The Russian government is once more refusing to accept responsibility for yet another form of suffering it has imposed on its people – heroin use, addiction and the various associated health crises. It is doing its best to lay the blame on others for the drug use epidemic and ensuing HIV crisis by stepping up its criticism of the USA and NATO for not doing more to stop the flow of heroin from Afghanistan into Russia. This internationally staged political theatre is intended to create the illusion that Russia’s current HIV and drug use epidemics are a direct result of the war in Afghanistan. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Russia's politicians are blaming a heroin epidemic on the proliferation of poppy fields in Afghanistan, yet their own flawed drugs policy — which victimises drug users — is surely as much to blame. Photo: flickr/isafmedia
Russia today has an estimated four million active drug users, one of the highest percentages in the world. The Russian Ministry of Health estimates that drug use rose by 400% between 1992 and 2002, that is during the ten years prior to the USA/NATO invasion of Afghanistan. As early as 1999 it was perfectly obvious to international organizations working there that Russia was experiencing a wave of HIV infections related to injecting drug use. While in many parts of the world sexual contact is the primary means of transmission, in Russia about 80% of the estimated 940,000 people currently living with HIV were infected through injecting drug use. There is little doubt that Russia today is in the grip of an HIV epidemic. Most troubling is the UNAIDS report, which indicated that, as of the end of 2002, Eastern Europe and Central Asia had the world’s fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. In this region, Russia has by far the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS (in abbreviation PLWHA), and the fastest growing number of infections.
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