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About 2 million Russians suffer from drug addiction, says interior minister

As many as 500,000 citizens are officially registered with the Russian Health Ministry over drug addiction

© Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The Russian Interior Ministry has reported about 2 million Russian citizens as suffering from drug addiction, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in an interview with the NTV channel.

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"As many as 500,000 citizens are officially registered with the Russian Health Ministry over drug addiction. These are official figures, but sociological surveys show that about 2 million our citizens are involved in this issue," the minister said, responding to the question on the number of drug addicts in Russia.

That said, Kolokoltsev noted that the war on drugs in Russia is successful and systematic. He reiterated that the activity of a large international drug network consisting of 10 branches was shut down in 2017. "They’ve been working on the territory of the Russian Federation for 10 years; there was even a power bloc for addressing arising issues. The chieftain of the drug network got life imprisonment for his actions for the first time in history, 14 members were jailed to 6 to 25 years, and 12 more members are internationally wanted. This work is systematic, and we indeed are stepping up our efforts," Kolokoltsev noted.

Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova earlier said that the spread of drug addiction in Russia has dropped by 17% from 2010 to 2017, that is by 58,500 people.

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