farmers in Afghanistan earned about $730 million in sales. The flood of heroin from Afghanistan is causing heroin addiction in neighboring Russia to reach epidemic levels and the country is reaching out to the United States to help stop the flow.
The Facts about Heroin in Russia
• Russia is estimated to have between 1,500,000 to 6,000,000 heroin addicts
• Russia has had around 30,000 heroin-related deaths a year—About 80 people a day die of heroin overdoses in Russia, according to Health Ministry officials
• The rise in heroin usage is causing an increase in the spread of HIV. AVERT, the international AIDS charity, states that since 2001, the number of people infected with HIV in Russia has more than doubled. Because of a lack of a needle exchange program, the risk of transmission is high.
Afghanistan’s Role in the Heroin Problem in Russia
According to Viktor Ivanov, the Director of Russia’s Federal Drug Control, Russia’s geographic proximity to Afghanistan plays a major role in the inflow of heroin. The drug enters Russia from Afghanistan through borders in remote areas that have weakened security. Ivanov feels that more must be done to stop the cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan in order to help prevent the trade.
Viktor Ivanov suggests that herbicides be used from the air to destroy crops, citing the success of such efforts in Colombia with cocaine. Without the eradication of the drug industry in Afghanistan, the country could have problems in its efforts of creating a democratic society.
The United States Point of View
The United States, on the other hand, has strategic reservations and feels that the destruction of poppy fields in Afghanistan could worsen the war and cause farmers to join the Taliban. Washington thinks that the efforts so far towards crop eradication has been a failure and is not been effective in terms of winning the war. The Taliban is not affected and it has the added harm of putting farmers out of work.
In fact, Richard Holbrooke, the US’s top envoy for Afghanistan, states that the US is going to phase out crop eradication. Instead, it would focus on the interception of drugs and chemicals used in production and encourage farmers to grow alternative crops. The UN has reported that opium production in Afghanistan has fallen this year and that is attributed to this policy.
The Criticism of Russia’s Solution to its Drug Problem
The core of Russia’s drug problem may not lie in the flow of heroin from Afghanistan, but could be rooted in its approach in dealing with the issue. Russia’s focus on dealing with addiction has emphasized punishment instead of recovery or heroin addiction treatment.
Known heroin addicts are placed in the “narcological register”. Once on there, they are unable to do things such as obtain clean needles without being arrested.
Russia as a country has not found a recovery method that works. The crisis is only going to get worse and blaming it on the supply of heroin could miss the broader issue at large. To exacerbate efforts towards curing the country’s heroin addiction problem, Russia currently has a national crisis with alcoholism. These drug and alcohol problems have been attributed to Russia’s low life expectancy. For men living in Russia, they are only expected to live 60 years, compared to almost 80 in other European countries.
If You Need Help
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- article by Khoi Nguyen
