moaksey's Flickr Photostream/Creative Commons

In what is always a good first step, Russia has admitted it has a full blown heroin epidemic. In a recent meeting with journalists, Viktor Ivanov, the top Russian drug enforcement official said of the heroin crisis, “It’s a threat to our national security, our society, and our civilization itself,”. He also estimated there were currently over 2,000,000 smack addicts in the country, which amounts one out of every 50 Russian working adults.

This doesn’t exactly come as news to anyone who’s been following events on the ground, but it is a marked shift from official government policy in the past, when discussion of any such information was forbidden.  Indeed for years Russian officials were also loathe to discuss the devastating effect AIDS, a disease obviously closely linked to intravenous drug users, was ahving on its population.  Let’s hope this new era of Russian openness regarding public health issues results in lower addiction and HIV infection rates in the years to come.  You can takepart in helping those suffering from HIV/AIDS by checking out Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

LINKS:

Daily Telegraph (UK): Russia is ‘world’s biggest consumer of heroin’

BBC: Russia now ‘top heroin consumer’

The Moscow Times: Heroin seen as threat to security