MOSCOW. June 7 (Interfax) - Over one million people have died throughout the world over the past decade due to the consumption of Afghan heroin, said Viktor Ivanov, Director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN).
"Today Afghanistan produces twice as many drugs than the whole world did ten years ago. Over the first decade of this millennium alone over one million people have lost their lives to Afghan drugs. More than 16 million suffered physically or morally," he told journalists on Monday.
"We are registering the deterioration and degradation of the situation there [in Afghanistan], which manifests in the growing number of clashes, rising tensions, and the increase in drug production," Ivanov said.
Russia is worried by the surge in drug trafficking from Afghanistan. According to the FSKN, Russia has several million drug addicts. The majority of them suffer from addiction to heroin supplied to Russia from Afghanistan through transparent borders with Central Asian countries.
Each year at least 30,000 people die from drugs, the FSKN said.