COUNTRY PROFILE 1999-2000

REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN

Topography :

With the total area of 2 717 600 square kilometres Kazakhstan is the second largest state of the former Soviet Union and the ninth largest in the world. It’s land boundary is 12 012 kilometres, of which 1 533 km is with China, 1.051 km with Kyrgyzstan, 6 846km with Russia, 379 km with Turkmenistan, and 379 km with Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan has a sea border of 1 015 km on the Aral Sea and 1 894 km on the Caspian Sea. The total population of the country is 15.751 million. Akmola replaced Almaty (Alma-Ata) as the Kazakh capital in late 1997, and the name of the new capital was changed to Astana in mid 1998.

 (I)        Cultivation, Production and Supply

According to the official data, the drug containing crops occupy more than 1,2 million hectares in the country. The climate and landscape conditions in many regions of Kazakhstan are favourable for the growth of cannabis, opium poppy and the Ephedra plant, the source of ephedrine (metkatinone). Narcotics production in the clandestine laboratories, including opium, ephedrone and others, as well as embezzlement of medical narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances constitute considerable sources of illicit drugs supply in the country.

Opium Poppy  : Since the opening of a pharmaceutical factory in Chimkent city at the end of 19^th century, the opium production in Russia and in the Soviet Union was based mainly on opium produced in Central Asia. In 1974, the ex-Soviet Government imposed a ban on opium poppy cultivation and opium production.

The total area under illicit opium poppy cultivation is currently estimated at about 2000 hectares capable of producing about 30 tones of opium. Opium poppy is mostly cultivated on small plots in order to avoid disposure. Big territory of the country and small plots under cultivation make difficult the estimation of possible harvest.

The area under opium poppy cultivation, while still low, has increased in 1999. The Government reported a total of 9000 square meters eradicated while according to the UN ODCCP survey staff it is 18,575.5 square meters with estimated production of 74.30 kilos of opium. This compares to a total of 6,280 square meters discovered in 1998. Out of the opium poppy cultivation in the surveyed area 84% was in remote mountain areas. The number of cases of poppy cultivation in Almaty province almost doubled compared to 1998. Low level of medical service is one of the reasons for the increase in poppy cultivation. People in remote rural areas are turning to the traditional use of opium and poppy extracts as a medicine.

Cannabis :    Cannabis is wildly growing on about one million hectares in the country. The Chui Valley of Jambyl Province has the biggest plantations of cannabis – about 130 000 hectares capable of producing 140 000  - 150 000 tones of marijuana or 5 000  – 6 000 tones of hashish per year.  In the course of 1999 UNDCP survey, 72,048 hectares of cannabis were found in 7 provinces surveyed. Almost 67% of the cannabis found was either on abandoned farmlands or in desert areas. The authorities reported that approximately 77.8 hectares of cultivated cannabis were eradicated in 1999. A rapid assessment undertaken around harvest time indicates that a minimum of 1,978 hectares of cannabis was harvested in the Chui valley alone. This corresponds to an estimated 1,462 metric tones of marijuana or 51.2 metric tones of hashish. Over 93 per cent of marijuana and 85 per cent of hashish in Russia come from Kazakhstan.

 Ephedra  :   Since 1992 a drug called “Ephedrine” (Metkatinone), manufactured from Ephedra plant, rapidly spread in the illegal markets of Kazakhstan. At least seven species of ephedra are indigenous in an area of 350,000 hectares in southern Kazakhstan.

(II)       Illicit Drug Trafficking

Due to the large geographic area, Kazakhstan seems to be the biggest Central Asian source and a significant drug corridor for the illicit trafficking of opiates and cannabis products from Afghanistan to Russia and Western European markets. Transparency of the state border with most of the neighbour countries, low level of technical equipment of the Kazakh law enforcement agencies make the territory of this country a favourable drug transit route. The drug criminal groups, who use the territory of Kazakhstan as a transit route for drugs from Afghanistan and Central Asian states destined for Europe, have become more active.

 Main trafficking routes for Afghan drugs to Kazakhstan and further are as follows:

(i)  Through Uzbekistan to Chimkent;

(ii) Through Lenin-Abad Oblast of Tajikistan, further to Uzbekistan to Chimkent;

(iii) Through Osh of the Kyrgyz Republic to Jambyl and Almaty;

(iv) Through Turkmenistan and Mangistauskaya Oblast of Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan and Russia using highways and sea transport.

