This expression has still not lost its relevance, although it can be heard less and less in everyday life. Much more often it is replaced with the word “prostitute.” But this is not entirely correct, since a fallen woman is not only a priestess of love. Today you will find out to whom this appeal applies and what it means.
There is a difference
In Europe, a fallen woman is a drug addict, an emigrant, a victim of violence. But if we look at Russian history, this epithet was “awarded” mainly to ladies who were not particularly picky in their choice of sexual partners. Moreover, this could be a woman who had several official marriages. In Soviet times, this was condemned by both the party and the people. A real communist had to marry once and bear this cross all her life, even if the marriage was not very successful. The exception was artists: they could be forgiven for some frivolity in this matter, since creative people differ from the common population.
Bible
The first mention of female harlots in the Old Testament is of an interesting nature. Jacob's daughter traveled through foreign lands and attracted the attention of the son of the prince of Shechem. He dishonored Dina, but later asked the girl’s hand from her father. The brothers of the unfortunate woman reacted sharply and declared that their sister was not a harlot to do this to her. Consent to the marriage was received, but the prince had to make a deal: all men in the city were circumcised.
Jesus Christ said that harlots go ahead of everyone else into the Kingdom of God. Another fallen woman is Tamar. A girl who sold her services for a kid. Rembrandt even captured this scene in a painting. It is known that ancient Israelite society even protected harlots, but church ministers were forbidden to take them as wives.
Walking woman
As a rule, this is a lady who is not married and regularly changes men. She is free from obligations and not burdened with moral values. Can we call her a fallen woman? It depends on the society in which the person moves. If she is at the bottom of the social strata, then this expression may be applicable. But no one would dare call a pop star or a famous actress that way. Although there is no particular difference in behavior between them, the colossal gap in terms of social status changes everything. A walking woman can be either a legal spouse or the mother of a large family. It all depends on the character and upbringing of the woman.
You don't have to be a prostitute to get such an offensive nickname. Girls who grew up in dysfunctional families often have a weak concept of morality. Such scenes took place before their eyes that by the time they mature, they do not consider it necessary to look for a permanent partner. They don’t take money for their services; they simply give their bodies to anyone who shows interest.
The result of such a life is a harmful addiction to alcohol or drug addiction. Then from a simple frivolous person the girl turns into a full-fledged prostitute. She is ready to trade her body for a dose or a bottle, but now this is considered work, and not a means of obtaining pleasure. There are plenty of such people among the marginalized: in any den there will be such a fallen woman, providing her intimate services in exchange for the necessary drug.
Escorts
These ladies can also be called fallen, but they stand at the highest level. They also sell their bodies, but not to dealers or the working class, but to the wealthiest men. Moreover, there are known cases when such elite prostitutes became the wives of their clients. But still, in most cases, they remain only girls who can accompany you to any event and provide intimate services. Their work is paid very highly, but money cannot wash away the stigma of a fallen woman, which they will carry for the rest of their lives. They are also considered girls with low social responsibility, although they can drive premium class cars.
Prostitutes
Prostitution is the biggest niche in which every woman is considered fallen. Although this is one of the oldest professions, it is still considered the most shameful. Prostitutes are not respected, they have no rights. For their hard and thankless work, they can get a prison sentence. This profession has no age. Both girls 14 years old and women over 60 can be prostitutes.
Why do girls become prostitutes?
It would seem that there are no advantages at all from this method of earning money, and there are more and more fallen women! Selling your body on the street is driven by both need and lack of demand. Often, after graduating from university, girls cannot find work. This is especially true for those who come from small towns and villages. There is no desire to return to the wilderness, and it is very difficult to settle in a metropolis. The girl decides to earn extra money with her own body until she gets a chance to find a real good job. However, few succeed in breaking out of the vicious circle.
For those unlucky enough to fail their exams, the road to prostitution becomes even shorter. They remain in a strange city in the hope of trying their luck in a year. Without a profession or means of livelihood, girls are forced to go to the panel.
Need and more
An ordinary average mother of several children can also become a fallen woman. An unemployed husband, lack of help from relatives and many other factors can push one to take this desperate step. Sometimes such ladies have official jobs, and at night they work as prostitutes. Relatives and friends may not even know about her additional income.
Some people are attracted to this type of income. Girls think this is the easiest way to get rich. But the real picture is far from being as colorful as inexperienced debutantes paint it. A pimp and the police, problems with the law and health, lack of personal life - this is not the whole list of what awaits a fallen woman.
We have already explained why girls with addictions become prostitutes. But very often ladies acquire addictions already in the process of work, in order to look at life easier and more easily endure moral torment. Then the life of a prostitute becomes like a carousel: searching for a dose, a client, searching for a dose again. The existence of a fallen woman cannot be envied, no matter what level she is at.
I'll tell you about myself. My name is Alina. I am 27 years old. I'm an ordinary girl, I work as a translator. I have wonderful parents and two brothers. We lived together, even though there were difficult times when there was not enough money, etc., but we always supported each other. Mom and Dad did everything to give us a good education and raise us to be decent people. It always seemed to me that I would have an ideal family, a loving husband, a child, I would do what I love and be happy.
