Pitchaya Areekarnlert 1101

Position summary: Combating drug trafficking throughout Asia

Name of Delegate: Pitchaya Petch Areekarnlert
Issue: Combating drug trafficking throughout Asia
Country Assigned: Russia
1. What is the current status of this issue in your country?
Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture,
distribution and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws.
UNODC is continuously monitoring and researching global illicit drug markets in
order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their dynamics. Drug
trafficking and illicit drug use is a significant problem in the country. The
disintegration of the Soviet Union, the civil war in Afghanistan, the civil war in
Tajikistan, and the conflicts in the North Caucasus have made the favorable
conditions for the development of illegal drug trade. In the early 1990s, use
of cocaine was increasingly noted among the young population of the nation. In the
mid-1990s, the growing drug abuse that appeared in Russia was caused by lack of
border, and the country became one of the world's major transit corridors of drug
trafficking. The entrance of producers of cocaine of South America in the Russian
market was proved by intercepting cocaine shipments in Saint Petersburg in
1993. As of 1996 internal production of narcotic substances was also rising in
Russia.
Crime
in
Russia can
manifest
itself
as drug
trafficking, money
laundering, trafficking,
extortion, murder
for
hire, fraud etc.
Many criminal
operations engage in corruption, black marketeering, terrorism, abduction etc.
Other forms of crime perpetrated by criminal groups include arms trafficking, the
export of contraband oil and metals, and smuggling of radioactive substances. As of
1997 approximately 8,000 criminal formations operated in the Russian
Federation. In 2000 it was estimated that nearly 50% of the nation's economy was
linked with organized crime. In 2011 the United Nations rated Russia among the
leaders in homicide. According to statistics for 2009, Russia had 15,954 homicides about 11.2 per 100,000 people. However, in comparison with post-Soviet rates,
since the beginning of the 2000s, crime in Russia has declined sharply.
Since Post soviet, the collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed much of the
systems and infrastructures that provided social security and a minimal standard of
living for the population, and law and order across the country broke down resulting
in outbreak of crime. In the transition to free, production fell and there was
huge capital flight coupled with low foreign.
Due to these factors, economic instability increased and a newly
impoverished population emerged, accompanied by unemployment and unpaid
wages. Extreme poverty as well as unpaid wages resulted in an increase in theft and
counterfeiting. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, organized criminal groups
in Russia and other former Soviet republics have been involved in different illegal

Pitchaya Areekarnlert 1101

activities such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, car theft, human trafficking and
money laundering being the most common.
For instance, when Nato and its allies went to war in Afghanistan, the alliance
promised to curtail the export of drugs to Europe. Since then, the West has spent
hundreds of millions of dollars setting up local agencies to fight drug trafficking, not
just in Afghanistan but also along the main opium and heroin route through the
former Soviet republics of Central Asia. As filmmaker Michael Andersen reports, the
region is now facing another danger, a potential epidemic of HIV infections.