Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The number of drug addicts has considerably risen in Armenia over the past five years.

Drug trafficking remains a problem for the government of Armenia which has found the situation too complicated to handle.

"Struggling against the drug planting has been ineffective due to unclear criminal situation in this field," President of the Criminal Chamber of Armenia's Court of Cassation David Avetisyan said.

A total of 1,222 cases of drug-related crimes and 362 cases of law-breaking were recorded in Armenia last year.

Anti-drug operations by the law enforcement bodies have been fruitless, as the number of drug addicts has sharply increased in Armenia over the last five years, Chief-of-staff of the Armenian Presidential Administration Vigen Sargsyan said.

The official statistics showed that the number of drug users in Armenia increased by 50 percent last year. Cannabis, opium and cocaine were listed as the most preferred drugs among the narcotic users in the country.

Furthermore, drug trafficking is also going high in Armenia. According to a report by the Armenia's Police Department for Combating Drug Trafficking publicized in June, 2014, some 443 cases of drug trafficking were registered during the first five months of this year in the country.

Besides the illegal import of drugs, cultivation, sale and transit of drug-containing plants are carried out in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. As a result, Armenia has turned the occupied territories into an uncontrolled area which hosts illegal drug trafficking operations.

Despite Azerbaijan's concerns over drug transit through its occupied territories, Armenia does not allow the UN experts to visit the occupied Azerbaijani lands.