When I met Andrey, I didn’t know who drug addicts were. Well, how can I say, I knew that they existed, that they were dangerous and scary people, that “there are no former drug addicts.” That's all. Andrey was a handsome young guy, cheerful, did not drink, did not smoke, and ran his own business. Then I found out that in his free time he helps people in the rehabilitation center who are undergoing rehabilitation for drug addiction, supplies it, and communicates with the guys. And that he is a former drug addict who went through this center himself. Come on?!
He doesn't look like a former drug addict. This simply cannot be. No one would have ever guessed it by looking at him. But it turned out he had 10 years of heroin addiction behind him.
He began to look after me. After I found out that he was an ex, I told myself no, miracles don’t happen, because he could come back to this, and what should I do then. I kept him at a distance, just friends and nothing more. He said okay, let's just be friends. And we began to be friends and communicate. I recognized other guys and girls who were also addicted. The more I talked to them, the more I became convinced that miracles do happen. These were clean, open, friendly people, looking at whom you would never believe that they had previously been drug addicts.
I will never forget my first trip to a rehabilitation center, Andrey invited me there on a tour. Now it’s even funny to remember - I went there as if to some terrible place. I thought I would arrive and see something like a scene from a zombie movie - a bunch of drug addicts who would pounce and eat me. Instead, I go there and see smiling people, with clear, open eyes, they were all polite to me, joked, communicated. And then I felt ashamed of my thoughts, for the fact that I considered them to be non-human. Andrey and I often came there later, and I saw how the guys were literally transformed every time, and I continued to be amazed that this was even possible.
By that time, Andrei and I began dating. The more I got to know him, the more I did not believe that he had a history of addiction. I just couldn't imagine him being different. When he started talking about the wedding, a wave of doubts came over me again. What if he returns to the past? But no, I still decided not to think about it, and we came to my parents for a blessing. To say that they were shocked is to say nothing.
Mom was definitely against it - communicating and making friends is one thing, but a wedding is completely different. The answer was no. But I wasn’t going to give up so easily, I love him, what do my parents care, this is my life and my choice. I left home and stopped communicating with my mom and dad. But of course I wouldn’t get married without their consent. I was waiting for them to change their minds. And they changed their minds. They gave up. They said that your daughter is your choice, although of course we are not very happy, but we wish you happiness.
And we got married. I was happy. I felt like a queen on my wedding day. I saw in front of me that happy family life that I dreamed of.
That's how it was. The first five years. He began to move up the career ladder, earn good money, and we had our own small business. We went on vacation abroad, helped people, we were happy.
All our married couple friends had already had children, and we also began to think about having a child. Over four years of marriage, I fell in love with my husband even more, admired him and his achievements, and he took care of me, gave me gifts, and we began to build a house. And then I find out about pregnancy. Andrey and I are happy. Overall, the pregnancy was going well. I enjoyed my new state, anticipating our little miracle.
But one day, or rather night, when I was already seven months pregnant, something began that I was afraid to think about. And if these thoughts visited me, then I drove them away as something ominous, as something that simply could not happen to me. It's like thoughts about death - they visit us, but we are afraid to even let them into our heads, immediately distracted by thoughts about something else. In the evening, my husband went to a corporate event and did not come home for the night, turning off his phone. This has never happened before. He always called me and told me when he would arrive. And here: - “The subscriber is switched off or out of network coverage.” I called all night, tried not to think about the bad, tried not to worry too much, so that nothing would happen to the child. He arrived in the morning, saying that he was just hanging out with his colleagues, his phone died and he thought I was sleeping, so he didn’t call me to warn me. Somehow he calmed me down. But an unpleasant feeling of anxiety settled inside, which is now so familiar to me. Then I found out that this was the first time he tried drugs again after almost a six-year break.
Having recovered from a severe form of addiction, a former drug addict believes that she was born a second time
Oksana didn’t learn what hell is from books. She visited there during her lifetime, and felt all the intended trials for sinners with her body and soul. Once upon a time I was ready to give my life for a dose of opium. Now that she has escaped from terrible captivity, she is doing everything to get others out of the dangerous trap.
Oksana is 42 years old. I felt the taste of real life, without the admixture of drugs and alcohol, 16 years ago. She has been living an absolutely sober lifestyle, without “breakdowns,” for 12 years now and is sure that nothing will force her to return to the past.
The girl learned about Datura for the first time when she was 15 years old. The best student, school activist, secretary of the Komsomol committee... Oksana's father often looked into the glass, mother was a respectable, strict woman who controlled every step of the children. Outwardly, her daughter embodied her ideal. She received good grades, was at home “like a bayonet” at the time set by her mother... She was predicted to attend a higher party school, but the period of growing up began just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the youth lost their inner core. Oksana remembers how she constantly felt emptiness and believed that everyone around her was lying. The girl was looking for herself...
