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The iron curtain no longer exists. Since Gorbachev established Perestroika and Glasnost, everyone can see what is occurring in the East. As far as drugs and crime are concerned, the reality is rather grim, according to the picture given by the author in an article published on "Enquête sur la drogue - Revue scientifique européenne sur les problèmes de drogue - 5e année - cahier N.1 - Janvier-Février 1991". Berndt Georg Thamm, 44 years old, is a pedagogy graduate, professor at the Police Academy of Berlin, and free-lance journalist since almost twenty years in the field of the battle against drugs.

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Eastern Europe, a new market for drugs

The unification of the two Germanies on 3 October 1990 marked the end of the post-war period. After several decades, the cold war reached its conclusion, crushed by the pressure of the first democratic experiences and of the first changes in the economic systems in force until that moment in East European countries and in the Soviet Union. But there is also a reverse to such positive incidents. In this difficult period, the black market has expanded, and together with it several criminal organizations have proliferated, thanks to the illegal trade, the capital and the influence it enables. The threat represented by drugs is more dangerous than ever. It is for this reason that the countries of the former Eastern bloc, all sitting at the extraordinary session of the plenary assembly of the United Nations in February 1990, have suggested to call the last nine years of this century "Years against drugs". A suggestion which was accepted by 159 U.N. members states.

Eastern Europe or the battle against drugs and crime

At the end of September, in the Canadian city of Ottawa, the delegates of the international police organization, Interpol, agreed, from the beginning of the session, on accepting the representatives of the Soviet Union, of Poland and of Czechoslovakia as full-fledged members. Rumania and Hungary were already part of the 154 member states. It was the explosion of the drug problem in the last ten years in East European countries that lead to an unprecedented and unthought-of cooperation with Western police forces.

Yugoslavia has been denouncing drug abuse on its territory since 1979, Poland did he same in 1981. The former Socialist Czechoslovakian Republic has been doing so since 1984, Hungary since 1985 and the Soviet Union since 1986. A research published in June 1989 by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation in Bonn contained the most recent figures concerning drugs, AIDS and prostitution in Eastern Europe. From that report, we know that drug addicts in the Soviet Union total 131,000. In Poland, official estimates speak about 250,000 drug addicts, in Czechoslovakia 100,000 and in Hungary 50,000. And we must consider that the East European countries and the Soviet Republics are not even part of the circuit of the international heroin and cocaine trade.

The "compote"

The opium needs of the drug addicts of these countries are for the most part covered by the domestic production of these countries. Polish drug addicts, for example, boil poppy stems until they obtain a dark, sweet-smelling decoction, which they then inject as a "compote". Russian drug addicts can use the opiates coming from poppy plantations in the South of Ukraine, in the Trancaucasian Republics and in Central Asia. But poppies are grown also in the Ural, in Western Siberia and in the coastal regions of the Far East. We must also consider the geographic proximity between the Southern Soviet Republics and the vast Iranian and Afghan regions where poppies are grown, known as the Golden Crescent.

Is the Soviet Union a transit region for drugs? This is the warning launched in April 1989 by the head of the Dutch anti-drug squad, Erik Nordholt, when he informed us of the existence of a new route for heroin traffic from the Golden Triangle of Southern Asia via the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.

Thousands of criminal gangs

But reasons for concern lie not only in the growing number of drug addicts, in the domestic drug cultivations and in the existence of a new route for the drug trade. The establishment of a hierarchy, and the creation within such organizations of groups whose action is based on secrecy and on the division of tasks, on the conspiracy of silence and on a strategy of intimidation, are other characteristics of organized crime which are evident today in this sector. It is estimated that in the Soviet Union alone, there are thousands of criminal gangs spreading disorder. In March 1989, police officer Owtscharenko reported that between 1986 and 1989, 2067 groups, which corresponded to the characteristics of a criminal band, had been identified. In mid-September of that same year, foreign correspondents reported that the drug traffic found its source of supply in raw materials not only in Afghanistan, via the countries of Minor Asia, but partly also in the domestic plantations. And they added that this traffic was no

doubt favoured by the creation of criminal bands in the Soviet Union.

The battle against crime in the Soviet Union and in East European countries is more than just difficult. The police were until very recently the armed arm of the Communist State apparatus; the secret services, such as the KGB, represented organs of the Party, and not of the government. The citizens' distrust toward the executive power of their State has not disappeared with the changes that have occurred. To this we must add that, as a general rule, the police are poorly trained and that their salaries are also very low.

