MOSCOW, July 19 (RIA Novosti) – About 200 million crimes related to the sale of opiates to users occur every year in Russia, the country’s drug czar said Friday.
Of the more than 8 million drug users in Russia, some 1.5 million use opiates and other hard drugs, Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Drug Control Service, told Radio Rossiya.
That means that about 1 percent of Russia’s population of 145 million are considered hard-drug users.
However, only a quarter of a million criminal cases related to opiate retail sales are opened annually, Ivanov added.
