Russians annually spend some $17 billion...

"Afghanistan produces today more opiates than the whole world used to produce five years ago," Gennady Onishchenko said at a news conference in Moscow.

Russia is battling a rise in the flow of heroin from Afghanistan into its North Caucasus region. Afghanistan produces more than 90% of the world"s opium, the main raw material for heroin and a major source of revenue for the Taliban-led insurgency in the country.

Onishchenko added that annually some 35 tons of drugs are brought to Russia from Afghanistan.

Russia"s Federal Drug Control Service said in a statement last week that there are some 550,000 drug addicts officially registered in Russia, with unofficial estimates as high as 2.5 million accounting for almost 2% of Russia"s 142-million population.

The drug watchdog added that almost 75,000 Russians annually try drugs for the first time, with the annual death toll reaching 30,000.

MOSCOW, March 15 (RIA Novosti)