Azerbaijani MP: Drug addiction has become Azerbaijani families’ main disaster
A few years ago US Department of State said that more than 30% of secondary school pupils in Azerbaijan use drugs. At that time those data were flatly denied in Azerbaijan being called ‘libel,’ yet today non-governmental researches carried out in the country show that those numbers reflect the real picture, Azerbaijani MP Fazil Mustafa writes on his page in social media, according to Azerbaijani information outlet Virtualaz.org.
According to the article, the MP states that the number of drug addicts has grown in Azerbaijan also as a result of ‘a previously elaborated and coordinated special plan’ due to which (sometimes) the residents of Azerbaijan are provided with drugs from abroad free of charge. It is drug addiction that has become Azerbaijani families’ main disaster, he claims. The MP is also concerned about the issue of the significant number of smoking people in Azerbaijan stressing that official statistics of smoking is not made public.
“For already several years, Azerbaijani ‘cigarette mafia’ is preventing the adoption of the law in the Parliament about the ban to smoke in public places. There is also a huge number of alcoholics in our country. The number of smoking and alcohol-and-drug-using women is growing year by year. Actually, drug addiction and alcoholism are the reasons for the registered cases of murders, suicides and other criminally punishable offenses, as well as family breakdowns, increase of prostitution and number of early deaths, however neither the government, nor the public wants to fight that,” the Azerbaijani MP protested.
Azerbaijan is a transit country for illicit narcotics by virtue of its situation along major drug trafficking routes from Afghanistan and Iran to Europe and Russia, according to the US Department of State International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. The growing number of drug addicts in Azerbaijan is also stated in the Report. Heroin is more preferred in Azerbaijan; narcotic plants are cultivated, as well.
According to a UN report, "Northern Balkan Route" of drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe lies precisely through Azerbaijan. Drugs freely cross Azerbaijan-Turkey-Iran route. The second, “Old Balkan Route" lies straight through Iran to Turkey. People engaged in the smuggling are mainly assisted by the Azerbaijani and Kurdish population of northern Iran. The third way is through Azerbaijan and the Caucasus which lies through the Turkmen seaport after Turkmenbashi, in Baku. Here the drugs are easily smuggled into Russia.
In September 2010 Rustam Usubov, the Deputy General Prosecutor of Azerbaijan, stated that about 35% of the drugs illegally produced in Afghanistan are transferred through Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the telegram to former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse, which was published by WikiLeaks, read that the drug mafia in Russia is largely controlled by ethnic Azerbaijanis.
Related:
UN report: The highest rate of injection drug use in world was fixed in Azerbaijan
US Department of State Report: Up to 7 MT of narcotics transit Azerbaijan annually
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