Drug Deaths In Russia Reached 100,000 In 2006

(RFE/RL) March 21, 2007 -- About 100,000 people died from causes linked to drug abuse in Russia last year, according to statistics announced today by Viktor Khvorostyan, the head of the Moscow branch of the Federal Drug Control Service.

Speaking at a youth forum against drugs, Khvorostyan said Moscow alone has some 30,000 registered drug addicts, most of them young people.

Drug use in Russia was largely unknown in communist times, but exploded after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

(ITAR-TASS)