In those days people were just beginning to talk about drugs. The forbidden fruit attracts, so I wanted to try something new, get a different sensation. I sniffed glue, drank alcohol... I washed down sleeping pills with beer. I could sleep for several days. She got married early and gave birth to two daughters. But within a few years, the marriage was destroyed by lack of money in the nineties. The husband went to Oksana’s friend, who sold sweet straws at the market: at that time she was a wealthy woman. The young wife was left alone with small children in her arms. Sometimes I lost consciousness from hunger. She remembers how a nurse came and asked: “Why don’t you bring your children to get vaccinated?” Oksana was ashamed to admit that there was not even soap to wash them properly before visiting the clinic.
During those difficult times, I met an old friend with whom I had once attended a dance studio. A friend began to visit Oksana from time to time. First, drink water, then boil poppy straws. Oksana often pulled the girl’s hand when she needed an injection. Soon she offered a single mother a business: drug addicts would pay her to allow her to brew and use a “magic potion” in their kitchen. Then she started selling poppy straws. The woman had money and no longer needed it. Since there was always a “potion” in the apartment, I used it from time to time. This injection relieved hangovers. It seemed to Oksana that if she tried it a few times, she wouldn’t become a drug addict, because she is a strong personality. I have seen more than once the state to which drug addicts I know reach. The body rots alive and limbs have to be cut off. “What kind of high is this for which a person is ready to get rid of his legs?” - Oksana thought. And when I tried it myself, I understood. He says this is a state and a surge of vitality that cannot be compared with anything. She went to the market as if she were going to work: she stole things, then looked for buyers for them; she tried to use the proceeds as quickly as possible “for their intended purpose”... The woman quickly sank to the very bottom, but did not feel it for a long time. I didn’t shower for months and didn’t leave the house. There was a brothel at home where her children grew up. I wanted to buy summer shoes, but it turned out that it was winter... I was horrified when I finally saw myself in the mirror: sunken cheeks, dirty hair, yellow skin. Instead of teeth there are several rotten stumps.
The worst condition that I had to experience in life is withdrawal, which drug addicts call “Kumar”. According to Oksana, it can be compared to a severe form of the flu. A runny nose, watery eyes, diarrhea, insomnia appeared... Oksana had the impression that her teeth, skin and even hair ached, and she did not have the strength to get out of bed. The woman knew that the next dose would deprive her of all this suffering, and the realization that there was no saving opium caused hysterics.
After six years of living outside of reality, Oksana was “brought down to earth” by a doorbell. Representatives of the police stood on the threshold. Then I realized that going to prison was the worst prospect. I called my sister, who lived in another city, and begged for shelter.
At the new place, Oksana had to give up drugs. I knew that drug addicts rat each other out to the police, so I didn’t risk making new friends over the needle. The fear did not leave her, so she replaced the opium with vodka. I found an alcoholic roommate and drank with him until I passed out. Her sister picked her up from various dens. The woman recalls that she often woke up next to people she didn’t know and couldn’t remember who they were. It happened that I fell asleep in a kiosk that I was robbing. I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t help but drink. Again I had to go through withdrawal, during which I shook as if in a fever. Most of all I wanted to get well, but there was no money for treatment. A friend advised her to visit Alcoholics Anonymous. “I’m ready to go even to the green speckled with blue. The main thing is that someone helps change my life,” the exhausted woman rejoiced. When I came to the community, I was amazed. There are so many people who find themselves in the same difficult circumstances, and everyone is ready to lend a helping hand! She brought her husband, who has also now stopped drinking. Subsequently, she joined the group of Narcotics Anonymous.
Now Oksana is proud of herself - she was able to overcome both drug addiction and the green snake. During the first year she had three alcohol and one drug relapses. For the last six years she has “no longer been able to handle it.”
The woman completely changed her life. She and her husband have a full-fledged family: together they entertain their grandchildren. Oksana recently graduated from the Faculty of Psychology and works as a practicing psychologist. “Now I am a full-fledged member of society,” says the woman. “I work part-time as a mother for those who find themselves in the same hell where I was!” Oksana gives lectures to parents of drug addicts. Refers addicts to rehabilitation centers, provides them with social support and helps them recover in society. She claims that she doesn’t need any “doping” now, because she has learned to live and have fun sober.
Larisa Poprocka
The problem of drug addiction in Kazakhstan is acquiring terrifying proportions. Getting out of this vicious circle is difficult, but possible. Former drug addicts told the correspondent about their past - how they went through all the circles of drug hell.
In the village of Razdolnoye, Akmola region, there has been a Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts for 11 years. Over the years of its operation, 681 patients received help here. Currently there are 20 people in the Center - 4 girls and 16 boys.
Here former drug addicts work, communicate, and talk with psychologists. The Center has a vegetable garden, animals, and outbuildings. Patients live here for one year.
