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Russian addicts daily spend $67.7 million on drugs

According to Federal Drug Control Service head, use of drugs undermines the country’s economy

© TASS/Mikhail Pochuev

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International drug chieftain detained in Moscow

KAZAN, September 24. /TASS/. Seven-and-a-half-million Russian drug users daily spend up to 4.5 billion rubles ($67.7 million) on drugs, syphoning off up to two trillion rubles from national GDP, the Federal Drug Control Service head said on Thursday.

"Use of drugs undermines the country’s economy," Viktor Ivanov said in a report at a congress of psychiatrists in Kazan, capital of Russia’s Tatarstan republic.

In other remarks, he said drug users were committing 340,000 crimes a day. Some 4.5 million people had been brought to justice for drug-related crimes over the past 20 years, he said, calling for a "strategic position of the community of psychiatrists," and noting "priceless experience of domestic psychiatry in that issue".

The 16th Congress of Russian Psychiatrists in Kazan brings together more than 1,300 research officers and health professionals. Specialists from across Russian regions, Germany, Italy, Croatia, the United States and Australia are attending.

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