Flood of Afghan heroin fuels drug plague in Russia

CHELYABINSK, Russia

In Miass, a small town west of Chelyabinsk near the foothills of the Ural Mountains, Elena Shapkovskaya has to call the police when heroin addicts crowd the shop and begin shooting up in plain view. "Sometimes we call an ambulance, millions addicted to heroin. annual death toll, tens of thousands. 60 metric tons arrivefrom Afghanistan each year

In 2008, 5 million frequent drug users. Russians who use opiates is the highest in the world. 940,000 HIV-positive adults and children in 2007,

Russian officials publicly blame America for the plague because almost all the heroin comes from U.S.-dominated Afghanistan, 'THE AMERICANS HAVE DONE NOTHING'

Chelyabinsk was Tankograd — "tank city" in World War II production of T-34. Now it has become a major transshipment center from Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The trade in 2001, it exploded. Afghan opium from 3,400 metric tons in 2002 to a record 8,200 metric tons in 2007

U.S. put a low priority on curbing it. Yekaterinburg is another big heroin-distribution hub north of Chelyabinsk

some Russian officials trace the growing problem to an American plot. Viktor Ivanov
"call the flow of Afghan opiates the second edition of opium wars." He was referring to the 19th-century war between Britain and China sparked by exports of opium from British India to China.

politicians in Russia who said that the Americans specially arranged the situation in Afghanistan so that we would receive a lot of drugs, and this is the real aim of their occupation," said Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament.

"I would say the entire international community is responsible a State Department official said. "So when critics like Russia say the U.S. and NATO aren't doing enough, well, it's really the entire international community that needs to take action on this."

In Russia, corrupt officials, the Russian mafia. It is impossible to do business in Russia without a "krysha", a "roof". It is unlikely that kryshas could operate the annual $15 billion drug without high-level contacts. Sporadic news reports narco-corruption occurs at senior levels of law enforcement. In 2002 or 2003 a dam had burst, local police taking bribes. "The Russian (criminal) groups are above the Tajiks and gypsies