The major change in trafficking routes observed in 1999 was in the Kostanay and Oral Provinces, where drugs are reported to be entering via Russia from Chechnya due to the difficulty in sending illicit drugs to these regions from other parts of the country.

The most popular means to traffic drugs through Kazakhstan is on northbound trains from Kazakhstan to Moscow, using adolescent or elderly people to smuggle the goods in their baggage or on their bodies. Drug couriers also conceal drugs in the abdominal cavity and in the professionally made at the factories hiding-places. In June 1999, the Kazakh customs officials for the first time used portable metal searcher device for detection of drugs concealed in the abdominal cavity.[1]  The increasing frequency of international air connections from Kazakhstan to Western Europe have led drug traffickers to smuggle narcotics by air as well. 80% of drug traffickers in Kazakhstan are citizens of other Central Asian countries and Russia.

According to local law enforcement officials, Kazakhstan has the potential to become a transit country for Chinese psychotropic drugs. Some of the “Ecstasy” group substances enter the country from Russia, Western Europe and find their customers mostly in nightclubs and casinos. 

Illicit drug trafficking in precursors remains a significant problem for Kazakhstan. The Republic produces about 100 000 tones of precursors annually. Kazakhstan’s precursors are used in the illegal drug production in the clandestine laboratories inside country and also illegally being exported to the Southwest Asia for the illicit production of heroin.

 The Kazakh law enforcement officials point out the considerable decrease of trafficking in local drugs like marijuana and hashish and increase of opium and heroin smuggling. In the first eight months of 2000 alone, over 150 kilos have been confiscated by the Kazakh law enforcement agencies that already accedes three times the annual heroin seizure in 1999.

(III)     Drug Abuse

Every year at about 4 thousand drug abusers are being detected and registered, 65% of the total number of drug addicts are under 30. In comparison with 1991, number of drug addicts being under dispensary and prophylactic observation in medical institutions increased for 7 times. The number of drug users officially registered in the republic at the end of 1999 was 37.492, over the six months of 2000, 6596 drug addicts were exposed.  Law enforcement agencies state, however, that real numbers are actually higher and may exceed the official figures by as much as five times. 5% of the total are adolescents and almost 7% of all drug users are women. The 1999 figures also indicate that 43% of registered drug abusers are jobless and not studying. The largest category of registered drug users comprises urban dwellers accounting for 70% of all drug users.1 Half of all drug users registered in the Almaty Narcotics Dispensary are between 18 and 25 years old. Over the last few years the death rate among drug users raised 8-10 fold. The main causers of death among drug users are sepsis and overdosing. Most chronic drug addicts die before 30.2

Teenager’s drug abuse is of special concern. According to the poll conducted among Kazakh schoolchildren in 1997, 12% of junior pupils have used drugs once in their life. 2-5% of schoolchildren regularly use drugs. On the whole, the Kazakh teenagers use “light” drugs like marijuana.3 Only in the first six months of 2000, 537 adolescents using drugs were registered versus 464 for the whole 1999. 

The sociological researches show high level of drug addiction and drug-related crimes in the southern regions of the country, such as the Jambylskaya, Ujno-Kazakhstanskaya and Karagandinskaya Provinces.

Marijuana and hashish remain the primary drug of abuse. Opiates are also popular. Addicts reportedly inject narcotics extracted from opium poppy straw. Other abuse substances include barbiturates, benzodiazapines, ephedrine hydrochloride, and inhalants. The rise in the use of injected drugs, primarily opiates, has become the major vector for the rapid spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. More than 80% of those HIV-infected are drug abusers using syringes.4

The Republic is currently being swept by a wave of heroin from Afghanistan and Tajikistan that has replaced marijuana as a drug of choice. The growing popularity of heroin in Almaty is proven by its low price US$ 8-10 per gram. If previously up to 80% of drug users took hemp and its derivatives, for the last three years, according to the Drug Control Agency of Kazakhstan, 52% of the total number of drug abusers use opium and heroin.5

(IV)     Fight Against Illicit Drugs

    A.            Internal Level

Nursultan Nazarbaev, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, designated counter-narcotics programs to be a national policy priority. A Master Plan to control drug trafficking and organized crime for the years of 1998 – 2005 is currently being implemented. The Republic passed legislation defining psychotropic substances, drafted legislation for the control of precursors, and imposed some licensing requirements on chemical manufactures. In February 2000, the Kazakh Government established the State Drug Control Agency, which coordinates the activities of law enforcement agencies in the field of drug control. The agency has drafted amendments to the present republic’s criminal code aimed at stiffening penalties for drugs trafficking and production, money laundering and organized crime as well as a programme on strengthening control over the Kazakh-Russian border.

