Russia and US agree to step up joint fight against drugs

Russia, US to step up drug fight

MOSCOW — Russia on Thursday hailed a new agreement with the United States intended to boost joint anti-drug efforts, but urged the U.S. and NATO to do more to stem a flow of drugs from Afghanistan that has sickened millions of Russians.

The deal signed by Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Russia’s drug control chief Viktor Ivanov, envisages setting up groups of experts to plan joint action in combatting drugs and also steps to curb demand for drugs and toughen law enforcement and coordinate legislation.

Kerlikowske told reporters after the meeting that he promised Ivanov to monitor and assess the U.S. and Afghan governments’ efforts to “interdict drug supplies, particularly those drug supplies headed to Russia,” combat drug laboratories and drug storage facilities. He added the U.S. and Russia will also “work cooperatively on drug traffickers and financiers.”

Ivanov hailed the agreement as a key component of U.S.-Russian efforts to “reset” relations that became badly strained under the previous U.S. administration.

But he also urged the U.S. and NATO forces to do more to combat Afghan drugs which have become a major threat to Russia’s security.

“The efficiency of international drug-fighting efforts in Afghanistan needs to be strengthened,” Ivanov said. “We agreed that the result of our work should be a significant reduction in drug production in Afghanistan.”

He criticized an international conference on stabilizing Afghanistan held in London last week for failing to offer specific steps to fight drug production in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan provides more than 90 percent of the heroin consumed in the world, and the bulk of it flows through ex-Soviet Central Asia and Russia.

The problem of drug abuse is of vital concern for Russia — where cheap, abundant Afghan heroin has helped fuel a surge in addiction rates, and injection drug use has been a key factor in the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

Ivanov said in an interview published Thursday that there are about 2 million opium and heroin addicts in Russia and another 3 million people who use other drugs. Authorities said that about 30,000 die each year of drug overdoses.

Ivanov has strongly urged Washington to continue the Bush administration’s policy of large-scale eradication of opium crops in Afghanistan.

But some U.S. officials have called earlier crop eradication tactics ineffective and claimed that they boosted support for the Taliban. Instead, the Obama administration has focused on targeting drug labs and encouraging farmers to raise alternative crops.

Kerlikowske said Thursday the U.S. is making “the very best efforts” to combat drugs by offering emphasis on offering rewards to Afghan provincial governors for reducing opium fields and providing alternative crops to farmers so that poor farmers don’t fall into the hands of the Taliban.

He stressed that other priorities include tracking down the traffickers and their financiers, cracking down on drug labs and opium and heroin caches and tracking down shipments of chemicals used in heroin production.

Kerlikowske said Russia and the U.S. will “exchange information on a very trustworthy and credible basis and a very timely basis in order to cut the head off the snake, in order to go after the finances, in order to go after those individuals that are trafficking.”