The example of Poland

As recently as April 1990, the police felt inferior in numerical size in its battle against the increasing tide of crime in Poland. New recruits were needed. In the police force of Warsaw alone, there were 3,200 vacant positions. A police officer's salary ranged between L.60 and L.65,000. The criminal groups, on the other hand, could lead a comfortable life and have free access to money and consumer goods. The drug trade is extremely profitable, whether it deals with imported amphetamines or "Polish heroin" (compote). In fact, demand is very high. In January 1990 the Polish Minister of Youth and Sports estimated that the people who had had experiences with drugs, chiefly cannabis and inhalants, in Poland were over 500,000. The number of youths that drug themselves with poppy concentrate is estimated to be 120,000.

The example of the Soviet Union

It is difficult to give a precise estimate of the number of people, excluding alcoholics, that are currently on drugs in the Soviet Union. One ascertained fact is that the number greatly exceeds 200,000. Its escalation in these last years is due chiefly to two factors, the first of which is the law to restrict the use of alcohol, passed in 1985. The campaign launched by Gorbachev against alcohol addiction has lead to a want of alcohol, which has for its part engendered a rise of drug abuse in the 10-20 age group. The second factor is the Afghanistan war (1979-1988). According to the available data, 70 percent of the soldiers engaged in the war took drugs during that period. However, these consequences of the war also have significant effects on "civilian" life. According to a 1989 survey, one of three drug addicts is less than thirty years old, and about 20,000 are not yet of age.

Approximately 300 kolkhoz and sovkhoz are authorized to grow cannabis and poppy on a fully legal basis. Despite this, illegal cultivations, such as those of wild cannabis, which cover millions of hectares of land in the regions of Southern Kazakhstan, are thriving and completely out of control, in the absence of funds and police personnel. In June 1990, the destruction of poppy fields along the river Serawschan, in the Soviet Republic of Tadzhikistan was announced, for an estimated value of 18 million rubles (about L. 35 billion). But these official bulletins, which boasted the achievements of the police, remain isolated exceptions. The experts in charge of the researches on drugs at the Ministry of Interior are well aware of this. As a general rule, the local drug barons work side by side with the local authorities.

Unlike all other trades, the drug traffic witnesses a constant growth in revenues. In August 1990, the Soviet TASS press agency published the first estimate communicated by the head of the KGB, Vladimir Kruschev. According to this survey, the turnover of the drug market amounted to approximately L. 9,200,000 billion. This traffic is gaining increasing weight in the ever-spreading context of the "black economy". A space which has expanded even more following the establishment of market economy, which has been pure magic for the progression of organized crime. According to a cautious estimate of the head of the KGB, in August 1990, 150 billion rubles were circulating in the sector of the black market (!). Groups of organized crime are allegedly working with tradesmen operating in the field of the cooperatives and of the Soviet-foreign ventures, which, to increase their profits, sell raw materials and food abroad at prices lower than their value.

There are no systems to carry out an effective control

The first surveys highlighted the fact that over 50 percent of the cooperatives created in these last years deal only with "intermediary services", which are more rapidly profitable from a financial point of view. Considering that to this moment no stricter control system of the financial and economic activities has been implemented, there is no effective system to control such particular activities. The increase of this type of ventures is fatal for the Soviet Union, where over 40 of its 280 million citizens live below the official poverty level (see enclosed diagram on "poverty, disorders and drug cultivation in the Southern Soviet republics 1988/1990"). This can explain the fact that a growing number of these poor migrate toward the Southern Soviet Republics to ensure their existence. In distant large cities, a kilogram of opium on the black market is sold for 70,000 rubles. A price which clearly does not correspond to the income of the poppy grower of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Kazakhstan. T

he bulk of the profit goes to the criminal organizations, given that they detain the control of the black market in almost all the Soviet Republics. And the more they develop, the more the general state of supplies in the Soviet Union degenerates. And, in fact, the state of the supply market, already in a pitiful state, has never been so serious as in this winter 1990-91.

The negative effects of this reform are visible not only in the Soviet Union. The policy of reforms (Perestroika) and transparency (Glasnost) conducted by Gorbachev since 1985 have direct and indirect effects also on East European States.

