BUCHAREST, Romania (Reuter) Romanian health officials said Thursday that
rising drug consumption, especially by juvenile addicts, had turned into a
problem for postcommunist authorities.

``The rate at which the number of drug addicts is rising is alarming,
especially among teenagers and university students,'' said Dr. Christian
Bengescu, whose section for drug addicts at a Bucharest psychiatric hospital
is the only place where drug addiction is treated in the Balkan country.

``Only in the past 10 months, some 300 people came to us for treatment,''
Bengescu, a psychiatrist whose clinic has only 30 beds, told a news
conference.

There is no official estimate of the size of drug addiction in the Balkan
state, which became a conduit for drug traffickers, on their way to Western
markets, as Romania opened up its borders in the postcommunist era.

Health, police and education experts say drug addiction might rise, despite
Romanian average monthly wages the equivalent of $80, with drug smugglers
using the country as a storage station instead of just a transit point.

``The situation is very serious. Romania is turning toward consumption of
drugs,'' Bengescu said.

In a bid to cope with the issue, health, interior, education and youth
ministry experts have devised a program to size up drug addiction in the
capital city of Bucharest, population 2.3 million.

The plan focuses on the city's 200,000 teenage students but will also survey
thousands of university students.

Since 1989, Romanian police have seized almost 20 tons of drugs, including
heroin, cocaine and hashish, smuggled into the country.

In the biggest haul, in 1993, 11 tons of hashish and cannabis where found in
the Black Sea port of Constanta, aboard a ship from an African country bound
for the Netherlands.