A large-scale drug addiction threatens Russian security, the State Council working group said in a report on tougher measures against drug addiction among young people. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will chair a meeting of the State Council presidium in Irkutsk on Monday.

 

A tougher criminal responsibility for inciting underage children in drug trafficking and the introduction of drug addiction tests at the schools are among the priority measures.

“The number of only officially registered drug addicts grew nine times against 1996 to reach over 600,000 people now,” the experts said in the report. “The real number of drug addicts in Russia is estimated at about 2-2.5 million people or about two percent of country’s population. They are mainly young people,” the experts said.

“The law enforcement agencies reported that 53% of people, who committed drug-related crimes, are under 30 in 2010,” the experts cited the statistical report.

“The annual economic damages from the spread of drug addiction in Russia makes about one trillion roubles or more than two percent of GDP,” the report runs.

As complex measures for the struggle against drug addiction among young people the working group “offers a new anti-drug model of this work that envisages more intensive measures for the social rehabilitation of drug addicts and their comeback in the socially active environment along with more efficient drug addiction preventive measures.”

 

The working group believes that “the elimination of negative phenomena (from drug addiction) needs the state programs seeking to resolve general social tasks should to be harmonized better with drug addiction preventive measures.”

“The regional executive authorities should develop the programs for the social rehabilitation of drug addicts, who passed a drug addiction treatment course, with vacancies and psychological consultations provided for them,” the experts assumed.

They noted that “regional chief executives should put under a tougher personal control the implementation of the programs to promote a healthy lifestyle, attract young people in going in for sports and to involve the growing generation in the public work.”

“We should take some measures to give all types of state support under the legislation, including the subsidies to socially oriented organizations of all types of property that are engaged in drug addiction prevention, upbringing, social and medical rehabilitation of drug addicts,” the experts believe.

One more measure, which the working group offers, is “a tougher criminal responsibility for inciting underage children in drug trafficking, seducing them in the use of drugs and psychotropic substances, and for masterminding and keeping drug houses.”

“The drug addiction situation in the country can be given an unbiased assessment thanks to the introduction of drug tests among the students and the personnel of the production enterprises with a high man-made disaster hazard during medical examinations in order to make the drug addiction prevention more efficient,” the State Council working group stated in the report.