RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES STRUGGLE TO HOLD BACK A RISING TIDE OF DRUGS

MOSCOW-Hidden inside cabbages, hollowed walnuts, even the bellies of
desperately poor pregnant women, Afghan heroin steadily flows into Russia,
joining a stream of illegal drugs that officials warn is a growing threat
to the nation's stability.

Over the past half decade, Russia has become a major way station on the
trafficking route from Afghanistan to European markets.

After a monthlong lull at the start of the war in Afghanistan last fall,
the trade has picked up again, Russian police say. They report seizing a
half ton of heroin so far this year, along with more than 940 kilograms
(2,068 pounds) stopped on the border between Afghanistan and the former
Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

"We expect a flood of drugs, which are now growing in Afghanistan, in the
second half of the year," said Oleg Kharichkin, deputy director of the
Russian Interior Ministry's narcotics division.

Afghanistan isn't the only culprit. Traffickers use organized crime
channels to ship cocaine from Latin America through Russian seaports to
Europe and the United States. Peddlers bring in ephedrine from China.
Amphetamines and other synthetic drugs come from Europe, especially Poland.
Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Belarusians smuggle in poppy straw.

But it is Afghan heroin that has become the narcotic of choice for addicts
in Russia, where more than 3 million people are estimated to be hooked on
drugs. That is nearly 2.1 percent of the population, which compares to 1.6
percent in the United States, as estimated by the U.S. Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

Just as worrisome, the heroin trade finances numerous militant groups along
Russia's restive southern flank, threatening security within Russia and its
neighbors.

"Extremists need a lot of cash. For them, drugs are fast, easy, good
money," said Lt. Gen. Konstantin Totsky, chief of Russia's border guards.

Carried by donkeys and human couriers across the Pyandzh River and the
rugged Pamir Mountains, which form Afghanistan's northern border with
Tajikistan, heroin is then smuggled over the mountains of Uzbekistan or
Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan, and from there across the sparsely patrolled,
7,000-kilometer (4,435-mile) frontier with Russia. The U.S.-Mexican border
is half as long and "10 times less rugged," an American embassy official says.

Russia has 10,700 border guards monitoring the Tajik-Afghan border, along
with 10,000 Russian soldiers. Hardly a day goes by without a skirmish. Some
drug couriers are killed, while others escape back into Afghanistan,
abandoning their precious cargos for the troops to burn.

"At present, on the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, there are about
seven tons of opium and almost two tons of heroin already warehoused and
ready for transport to Russia and Europe," said Kharichkin, the Interior
Ministry official.

Russia is seeking money from the United Nations and Western nations to beef
up security on the drug routes. Negotiations also are under way to provide
satellite imaging information on poppy cultivation to the Afghan
government, said Lt. Gen. Alexander Sergeyev, chief of the Interior
Ministry's anti-trafficking department.

In the meantime, smugglers are spreading drugs across Russia. Besides
selling in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large transport hubs, heroin
gangs concentrate on cities in the oil and gas regions of Siberia and the
Far North, where salaries are higher and potential markets richer.

One major crossroads in the trade is the Ural Mountains city of
Yekaterinburg, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the Kazakh border
and a gateway between Asia and the more densely populated European part of
Russia. The city is a magnet for seasonal workers from Central Asia, and
police say they run drug-smuggling businesses out of the city's wholesale
produce market. Men, women and children take part.

"More and more we're seeing women in early stages of pregnancy carrying
drugs. For 500 dollars they're prepared to carry heroin in their abdominal
cavities," said Fyodor Anikeyev, an officer in the Yekaterinburg narcotics
squad. "Seeing their pale, unhealthy look, agents (at the airport)
naturally pick them out, but doctors refuse to X-ray them so the babies
won't be harmed."

Official corruption also plays a role. Nazir Salimov, head of the
Yekaterinburg squad, said two top Tajik police officials were arrested in
the city in June for trying to sell a large consignment of heroin.

The same month, in Tajikistan, a former deputy defense minister was charged
with drug trafficking after allegedly ordering use of a military helicopter
to drop off 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of opium and 0.5 kilograms (1 pound)
of heroin.

Activists working with addicts allege Russian officials are deeply
involved, too.

"There's a huge level of corruption in law enforcement agencies at all
levels in Russia," said Father Anatoly Berestov, a neuropathologist and
Russian Orthodox monk who runs a drug treatment center at the 17th century
Krutitskoye church in central Moscow.

Interior Ministry officials deny the charge.

Berestov and others also complain that the main police effort appears aimed
at punishing drug addicts, not traffickers.

People charged with possessing even a small amount of marijuana face up to
the three years in prison. If they help a friend get the drug, they can be
sentenced to seven to 15 years for distribution.

"Why is there enough money to maintain these prisoners but not enough for
real anti-drug campaigning?" said Anna, a 23-year-old former heroin addict
who works at the Krutitskoye center.

Prevention programs are nearly nonexistent, and the decade following the
collapse of the Soviet Union has seen the steady closure of
government-funded youth clubs and recreation centers that kept many
children and teenagers out of trouble.

Seventy percent of Russia's 450,000 officially registered addicts are 25
and younger, and most start using drugs at age 14 or 15.

Experts and addicts alike say the spiritual crisis and particularly the
permissiveness that gripped the country after the Soviet collapse -
including an explosion of pornography, movie and TV violence, and
unfettered teenage drinking - have fueled the problem.

"This atmosphere of 'everything is permitted' has overwhelmed everyone,"
said Anna, who declined to give her last name. "Plus there's the situation
at home, where parents are running around trying to figure out how to make
enough money to feed their children."

Rehabilitation programs are few, and patients must pay for treatment in
almost all of them, in contrast to the Soviet era, when alcohol and drug
treatment were not only free but also mandatory.

The program at Berestov's 4-year-old center, which is financed entirely by
donations, includes psychological and medical counseling, work at the
center or a nearby monastery, and a heavy regimen of prayer. He claims an
80 percent cure rate for the 3,000 addicts treated.

Traveling widely throughout Russia, Berestov appears often on television
and radio, prompting a stream of tearful mothers dragging hollow-eyed
children to the Krutitskoye center.

"They're all former criminals, even murders," the monk said matter-of-
factly. "But I'm not a police officer. I'm a priest, and my role is to repair."

The police say their interdiction efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
Heroin is becoming harder to get, and its price is rising - reaching about
935 rubles (dlrs 30) per gram (0.04 ounces) in Moscow, three times the
price in 1999.

Doctors say that the number of newly registered drug users 18 and under
fell by about a third last year and that deaths by overdose, arrests of
suspects in a drug-induced state and drug-provoked psychoses are also down.

But Berestov, who gets new patients every day, says he hasn't seen any
letup. If anything, he and other experts say, young people are just turning
to different substances, including strong over-the-counter medicines as
well as Russia's traditional addiction - alcohol.