Overdoses kill 70,000 Russians every year

Some 70,000 Russians - close to 200 people a day - die from drug overdoses, a top official said on Friday.

The figures illustrate the shocking rate of unnatural deaths in Russia, which recorded 46,000 suicides and 36,000 murders last year.

"Unfortunately, doctors don't collect precise statistics, otherwise we could compile more accurate figures," said Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Drug Control Service's information department, according to Itar-Tass news agency.

High disease and crime rates and low birth rates have slashed Russia's population since the fall of the Soviet Union to less than 145 million from 152 million.

With one million users, Russia is Europe's biggest heroin market, a U.N. report said last year. Drug abuse has also propelled the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with more than 250,000 people infected across the country, according to U.N. figures for 2003.

"The speed of the disease's spread is alarming," said Mikhailov.