“You can imagine that there was a company, and I took a drug to try. It was true, but that doesn’t justify me. I took heroin myself,” says Victor P. from Karaganda, a patient of the Center. – I started taking heroin in my third year at KarSU. I took it for four months, then everything became clear. My family and I sat at the table and had dinner. I reached for the bread. The sleeve slipped down, and the sister saw marks from the needle. She grabbed me by the wrist and began asking what it was. I somehow justified myself. But my parents began to suspect - I always have no money, I constantly spend everything.
One day the relatives understood everything. It was a terrible grief for the parents. They gathered a council, and I myself proposed: I take an academic degree and join the army. I served in Kapchagai for two years, and then for another three years as a contract soldier. For five years I was absolutely “clean”. But he still underestimated the power of heroin. While still on the train, when I was returning home, memories began to come to me. Thoughts are like crows overhead. I couldn't drive them away. I began to revel in the memories of the high, savor them. When I stood on the platform, I was ready to inject myself.
I come home in uniform, with flowers, my mother opens the door, my father hugs me, and I think: “I need to go to the pit and inject myself quickly!” Ate and took heroin. I fell into hell. Vicious circle: drugs and addiction. The doctors will relieve the withdrawal symptoms, I’ll be “clean” for two or three months, and then I’ll inject myself again and off we go.”
Victor looks for the reasons for his addiction in the past.
“Since childhood, I have not been deprived of the love of my parents. Do not think that drug addicts are antisocial from childhood. I have a full family, I have a sister, they loved us and tried to give us everything, we were raised well. I grew up in the 90s, so my parents did their best to make sure we didn’t go hungry. We children had a lot of free time. We gathered in basements. And from somewhere in my mind the idea took root: “In life you have to try everything.” Now I know how wrong I was.
Alcohol, cigarettes and nasvay became the catalyst for my drug addiction. In a club, a gateway, a basement, or a friend’s apartment, they can offer ecstasy, wheels and some other psychoactive drugs. If you try, it will live in you. I tried the drug and, as they say, I got it. At the initial stage I did not understand the seriousness of this. And if I had known then what I was getting myself into, I say, hand on heart, I wouldn’t even be near drugs. My parents told me, just like your mothers tell you now: “Vitya, this is bad, you can’t take drugs.” And I answered: “I know everything.” But he didn’t know anything!
Now Victor feels good, he has restored his relationship with his parents, and his beloved girl is waiting for him.
“Now my whole gut is against drugs. That’s enough, I’ve screwed myself up,” he says.
But Victor got off “cheaply”. Some people literally went through hell.
The story of Artem S. is shocking. The young blue-eyed guy went through a terrible school of life, and still survived. He was already in two rehabilitation centers - in the Kostanay region and in Russia.
"I am twenty seven years old. I am a former heroin addict with nine years of experience using heroin. But it all started much earlier. I became acquainted with drugs at the age of 12. First I started smoking marijuana. It seemed like pampering. Then a friend suggested heroin. The first time I didn't like him. And then I became interested and took it once or twice a month. Then he didn’t notice when he “got on the dose.” For 9 years I had remissions for six months to a year. And again he broke down. I lost everything because of drugs. I don’t have the respect of my relatives, my loved one, my friends, my goals in life, my favorite job.”
The guy has transverse scars on his arms. Artem told their story.
“I had several suicide attempts. So I tried to manipulate. My parents wouldn't give me money for drugs, and I said I'd cut my hands if I didn't get it. They refused. And then I opened my veins.”
Looking back, Artyom sees only graves.
“During the time that I have been here, four people with whom we injected together have died. Another is in a “vegetable” state after an overdose. I myself have experienced 6 overdoses and 6 clinical deaths. The last one was literally a few weeks before my arrival.
I had remissions thanks to sports. It helps me stay off drugs. Religion is a special help in my life. The first two weeks of my stay at the Center almost ended in failure. When I started asking God for help, I felt better and I stopped thinking about drugs. Every Sunday we go to church."
Recently Artem had a birthday, his mother visited him. The guy is restoring his relationship with his parents.
“I feel so guilty towards her. My mother always warned me against drugs. I was such a fool, I lost so many years of my life, the best years of my youth. Now it will be difficult for me to get an education.”
The Center also works with codependent parents. Are they able to get their child out of drug hell?
“No one will help a drug addict but him,” say local patients themselves. “If you put a hundred psychologists in jail, they won’t be able to do anything.” The tears of a mother, the prayers of a wife, the crying of children will not help. Only myself. Relatives and friends can become motivation, but they themselves will not pull you out of the pit of drug addiction. Drug addicts are lonely people, they are outcasts from society. They need support."
Currently, about 107 people who were previously treated at the Center are in remission. Many of them have started families and are raising children. Sometimes they come here on holidays and talk with psychologists. And each of them hopes that they will never come here as a patient again.
Every year in Russia, about 30 thousand people die from drug use, mostly young people
“We have horror. They take me to the cemetery every day. The second wave began in 2005, mainly children and teenagers. How can this be? After all, they saw how an entire generation fell into the ground before their eyes. It's as if the war has passed. They played in the sandbox, and next to us we were injecting ourselves and writhing,” says Anton. 10 years ago, through an effort of will, I got off the syringe, stopped being a bandit, came to God and began saving lost souls. He lives in a small Siberian mining town. I asked not to give my name, surname and city: they would kill me.
