Afghan Heroin Surge Angers Moscow

August 11, 2003

Russian Drug Official Criticizes U.S. for Afghan Heroin
Surge

By MARK SCHOOFS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL

MOSCOW — Calling attention to a growing sore spot
between Washington and Moscow, Russia’s newly appointed
top drug cop said the U.S. could do more to reduce the
flow of heroin from Afghanistan.
Gen. Viktor Cherkessov, whose appointment this spring to
head Russia’s huge new drug-enforcement agency signals
Moscow’s new emphasis on the problem, said in an
interview recently that drug production in Afghanistan
has increased "catastrophically." Asked if the U.S. is
doing enough to help stem the problem, he chose his
words carefully, saying that America isn’t using its
vast resources "to the fullest extent" to curtail
production of Afghan opium.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, illegal drug use
in Russia has skyrocketed, and heroin from Afghanistan
is a favorite. That, in turn, has fueled explosive
epidemics of HIV and other blood-borne viruses, such as
hepatitis C.
During its last year in power, Afghanistan’s Taliban
regime virtually eliminated opium-poppy production,
though this may have been an attempt to boost prices by
restricting supply rather than a genuine antidrug
effort. The Taliban profited from the drug trade,
according to international drug experts.

But under U.S.-led occupation, Afghanistan’s poppy
output has surged again, accounting for more than three-
quarters of world production. Gen. Cherkessov projects
that this year’s harvest will total 4,000 tons, up from
the 3,422 tons that the United Nations Office of Drugs
and Crime says Afghanistan produced last year, its
second-biggest harvest ever. Afghanistan produces
virtually all the heroin sold in Russia and more than
three-quarters of the heroin sold in Europe. Russia is a
transit route for heroin headed to Western Europe.
U.S. intelligence knew long before Sept. 11, 2001, that
opium puts money into the coffers of al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups. But over the past year, the U.S.
hasn’t curtailed production — a situation about which
Russian officials privately express outrage. In the
interview, Gen. Cherkessov also derided U.N. efforts to
encourage Afghan farmers to switch to other crops,
saying no other crop matches opium’s profit potential.
He said the international community and the U.S. should
work with Afghan forces to conduct military operations
to stop opium production.

The general said he recently met with the U.S.
ambassador to Russia together with a high-level group of
American drug experts. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow declined to comment on the meeting, but a law-
enforcement specialist there said that the U.S. is
"providing equipment, vehicles, technical assistance and
specialized training to antinarcotics units based near
the Russian-Kazakh border in order to strengthen Russian
law enforcement’s counternarcotics capability." The
official said the measures are aimed partly at stemming
drug traffic from Afghanistan.

Gen. Cherkessov is a key member of President Vladimir
Putin’s inner circle of power. He and Mr. Putin studied
together at Leningrad State University and, like the
president, Gen. Cherkessov was a KGB officer. He headed
up the Leningrad investigative department and hounded
dissidents. A tall, husky man with silver hair, the 53-
year-old is smooth but considered very tough.
His newly created State Committee for the Control of the
Circulation of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances has
about 40,000 employees, and the bulk of its
investigators come from the newly disbanded tax police.
Gen. Cherkessov says he plans to exploit their financial
expertise to attack drug lords through their money-
laundering and other financial dealings.

While his
investigators will focus on narco-mafia kingpins, he
said, ordinary police will continue "without decrease"
to arrest and jail small-time users and dealers.

— Jeanne Whalen contributed to this article.

Write to Mark Schoofs at mark.schoofs@wsj.com1
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