Addiction is a dangerous disease caused by the use of drugs. It manifests itself in a chronic need to take drugs, since the patient’s mental, emotional and physical condition directly depends on whether he received a drug that has become addictive. Addiction leads to a gross violation of human life, its social degradation.
Addicts, regardless of the type of drugs taken, do not live long. They quite quickly lose the instinct of self-preservation characteristic of living organisms. According to statistics, approximately 60% of them consciously commit a crime or attempt suicide within the first 2 years after the start of drug use.
Despite the seriousness of this problem, the history of the fight against drugs has a little more than a hundred years. In February 1909, the first international anti-narcotic commission was organized in Shanghai, which included the Russian Empire. The main task of the convened commission was to solve the problem of the supply of opium and its derivatives to European countries from Asian countries.
Again, the world community spoke about the need to fight drugs almost 80 years later. During this period, the problem worsened significantly. The place of opium was taken by “hard” drugs for intravenous use, the number of addicts increased significantly, and the disease itself became sharply younger.
In 1987, the UN General Assembly organized the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which is celebrated annually on June 26. The decision was made in December 1987 in accordance with the recommendation of a special International Conference that adopted an appropriate plan for future activities to combat drug abuse. The main goal of the established event is to draw the attention of people around the world to the need to join forces to solve the problem of drug addiction.
According to the latest UN data, the number of people who use drugs ranges from 3% to 6.5% of the world's population. Approximately 5 million drug users live in Russia. In addition, our country occupies a leading position in the world in the use of the most dangerous narcotic substance - heroin. Every year from 30 to 40 thousand people die from drugs in the Russian Federation.