“There were gangs, crimson jackets, and it was fashionable to inject drugs. We were rotting. Now they are burning. Previously, the consumer went to the drug, now the drug has come to the consumer. The system is debugged,” says Anton, who survived and is saving others from death.
“The risk group is children. Parents drink, children use drugs, there are no prospects, no one needs these people. But their grandfathers and fathers were heroes of labor, honored people. And now they are no longer needed. We somehow survived the 90s, many got back on their feet. But since 2001 there has been a new wave, other drugs that no longer give a chance to survive. A year or two - and a corpse,” continues Anton. “There is no state plan, as if the main thing is for them to sit quietly and die, so that there are no riots.”
As the righteous man said, save yourself, and thousands around you will be saved. Anton's fate led him to the Protestants. In his small town alone, they have already created 10 centers for drug rehabilitation. Their experience is simple and comes down to very simple techniques: work, faith and the shoulder of a comrade save. Money and expensive clinics, replacement medications and conversations with psychologists do not save, but simply postpone punishment.
According to Anton, they have two supply channels in the city. One is held by a native of Tajikistan, the other by a gypsy. Both have several dozen points in each district, their own cars, their own “runners”-deliveries, their own system for ordering doses via SMS. 24 hours a day, seven days a week and no lunch breaks.
“I sent you a message and the goods were delivered to you in half an hour. If the dose is taken by taxi - 300 re, if you stamp your feet - 150 re. You need two doses a day for beginners, three for those who are already hooked.” “Anton and his comrades know by name everyone who carries, trades, distributes and sells.
“A political decision will be made - everything will be liquidated in one day. And now there is no policy towards drug addicts, no effective centers, no treatment methods. Let’s say they bust everyone and drug addicts take to the streets. What should they do with these crowds? And so the authorities think that they at least somehow control the situation and create some kind of balance,” says Anton.
The capital is for the rich
The trouble is in the numbers*
Every day in the country, 82 people die from heroin use, and every year - 30 thousand people.
The average age of drug addicts, according to official statistics, is 29.8 years; the age group of 18-20 years old accounts for 7%. Young people take drugs from the age of 15-17, and already in the first year, 70% increase their doses to three injections per day.
64% of drug addicts tried to get rid of addiction on their own. Only 5% of addicted women and 7% of men were not treated and did not want it.
25% of treated citizens are admitted for treatment again in the same year. 95-97% of drug addicts start taking drugs again in the same year.
Surveys by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) on drug use show that 35% of drug addicts last one week after free treatment, 17% last a month, and only 4% last one to two years. A third of those who received help rate it as unsatisfactory, cruel and humiliating.
At a February hearing on this issue in the State Duma, the director of the Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov, said that 12 tons of pure heroin enter Russia from Afghanistan every year. His department believes that this is 3 billion single doses of 0.004 grams, but if we count 0.1 grams (as per the law), then the single doses are 120 million. According to the Federal Drug Control Service, the drug mafia receives about $16 billion from the sale of this amount of drugs.
Viktor Ivanov reported that the Federal Drug Control Service seizes 10 kg of heroin every day, that is, about a third of the heroin traffic.
In the 2007 report of the United Nations Committee on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the income of the entire drug industry in Afghanistan was estimated at $3 billion, and the volume of supplies was 6.1 thousand tons in 2006 and 8.2 thousand tons in 2007.
*According to the UN, Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Health and Social Development, VTsIOM
“I give prices for Moscow and St. Petersburg,” dictates Sasha, a young guy who categorically did not want to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, that is, he did not want to try. He hates drugs and wants to exterminate them in the bud. He also asks to change the name: “A gram of hashish in Moscow is 600 rubles, in St. Petersburg - 250. An ecstasy tablet is 600 and 350 rubles. Amphetamine powder is 1200 and 600. 1 gram of cocaine is $120 and about $90, this is enough for one person for the night. A drop of LSD - 700-800 and 450-500. Young people in the capitals do not respect heroin, they are afraid of it and consider it an expensive and unclean drug. There are also mushrooms - everyone who wants to collect them at the end of August and September.”
He believes that most of the poison comes to Moscow from St. Petersburg. The most expensive ones are brought from Europe. There are fewer Asian flows here. Two of his friends are in prison for distribution. “And thank God!” - his comrades exhale in unison, pouring out knowledge of Moscow’s attractive bottom.
“Few young people in Moscow use it every day. So, on weekends, for relaxation, it’s fashionable. It’s not fashionable to judge, that’s the attitude,” say yesterday’s schoolchildren.
According to our interlocutors, the police make money from such “vacationers”. “If they find it on you, then you either bear the amount from 5 thousand to 55 thousand rubles, or go to prison. They might give it up. What parent wouldn't buy it? He doesn’t even know that his son is growing hemp in the closet or cooking something for sale” - that’s what these children know.
