100,000 lives annually: Drug death toll triples in Russia

Around 100,000 people die from drug overdoses in Russia every year, worrying statistics from the country’s Federal Drug Control Service have revealed.

“28.7 people out of 100,000 among [the] urban population have died from overdose and drug related diseases in 2013. That’s 2.7 times higher than a year before,” Olga Mishina, deputy head of the Federal Drug Control Service, said, as quoted by Itar-Tass news agency. The social groups that are the most vulnerable to narcotics are young people and teenagers, she stressed.

Mishina was speaking at the annual All-Russian Congress of the Anti-Drug Volunteer Movement, which took place on the shores of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Region on July 1-7. Rehabilitation and socialization of drug addicts were among the main subjects discussed during the event. Mishina believes the police are doing everything they can, adding that stricter measures won’t help stop the spreading of drugs.

More effort should be put into preventive measures like the further development of the Anti-Drug Volunteer Movement in the country, she explained.

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