DRUGS ADDICTS DOUBLE IN UZBEKISTAN AMID TRAFFICKING INCREASE

TASHKENT. The number of drug addicts in former Soviet Uzbekistan has nearly
doubled over the past year amid an increase in heroin smuggling from
Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

Some 26,000 drug addicts are registered in this Central Asian state today
compared to 14,000 last year, said Kamol Dusmetov, deputy head of
Uzbekistan's national center for drug control.

Heroin seizures in Uzbekistan have also seen a sharp rise from 325
kilograms in 1999 to 675 kilograms of the drug in 2000.

Police had seized 300 kilograms of narcotics this year, including some 70
kilograms of heroin, Dusmetov added.

"Countries of the Central Asian region are turning into transit territories
for the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan. Part of the drugs naturally
remain in these transit countries," Dusmetov said.

United Nations drugs experts believe that 65 percent of the narcotics
produced in Afghanistan are trafficked across the porous and mountainous
borders of former Soviet Central Asian states.

"The flow of drugs from Afghanistan is not about to decline," said
Antonello Deleda, a regional representative with the UN Office for Drug
Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).

The ODCCP believes that around 100 tonnes of heroin are waiting to be
smuggled across Afghanistan's border with Central Asia's Tajikistan with
around another 5,000 tonnes inside Afghanistan.