July 22, 1997

MOSCOW (Reuter) - About two million Russians are taking illegal drugs and more than 300,000 of them addicts, Interior Ministry officials told Interfax news agency Tuesday.

Last year there were five times as many recorded drug-related crimes as in 1990, Interfax said, without giving figures. Russian police and customs officials seized more than 50 tons of drugs, it added.

The ministry also closed down 718 illegal drugs laboratories last year and confiscated more than three tons of drugs manufactured by them, Interfax said.

One such laboratory, found in Moscow's Institute of Chemical Technologies, had been producing up to seven pounds of synthetic drugs a month with a street value of more than $240,000.

Last month an Interior Ministry statement put the current value of Russia's illegal drugs trade, largely in the hands of powerful organized criminal groupings, at around $7 billion a year, 650 times greater than in 1991.

The world's total illegal drugs trade is estimated at around $500 billion.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1077

23 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org