Ivan loves smack

THE INDEPENDENT has an interesting update on the Russkie passion for heroin, by Shaun Walker, a journalist in Moscow. Russia finally admits to its hidden heroin epidemic:

"It's a threat to our national security, our society, and our civilisation itself," said Viktor Ivanov, Russia's top drugs official, at a meeting with reporters recently. He estimated that there are more than two million drug addicts in Russia, which amounts to one addict for every 50 Russians of working age, a level that is up to eight times higher than in EU countries.

Apparently in Europe, the War on Drugs hasn't succeeded. This, according to Duncan Campbell at The Guardian in a piece titled "Ten wasted years: UN drug strategy a failure"

Referring to the UN's existing strategy, the authors declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."