The smartest of them guessed that the big industry was casting a net on them. “In that club they play one kind of music - it’s suitable for amphetamines, in this one - another, for ecstasy, in a third - for rich cocaine addicts. Everything is done to control the youth. I dropped in and it was fine. They can mix it with alcohol and treat you with free drinks. If someone dies from an overdose, the club is closed, but soon it opens in another location. The capital's residents are afraid of heroin; they have enough pills. It's fashionable; They collect pills and show off. But fashion is also created for the drug style, everything is thought out for the sake of manipulating people, the guys don’t want to understand this,” says the guy who doesn’t use anything.
They offered him things to smoke and sniff since childhood. Friends, prosperous children from good families, prepared pilaf with “dope.” He was lucky that he was not hungry then: they did not warn him about the contents of the pilaf.
The older brother of one of the guys recalls: “About 15 years ago we were walking with friends, a guy flew up and was shaking all over. The injections, he says, don’t hit the veins. We went to the entrance, I immediately hit his vein. And then the police come in. The drug addict has disappeared, the syringe is lying around with my prints. I lied to them that the guy had diabetes, a crisis, here are the witnesses. If I were alone, they wouldn’t even talk to me, I’d increase the detection rate statistics, or they’d take the money.”
How many drug addicts do we have?
According to the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, from 1996 to the present, the level of non-medical drug use has increased 20 times, and the number of people under dispensary observation is 538 thousand people.
Every year in Russia drug consumption increases by 20-30%.
The share of Russian heroin addicts is five to eight times higher than the corresponding figure in the European Union countries.
“There are no reliable statistics for our country, because no one counts drug addicts in Russia,” says Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Tatyana Dmitrieva, director of the State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry named after. V.P. Serbian. — The figure of 538 thousand people is underestimated. We believe that it must be multiplied by at least five, and only then will we get closer to some reliable figure.”
The most pessimistic estimates speak of 6 million Russian drug addicts - these are the assumptions of a number of public organizations. In Russia, cases of drug use by ten-year-old children have already been registered: 17,370 children and 122,175 adolescent drug addicts are registered.
According to various estimates, a drug addict gets an average of 15-17 more people hooked on needles every year.
It's not just overdose that kills drug addicts. About 80% of HIV-infected people became infected through a shared needle.
Networks
Who are the lowest echelons of the death merchants? Security officials say that these people are no different in appearance from others.
Most anti-drug activists in Siberia and the west of the country blame Tajiks and Roma for drug distribution. Recently, blacks were tried for bringing a potion from Holland.
Thanks to the media, society is confident that drugs are brought to Russia by planes, trains, trucks with fruits and goods, they are transported by shuttles on themselves, by “swallowers” in their stomachs and other craftsmen. These are the ones the security forces catch, these are the stories the public sees on TV.
As a rule, there are no drug dealers among the distributors; drugs are a business for them.
But there is also a gigantic network of distributors who cannot be imprisoned: they are ordinary pharmacy sellers. And there is a huge flow of potion that no one seizes or counts: it is prepared from ordinary medicines.
"Wheel Syrups"
Pharmacological chaos began in the capital several years ago, when state drug control really started working in Moscow and it became a little more difficult to get heroin.
Today, some pharmacies, mostly remote from the center, without particularly hiding, dispense opiate analgesics without a prescription, such as butorphanol tartrate (an opioid analgesic), zaldiar (it contains opiates and is extremely dangerous when administered intravenously, but costs only 500 rubles), Coaxil (tianeptine) is a powerful antidepressant, the abuse of which provokes chemical dependence, imovan (zopiclone) and other drugs.
Control agencies periodically inspect pharmacies. It happens that they discover significant stocks of these drugs and at most 20 prescriptions in two or three years. But pharmacists and pharmacy owners do not face serious liability: in extreme cases, they will be deprived of their license. Some metropolitan pharmacy kiosks, according to the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation (FSKN), make up to $300 thousand per month from butorphanol alone. With such turnover, apparently, the issue with the license can be resolved.
According to pharmacy sales data, the above-mentioned medications are among the most purchased in Russia. Some of them are constantly present in the top ten most popular drugs.
“Verified pharmacies have actually turned into points for the illegal sale of prescription drugs, which are extremely popular among drug addicts,” said the head of Roszdravnadzor, Nikolai Yurgel, last winter.
Drug addicts of all ages call prescription drugs or potions based on them “crocodiles” or “wheel syrup.” The likely consequence of their use for just a few months is gangrene, and as a result, amputation of limbs and death within a year of use. Wheel syrup is more lethal than older drugs.
As drug addicts say, the pills are taken to “chemists” - specialists in preparing drugs from a surrogate. A couple of hours, for example, are enough to evaporate the solution and get a “syrup”. In microdistricts, such “chemists” are usually known throughout the area—a crowd of drug addicts flock to them day and night, and it’s easy to shut down their business. But for some reason no one does this.
