Ryssar och droger...

Psykologen Marilyn Murray analyserar vidare i Moscow Times. Denna gång berättar hon om ökande drogberoende hos naiva och oinformerade ryssar.

Läs hela artikeln här. 

Alcoholism had been a problem in Russia for centuries, but drugs were not a hazard until recent years. Many of the young conscripts who came home from the devastating war in Afghanistan in the 1980s were addicted to heroin. Then, with the fall of the Soviet system, organized crime groups flourished as drug traffickers swept in huge profits from this new, untouched market. 

Afghanistan has continued to play a role as its production of heroin flows into Russia via Central Asia. Russia now can claim the title of the largest consumer of heroin and the fastest growing drug traffic in the world, with about 5 million drug users, an increase of 60 percent since 2000.
In addition, the small towns and villages strewn across the country that once depended upon Soviet industry are now decaying with poverty and joblessness. Thus, the people living there, especially the young, are vulnerable to the deadly call of drug addiction.

In 2002, a new killer of Russia's youth emerged called krokodil. An easily made designer drug used as a substitute for heroin, krokodil is three times more powerful than heroin and up to 10 times cheaper. The lethal components include gasoline and paint thinner, both extremely poisonous when injected.
Krokodil's narcotic ingredient is codeine, which until recently was readily available without a prescription in Russia. This accessibility transformed krokodil into a primarily Russian drug. Krokodil first appeared in Siberia and the Far East but then spread throughout the country.

Krokodil now is probably the most destructive of all addictions. It destroys the brain and literally eats the body. Photos on the Internet show hideous scenes of rotting flesh literally falling off of teenagers and young men and women, even exposing bones. While the average life expectancy of an active heroin addict is five to seven years, a krokodil addict faces a grotesque future of agony and death within one to three years. Only 1 percent of krokodil addicts have been able to become sober, and they carry the long-term damaging effects of permanent brain damage with speech and motor skill defects.

Despite widespread knowledge of codeine's contribution to krokodil, a law making codeine prescription-only did not become effective until June 1. Hopefully, this will now reduce the devastating reign of krokodil in Russia's drug culture. But, unfortunately, the venom of drug addiction will continue to drive addicts to find another substitute.

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The Russian government basically tells drug addicts, "Get into treatment or go to prison." Regrettably, there is poor availability of competent treatment centers.
Successful treatment for any addiction needs to address not only helping the addict to become sober but also to discover the root cause of his or her behavior. Unless the core issues of pain, fear, hopelessness, abandonment, rejection, shame and worthlessness are also made a primary focus of treatment, recovery will only be temporary, and the addict will return to the primary addiction source or simply shift into another type of addictive cycle.

Education covering a broad spectrum of the consequences of addictions needs to be a national focus.
One of my colleagues recently shared that as a university student in the early 1990s, he and his friends knew nothing about drug addiction and its destructive aspects. He regarded the 19 other students in his class as close friends and, like them, he was curious when one of the friends introduced the rest to drugs. He tearfully related that only four of the 20 are still alive today, including the dealer. Sixteen young Russian men died in their prime because they were naive and because one of them was a greedy hedonist without a conscience.

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If a foreign enemy threatened the health and welfare of Russians, the government would instantly commit billions of rubles to combat the treacherous foreigners. Yet education and compassion regarding the devastating and deadly effects of addictions on Russian individuals and families has been sadly lacking. Apathy instead of action continues to be the order of the day.
Addictions will increase unless a major campaign is undertaken to educate the general populace and to provide effective treatment programs.