Moscow: Russia has about five million drug users, said the country's drug controls chief.
"We have about five million drug users," Viktor Ivanov, head of Russia's federal drug control service, said at a government meeting Tuesday.
"Not all of them have become real addicts," he, however, added.
There have also been hundreds of thousands of HIV and hepatitis infections as a result of rampant drug abuse in the country.
Ivanov said while about 100,000 people are prosecuted for drug dealing every year, there remained a permanent "social order" for drugs in Russia.
Russia has been one of the countries hardest hit by heroin production in Central Asia, and President Dmitry Medvedev has called Afghan heroin a threat to Russia's security.
IANS
First Published: Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 15:44