In most pharmacies, employees do not risk violating the rules for dispensing drugs included in the “narcotic” lists and lists of psychostimulants, as this entails criminal liability. But barbiturates, sedatives and painkillers are easily sold without prescriptions.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Tatyana Dmitrieva noted that the use of legal medications by drug addicts, for example, cough syrups and tablets, is becoming increasingly popular, and the age of those using such drugs has dropped to 12-13 years.
Is it possible to cure a drug addict?
In Russia, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, there are 191 state drug dispensaries, about 2 thousand rooms for the prevention and treatment of drug addiction, and 80 rehabilitation rooms. However, they do not work effectively. Both doctors and their patients say this.
There are private rehabilitation centers. On the website of the Marshak Clinic in Moscow, rates for five-day treatment start at 100 thousand rubles. In order to receive treatment, you have to pay the cost of the apartment, although recovery is not guaranteed.
Psychologists complain that old drug addiction specialists actually still treat drug addiction as “stupidity” that can be gotten rid of if desired. “Don’t inject yourself - that’s all,” they say, not recognizing that the patient’s personal growth is needed, treating support groups for drug addicts as religious sects.
Among private narcologists there are many who find a couple of patients and successfully “milk” them, simply regularly bringing them out of withdrawal symptoms. This is their business on drug addiction. Until recently, psychiatrists used electric shock for therapeutic purposes - some clients lost touch with reality. In expensive clinics they offer everything at prices ranging from $2-3 thousand and above - baths, massages, yoga, spinal cleansing, blood cleansing, special diets, body wraps, sea baths.
There are more than 350 charity centers in the country, mostly organized with the support of religious organizations. Most of them are organized by Protestants. There are also centers created by Orthodox activists.
For example, in the charitable treatment and rehabilitation center “New Life” of Sergei Matevosyan (Leningrad Region), a contract is signed with a new person: he comes here for a year. If relatives can help with money, that’s fine; if they can’t, that’s also fine. A year of not smoking, not drinking, working hard from morning to evening on a farm. Thanks to the fruits of this labor, the center exists and, according to its statistics, more than half of drug addicts are cured for a long time. There is a queue from all over the country to see Matevosyan.
There is an opinion that in the West they provide better and more successful treatment, and that they use methadone, a drug substitute. “We are called to set up centers in America. And here they tell us how good the treatment is there. Yes, there, anyone who plans to set up such a center receives a wave of charitable assistance, state support, preferences in everything. In our country, on the contrary, they will torture you with inspections. But we only treat with occupational therapy, a meager diet, and an ascetic lifestyle, and it works,” says Sergey Matevosyan.
“A German drug addict is invited to a cafe, treated to coffee, and given methadone. Then he comes again. He is tested - if he does not inject himself with heroin, he is given methadone again. And the rest of the time no one needs him, go die,” says Pastor Mikhail from the center in the Kemerovo region.
The methadone issue has long been controversial. By and large, the technology is designed for desperate patients, but it protects society from the spread of infections.
12 steps
“Many people do not understand that treating the body is only part of the problem in addiction treatment,” says psychotherapist Tatyana Trifolovskaya, a psychotherapist at the Moscow Scientific and Practical Center for Addiction Medicine, “and treatment for addiction also requires treatment of the soul, a change in society and a lot of work in the family.”
Trifolovskaya considers only the world-famous “12 steps” program to be effective. By participating in it, 5 million people addicted to drugs in the world live a normal life.
At the capital's metro stations, you won't recognize people from mutual aid groups for Narcotics Anonymous among the crowd, but they are there. They are waiting there for those who have an attack of drug cravings. Such groups are created everywhere (there are more than a dozen of them in the capital) by participants in the 12 Steps program.
Narcotics Anonymous works according to a program similar to the one created in the United States in the 1930s to help alcoholics.
Its essence comes down to the recognition of the fact: a person alone is powerless to cope with the problem of drug addiction or alcoholism, and therefore he needs help to recover, and this means radically changing his life. In the group, all its members are anonymous, including when contacting the media. Everyone has a curator - a volunteer from those who have lived a “clean” life for at least a year. The 12 Steps are not affiliated with a church by charter, although there are religious groups.
Narcotics Anonymous believe that the family often aggravates the problem: it pays the addict’s debts, controls drug use, but the more the addict is protected from the truth of his situation, the less chance he has to begin to recover (in this, by the way, church centers are in full solidarity with these activists) .
Addicts come to the “12 steps”, as a rule, having already lost their studies, jobs and the trust of loved ones, they are powerless over the disease and, recognizing this, they find support from people with the same problems, but who already have experience in solving them, as well as professional help from consultants and psychologists, help from loved ones and other sources of help. All this is built into a clearly structured system of long-term, sometimes multi-year, support.
They learn to organize safety measures, for example, avoid communication with active drug addicts, acquire the skills of a “clean” life, lost over the years of drug use, learn to recognize and adequately express their feelings, and prevent the development of breakdowns.
Help-seeking skills are developed at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, which are included in the basic three-month course.
There are classes for mixed groups of patients and relatives, joint sports competitions, holidays, discos, saunas and fishing.
