Narcotism and Narcomania

Abstract

Of late there has been active discussion of problems of narcomania in the pages of the Soviet periodical press, and numerous specific cases have been cited of the "attraction" that narcotics hold for adolescents and young people, and the sad results of this pernicious passion.¹ Open discussion of the urgent problems posed by narcomania is explained not so much by the large scope of this phenomenon in our country (even though the number of drug and toxic substance addicts registered in Moscow, for example, is not so very small—3,700 persons) as by the intensification of glasnost', by the desire to put an end to the "ostrich policy,"² and to launch a real fight against this negative social phenomenon.