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Since 2003, the number of drug users registered in Primorye has declined by 19 percent, the head of Primorye’s Department of Federal Drug Control Service Alexander Rolik revealed at a press conference on Tuesday.

Reporting the Department’s activities for the past five years, Rolik boasted that over 250 drug use locations have been eliminated and some 1,500 hot spots for drug sales have been detected in the region. Narcotics police have prevented the activity of 93 organized criminal groups and eliminated over 200 regional and international routes of trafficking drugs and psychoactive substances.

Since 2003, Rolik revealed, the regional drug police have detected about 8,000 drug trafficking related crimes, and 5,000 crimes connected with the sale of drugs. From July 2003 to March 2008, some 17.4 tons of drugs, psychoactive and hard substances have been confiscated, and 13,000 tons of drug plants destroyed. The police officers detained and filed criminal cases against 2,500 people involved in drug trafficking.

“The positive tendencies in the reduction of drug usage have resulted from the joint efforts of the regional drug police, public organizations and regional officials,” Rolik said.

According to Primorye’s Vice Governor Andrei Norin a total of 80 million rubles ($3.3 million) will be allocated from the regional budget for the target program ‘Primorye Without Drugs’ to be implemented in the region until 2010, with about 18 million rubles to be allotted this year.

At the end of 2007, a total of 9,400 drug addicts receiving treatment and 5,100 drug users were registered in Primorye’s narcological centers, statistics said.

However, as director of Primorye’s regional narcological dispensary Lyudmila Mikhalyova mentioned, the tendency over the past two years has not shown a diminishing number of drug users despite the overall decrease since 2003.

“Today, in terms of drug users the region ranks 11th in Russia,” Mikhalyova revealed. In Primorye, towns having the highest number of drug users are Nakhodka, Spassk-Dalny, Dalnerechensk and Ussurisk.

Primorye’s Drug Control Department was launched in March 2003, when Russia’s Drug Control Service was established by President Vladimir Putin’s decree.

Overall, for the past five years the federal Drug Control Service has detected a total of 345,000 drug-related crimes and about 2,500 criminal groups have been eliminated. Over 171 tons of narcotics, including about seven tons of heroin and 148 tons of marijuana and cannabis have been confiscated. Since 2003, narcotics police have seized about three billion single doses of synthetic drugs and detained 123,000 drug sellers.