The basic premise of rehabilitation is that drug addiction is almost forever. Treatment is always only voluntary, based on the informed consent of the patient.
Religious activists have doubts about the 12 Steps because they consider it a vicious circle. The group does not lead a person anywhere; sooner or later he will get tired of this circle. For example, Orthodox and Protestants not only try to lead to recovery, but also introduce former drug addicts to healthy people, involve them in a great cause that is not connected only with the matter of saving drug addicts.
“If a soul enslaved by evil wants to free itself, it must fill itself with new meaning. The meaning for the soul is to become part of a big and real thing. Otherwise, everything is in vain,” says Olga M., who traveled to various centers, first in search of a cure, and then to exchange experiences.
Roots
To combat a phenomenon, you need to understand its nature. There are three concepts. The first boils down to the fact that immigrants from Central Asia, Afghans, are to blame for the dominance of drugs. The second insists on some abstract corruption of officials. The third says that drugs are a weapon of Western intelligence services against Russia. All three would be fine if drugs were rampant only in Russia.
Last week, Vice President of Afghanistan Karim Khalili received from the director of the Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov a list of senior officials in his country involved in drug trafficking. This list was first made public by American television channel ABC News in June 2006, when secret Pentagon documents on US Afghan allies were made public.
But the UN speaks openly and annually about more complex connections.
Thus, the report of the UN Committee on Drugs and Crime for 2007 directly states that NATO troops are prohibited from touching opium fields. In January 2008, the head of this committee, Antonio Maria Costa, gave a striking example. To convert 1 ton of raw opium into heroin, you need 2-6 tons of acetic anhydride, which is not produced in Afghanistan. In 2005 alone, 10 thousand tons of anhydride were imported, that is, a caravan of 500 20-ton trailers entered the country. NATO did not notice these cars and did not ask why there was so much vinegar.
The Ministry for Combating Drug Trafficking in Afghanistan told a Gazeta correspondent two years ago that Afghans would not be able to overcome the problem alone. After all, 2-3.2 million Afghans grow poppy, that is, approximately every tenth of the 25 million population. They and their families will die if the poppy is burned. Afghan officers showed covert footage of plantations guarded by foreign soldiers and scenes of loading onto foreign planes.
Since 2006, unsuccessful negotiations have been ongoing to open a representative office of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation in Kabul. Afghanistan has not yet received any real assistance in the fight against drugs from any country.
According to state drug control estimates, approximately 30% of the harvest goes from Afghanistan to Russia via the northern route through the porous borders of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. In Kyrgyzstan, while the American base was operating there, a plan for industrial-scale poppy planting was seriously discussed.
Why, given that the world's intelligence services are so well informed about the state of affairs, is it impossible to defeat the entire network? After all, intelligence services know how to track down spies or secret organizations. Why was it possible to find out about 400 chemical laboratories on the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, but not to destroy them? Why is it easy to buy all the equipment for growing cannabis on the Internet? Why do young people know where the potion is sold, but the security forces do not?
The simplest answer suggests itself: apparently, the special services are not interested in covering up drug trafficking, since it is an inexhaustible source of black cash. This question has been studied by many former CIA and MI6 employees using the examples of the actions of Albanian and Kurdish drug couriers, the Colombian drug cartel and the Asian opium “golden triangle”.
Not a single intelligence service in the world has ever admitted that it is powerless against drug trafficking.
The most famous example of drug trafficking is the opium wars, which were carried out by Britain against China in 1840-1860. Britain wanted to import and distribute opium, banned in China, from Bengal. The Chinese burned warehouses, arrested consumers - and the war began. China lost, paid a huge indemnity, gave up Hong Kong, and the British received the right to trade opium. China's population has dropped from 416 million to 50 million over 40 years.
In the 60s of the 20th century, the FBI developed and introduced a drug network into the ranks of the Black Panthers when they were considered dangerous to the United States. In the 1970s, drug couriers were sent to Indian reservations, where a strong liberation movement had developed. Until now, on Indian reservations, strict pressure is applied to any offenders, except for alcohol dealers and drug couriers.
Only a few countries in history have been able to defeat drugs.
The USSR coped with drug addiction until 1991, although there were marijuana and opium plantations on its territory. Communist China managed to overcome drugs with executions and tough policies.
The Taliban government easily dealt with this disaster, something that people in Afghanistan don’t like to remember now. According to a UN report, the Taliban sharply reduced poppy cultivation to 185 tons per year, and practically eliminated it in 2000-2001.
Iran is also fighting drug trafficking. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, European hippies made drug pilgrimages to Iran. In 1989, Iran introduced the death penalty for drug trafficking. Most of the 300 annual executions in Iran that outrage human rights activists are of drug traffickers. Iran has strengthened the border with Afghanistan, and its border guards are engaged in real battles and systematic shooting of heroin caravans.
Such measures are unacceptable for Western countries. In Europe, drugs are legalized and doses are dispensed in pharmacies. Do we still have time to choose a “special” path?
