Heroin Addicts: UN Office Of Drugs And Crime Launches New Report – Talk Radio News Service

Heroin Addicts: UN Office Of Drugs And Crime Launches New Report – Talk Radio News Service: "widespread drug abuse in Russia, Iran and Western Europe–main buyers of opium from Afghanistan. Some 30,000 Russians now die from heroin addiction each year. There are two and a half million people (mostly youth) addicted to heroin throughout Russia. The underlying reasons seem to be linked to unemployment, social frustration and general youth disenfranchisement on domestic issues.
Iran has one of the highest proportion of hard drug users in the world as cheap opium and refined heroin easily flow over from the Afghan border. Some estimates put the number of heroin users as high as three million – one in 20 of the population.
“The whole issue is a problem of shared responsibility,” said Walter Kemp, Spokesperson for the UNODC in a phone interview from Vienna. “The question is how to reduce demand and at the same time improve health, justice and security. Afghanistan seizes only 4-5 percent of its drug production while it produces 90 percent of the world’s opium.”
UNODC’s largest criminal justice reform program is in Afghanistan, where the organization strives to rebuild human and infrastructural capacity, and develop national policies in areas of justice and counter-narcotics.
In the United States, the UNODC estimates around 800,000 heroin addicts"