CROATIA HAS 13,000 DRUG ADDICTS

ZAGREB, June 13 (Hina) - Croatia has 13,000 drug addicts, of which 85 percent are addicted to heroin, the head of the Croatian Government Commission for the Prevention of Drug Abuse, Dr. Slavko Sakoman said Tuesday. "According to the number of drug addicts, we are in the middle of the European scale", Sakoman said before the Croatian National Sabor's House of Counties when speaking about the National Strategy on the drug abuse prevention. Sakoman stressed that every year there were 1,500 new addicts, 50 percent more addicts were infected by hepatitis B and C, and about half of them were about to die. There are about 2,000 marijuana users, Sakoman said. The country should be more precise while implementing measures and should decrease the number of addicts by at least 50 percent, otherwise the situation will be worrying, Sakoman stressed. The National Strategy aims at decreasing the demand on the drug market and quality repression in order to convince addicts to undergo treatment, and to put dealers in prison, Sakoman added. He pointed out that the criminal law should include a regulation in line with which all those caught possessing more than insignificant quantities of drugs should be prosecuted. (hina) it mm