Russian anti-drug chief urges elimination of global drug production centers

MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) - Viktor Ivanov, the chief of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, proposed on Tuesday putting the issue of the elimination of global drug production centers on the separate agenda of the UN Security Council and make this issue a priority for the international society. Addressing a session of international anti-drug experts in Moscow on Tuesday, Ivanov proposed those attending to “jointly work out an international Plan on the elimination of global centers for drugs production by organizing a national and civilized development.” Ivanov proposed to call the mooted plan Raduga-3 (Rainbow-3) and also proposed all those interested to initiate a special commission under the UN Secretary General on the alternative development of Afghanistan by means of the country’s accelerated industrialization. Russia is one of the largest destinations for heroin from Afghanistan, the world’s main heroin producer. Last year, Russia seized 2.6 metric tons of Afghan heroin, which was a 20 percent increase on the previous year. Russia’s previous plan, code-named Raduga-2, envisaged among other targets the elimination of all poppy plantations in Afghanistan and implementation of a program to boost the Central Asian country’s economy through the infrastructural development and creation of some two million workplaces. Speaking earlier in the year, Ivanov said that the scale of poppy plantations in Afghanistan reached its historic maximum in 2013 and, according to UN estimations, spanned a record of 209,000 hectares. Tuesday’s session in Moscow involved experts and representatives from world’s law enforcement bodies as well as international organizations, which included the United Nations, the European Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS and others. The head of the Russian anti-drug agency also proposed holding an international conference on the issue of the alternative development of Afghanistan later in the year in Russia’s southwestern Siberian city of Omsk. “I propose holding a special international conference on the alternative development of Afghanistan, for instance in Omsk, this fall,” he said addressing the participants of the session.