There is a steady trend of rise in the drug-related crimes for the recent years. If between 1991 and 1999 the general crime rate in Kazakhstan lowered 19%, the drug-related crimes rose 4.3 times to 15%.1 12.234 drug-related cases or 20,1% of the total number of registered crimes (versus 10.628 crimes for the same period of 1999 or 15,3%) were revealed and registered by the Kazakh law enforcement agencies within this period. Correspondingly, there is an increase in number of persons against whom criminal proceedings have been instituted for the drug-related crimes (9273 persons for the first six months of 1999 versus 10663 for the same period of 2000). Whereas over the first six months of 1999, 1943 people committed crimes in a state of narcotic excitement, for the same period of this year the number came to 2105 people. Crimes related to the illicit manufacture, purchase, storage, sending or sale of the narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances continue to constitute the major part of the total number of committed crimes (11.816 or 96,6%). 10,663 people who committed the drug-related crimes have been exposed, that is 13,7% increase in comparison with the same number for the six months of 1999. There is 13,9% rise in number of adolescents (270 versus 237) and 12,6% rise in number of women (1283 versus 1139). In the current year, almost 4000 persons have been called for the administrative account for the drug-related violations.

  Over the first six months of this year, criminal proceedings were instituted against 327 foreign citizens, mostly as before citizens of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. On the whole, 745 foreign citizens were detained for the drug-related crimes.

         Drug Seizures for the last 5 years (kg)*

    * Annual Report 1999 ODCCP Regional Office for Central Asia

In the same time, volume of confiscated narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances is declining. For instance, 686,000 kilos of narcotics were confiscated in the stated period of 1999 versus 253,000 kilos in the same period of 2000. Out of them, there were 41,8 kilos of heroin and 53 grammes of codeine, 56,43 kilos of opium, 2,208.000 kilos of marijuana, and 155 kilos of hashish. In addition, 0.147 kilos of raw material for the manufacture of narcotic drugs were also seized. Out of the seized narcotics, 180 kilos of narcotic drugs, 19 kilos of psychotropic substances and 397 kilos of precursors were smuggled into the country.

The strategy for fighting illicit drug trafficking developed by the Kazakh Government stipulates establishment of special committees at the regional level that will coordinate their activities with the Drug Control Agency.

The Kazakh Customs plan to set 30 checkpoints on the border with Uzbekistan. In desert areas customs, police and border guards will work in shifts to protect the state border.  

The Kazakh National Security has begun a large-scale operation aimed at preventing the spread of drug trafficking and trans-national crime in the country. On 21 May 2000, the Kazakh Security officials detained two cars with diplomatic numbers of the Embassy of Tajikistan in Kazakhstan on the Bishkek – Almaty highway wherein 62 kg of heroin, US$ 54,000 and a bank check of 1,261,000 pounds were found. Two days later, 14 kg of heroin more were found at the apartment of the Tajik trade representative in Kazakhstan. Five Tajik citizens were arrested, including Tajik Trade Representative and Tajik Ambassador’s driver. This drug channel was operational for two years. Part of drugs was being sold in Almaty and another part further channeled to Russia and Western Europe.

B.     International Level

In June 1998 the Parliament of Kazakhstan ratified the 1988 UN Drug Convention, the 1961 UN Single Convention and its 1972 Protocol, as well as the 19971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The State Drug Control Agency takes a number of measures aimed at the fruitful cooperation in the drug control field with agencies of other countries, first of all, states of the Central Asian region. On 15 September 2000, a MOU on cooperation in the drug control matters was signed between the Drug Control Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Drug Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan.

(V)      Treatment and Rehabilitation

There are nine specialized medical institutions and 18 dispensaries for treating drug users in Kazakhstan. However, only seven percent of all drug users apply to public medical institutions. Major part of them prefers private clinics. According to the statistics, in the two years since removing the physical dependence syndrome, drug users resort back to narcotics. This happens because Kazakhstan does not have efficient rehabilitation centers where drug users can find support during the next one and half years after treatment. Kazakh experts believe that it is necessary to create a Medical Drug Abuse Center in order to develop effective methods of drug addiction treatment and to prepare highly qualified specialists. The Government of the Republic has implemented a number of drug abuse prevention and treatment activities aimed at reducing the incidence of HIV among injecting drug abusers. Since 1999, a drug education curriculum for students aged 7 – 17 is being taught nationwide.

Sources/publications used in preparing this profile: