19.07 Russia Yearly Sees 200M Crimes Related to Opiate Sales to Users
MOSCOW, July 19 (RIA Novosti) About 200 million crimes related to the sale of opiates to users occur every year in Russia, the countrys 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 Russias 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.