The example of Czechoslovakia

(...) The heritage collected by the Federal Czech and Slovakian democratic Republic also includes the consumption of drugs on the part of its youth. As far back as the beginning of December 1984, the party organ "Rude Pravo" reported that drug addiction was on the increase, and that it was impossible to give medical treatment to all drug addicts. In 1983, in Bohemia alone, 280 people had been sentenced for drug addiction. In June 1986 there were talks about a "tide of drug addiction striking at a society unarmed faced to this phenomenon". In the year of the major changes, the number of drug addicts was estimated to be approximately 100,000.

The example of Hungary

(...) Already in October 1985, the Hungarian MTI press agency was referring to the problem of drugs in the country. Whereas in 1970 there were at the most 200 drug addicts, in 1984/85 there were about 30,000. Between 1980 and 1985 their number tripled. In the year of the major changes, the number of drug addicts was estimated to be approximately 50,000.

The example of Albania

In 1985, with the death of Enver Hoxha, the President of the People's Republic (...) the country experiences a slight aperture to the sector of clandestine cigarette traffic from Italy to Albania via the Adriatic Sea. This "cigarette bridge" has been going on for years. It is in the port of Durazzo that the goods are disembarked. The supplies come from the Italian port of Brindisi, 140 Km away. This "Albanian connection" has been trading U.S. and British cigarettes chiefly. In Rome, the federation of tobacconists estimated that, in 1990, the Italian citizens involved in this "Albanian Connection" were earning about $3 million a year and that about $20 million were thus frauding Italian tax regulations. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that during the nineties, this illegal traffic toward foreign countries will be limited to tobacco only, and will not extend to drugs as well.

The example of Bulgaria

Of Bulgaria we know the threatening example of the eighties, when the drug trade was the object of a weird alliance, known as the "Bulgarian Connection" between a State commercial corporation (controlled by the secret services) and a Sicilian mafia family.

The European countries are about to give life to a vast "common home". The incidents in Eastern Europe cannot leave the countries of Western Europe indifferent. And as the President of the German Republic, Richard von Weiszacker, put it in his address on the occasion of the German unification on 3 October 1990, "the Western border of the Soviet Union cannot become the Easternmost border of Europe".

------------------------------------------------------------------Poverty, disorders and drug cultivations in the Southern Soviet Republics 1988/90.

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Soviet |Total |Main |Percent.|Percent.|Conflicts

Republic |Pop. |religion |Russian |of |revolts,

|(mill) | |pop. |poor |disorders

| | | | |in 1990

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Tadzhikistan | 4,8 |Islamic | 11,9% | 58,6% | no

Uzbekistan | 19,0 |Islamic | 10,8% | 44,7% | yes

Kirghizia | 4,1 |Islamic | 25,9% | 37,1% | no

Turkmenistan | 3,3 |Islamic | 12,6% | 36,6% | no

Azerbaijan | 6,8 |Islamic | 7,9% | 33,3% | yes

Armenia | 3,4 |Catholic | 2,3% | 18,1% | yes

Georgia | 5,2 |Catholic | 7,4% | 16,3% | yes

Kazakhstan | 16,2 |Islamic | 40,8% | 15,9% | yes

Moldavia | 4,1 | | 12,8% | 13,0% | yes

Ukraine | 51,2 | | 21,1% | 8,1% | yes

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Statistics on poverty published on "Moscow News" (Reuter 9.3.1990). In the Soviet Union, a poor person is a person earning less than 78 rubles (approximately L.155.000) a month. The average monthly salary of a citizen amounts to 250 rubles (approximately L. 495.000).

Of the 118 million of inhabitants of the 10 Southern Soviet Republics, 28 per cent live on a poverty level. The cultivation of drug-producing plants is often a matter of survival for the majority of them.

==================================================================Where poppy, cannabis and organized crime thrive ...

------------------------------------------------------------------This diagram shows the regions where drug-producing plants are grown, and the regions in which the percentage of crime is particularly high. The figures concern cases of drug abuse.

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Soviet | Drug cultivation Disorders

Republic |

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Tadzhikistan | from poppy to opium /

Uzbekistan | from poppy and cannabis yes

to opium

Kirghizia | poppy, cannabis /

Turkmenistan | poppy, cannabis /

Azerbaijan | cannabis yes

Armenia | cannabis yes

Georgia | poppy, cannabis yes

Kazakhstan | poppy, cannabis yes

Moldavia | ? yes

Ukraine | poppy, cannabis yes