Illicit trade in drugs in Russia fetches up to $10 billion a year - nearly a tenth of government budget revenues ?a drugs control officer said on Thursday. Oleg Kharichkin, deputy head of the Federal Drugs Control Service, said much of the drugs trade was taken up by opiates although the share of synthetic drugs such as amphetamines was growing, particularly among young users.

"Our preliminary figures for the size of the drugs business is about $8 to 10 billion this year," he told reporters. The Russian budget is expecting revenues of 3.10 trillion roubles ($106.9 billion) next year. Drug use in Russia has boomed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped push up rates in associated illnesses like HIV/AIDS. Kharichkin said there were about half a million drug users in the country.

Russia is also a key transit route for opiate trafficking from Afghanistan to Western Europe, and foreign governments are anxiously watching the country's drugs agency ?founded a year ago ?to see if it can curb the trans-shipments. In the first five months of the year, Kharichkin said Russia's drugs agency had seized some 900 kg (1,980 pounds) of heroin. The total haul this year looks certain to surpass the previous record of about 950 kg of heroin seized in 2000.

Officials are concerned the flow of drugs into Russia could increase when it pulls its border guards away from the Tajik-Afghan border, a major transit point for drugs bound for Europe. "It is hard to say what proportion of the drugs we seized were going to Europe, maybe a half, maybe a third. But it is almost certain that at least a fifth would have ended up there," Kharichkin told a news conference.

Even a fifth of 900 kg would be worth tens of millions of dollars if sold on the streets of a western European capital, although much of it would remain in Russia, Kharichkin said. "Some 65 percent of drug use arrests in Russia are related to opiates, such as heroin," he said.

"But there is a serious tendency among the young towards synthetic drugs such as amphetamines, which are used in clubs and discos." And, although the agency was intensifying efforts against drugs, Kharichkin said it had only managed to confiscate 72 million roubles ($2.48 million) in illegal proceeds this year.

"This was in the form of flats, cars, dachas or country homes, money and other property," he said. ($1=29.02 Rouble)

back | to top | full article >>