Society demands its pleasures

Timur Chagunava

1st policeman: We work as task force leaders in the 28th militia precinct of the Central District Administration of the Interior Ministry. We have a small beat, but many problems. There are more than 22,000 people living in our precinct and the problem of drugs is one of the most critical, because it brings all the other crimes along with it. The struggle against racketeering isn’t carried out on the precinct level. Most often our foe turns out to be the hooligan of song and story—thefts, burglaries, robberies. Many commit crimes not because they’re running with one mafia band or another, but simply because they’re forced into crime out of need, above all for money and drugs. They need money for drugs, and drug addicts often don’t work: their health doesn’t permit it.

"Pchela": What’s the social profile of a drug addict?

2nd policeman: Everything is determined by problems in the society. If drugs are sold almost legally in educational institutions and it’s considered cool to walk into a decent place with a joint, then you find every sort among the drug addicts—gilded youth and hooligans.

1st: The Authority for Combating Illegal Drug Trade is especially engaged in the struggle against the spread of drugs. I somehow don’t remember our ever having charged someone we nabbed with a joint or with a sack of "stubble" [chopped poppy heads used as a narcotic]. Most often we bring in drug addicts for general sorts of crimes: they commit thefts, robberies, beat up drunks, old people. If we speak in terms of social categories, then most often, of course, this isn’t the gilded youth, because we have hardly any colleges in the district. There are several spots where grass is sold. Most often we’re fighting with the lowest category, the dropouts. As a rule, these are guys who don’t work and can’t think about anything except drugs, guys who are completely fried. It’s pointless to look for a book in the apartments of these perpetrators. You stop by in the course of half a year and you see how things disappear. Then it turns out that the room has been sold, too, after which its occupant is put in jail. In a general cross-section of society there aren’t many drug addicts. It isn’t an overwhelming mass phenomenon, the percentages aren’t great.

In our precinct, for instance, there’s this group, twenty to twenty-five people, that creates the climate: they commit thefts, they stash and sell drugs. In Russia we have humane legislation: the perpetrator gets caught, the investigator says to him "Bad boy!" According to law he signs a document stating he will not leave the city, and you struggle with him for a year. Once a month we bury somebody. It’s an awful sight: a sixteen-year-old died here on Pravda Street—he’s lying there, green froth coming out of his mouth. Not much fun, especially if you know that there’s another guy like him in the next precinct over, and in the neighboring district there are two more like him.

2nd: They die for different reasons: it may be that the diagnosis isn’t drug addiction, but trophic ulcers or an overdose.

I don’t believe in the drug addict who doesn’t commit crimes—if of course he isn’t a high society drug addict, someone involved in film or music. In order to obtain drugs you need money in constantly increasing amounts. The addict loses control and his health is ruined and he isn’t able to work anymore: he loses his moral underpinnings. It’s hard to explain to him that it’s wrong to snatch an old woman’s purse and hit her over the head with a pipe in the process. He’ll say: "Yes, it’s bad, but I had to shoot up." I’m not against anyone doing their own thing. But of course if someone is going to deal drugs, then he’ll have to deal with us. We aren’t all-powerful, but sometimes we can make things seriously unpleasant for someone.

What’s being done in schools and universities in terms of campaigning against narcotics—when it’s done at all—is mainly poorly done, on the level of head teacher Maria, who doesn’t know what drugs are. You have to fight so that "Come on, Vasya, let’s go to the nightclub, we’ll each fix ourselves a joint and have a toke with our crowd" isn’t the way young people think. Propagandizing a healthy lifestyle is a national problem.

1st: Society changed a few years ago. Its social structure changed, economic relationships changed, people’s morals changed. Now people are obsessed by one idea, one thought: to get more and more pleasure. In principle it’s not the existence of nightclub culture that’s the problem—it’s a problem of society as a whole. Like the ancient Romans, who forgot that they should enlighten people, give them laws. They began to demand bread and circuses. Cheap, free bread and more and more nerve-tingling circuses. The same with our society. And it’s supported by our entire popular culture. And as long as that exists, drugs in massive quantities will exist.