Heroin in the Soviet Union could be bought in a regular pharmacy until 1956

March 11 is the Day of Russian Drug Control Authorities. On this day in 2003, a special agency for drug control was created. It is clear that not from a good life. “BUSINESS Online” talks about how the prototype of the modern drug mafia was formed literally under the noses of the Union authorities.

“ONLY RICH FOREIGN SLAUGHTERS SUFFER FROM DRUG ADDICTION”

Was there drug addiction in the USSR before its collapse? Officially - there was no, as well as organized crime, execution of Novocherkassk workers in 1962, sex, slums, large man-made disasters, - you never know! All this was the lot of “decaying imperialism.” Throughout all the years of the existence of Soviet power, with the possible exception of the period of glasnost, official propaganda claimed that in the USSR there was no social environment in which drug addiction could develop. Like, this phenomenon is characteristic exclusively bourgeois society and since ancient times, it has been mainly rich foreign slackers who have suffered from drug addiction.

No, no one denied individual cases of drug addiction in our country. Even in the cult film “Petrovka, 38,” filmed in pre-perestroika 1980 based on the story of the same name Yuliana Semenova, it is very reliably shown how one of the negative characters - a drug addict bandit nicknamed Sudar - is locked in solitary confinement by the detectives in order to obtain necessary information. These cases, like the word “drug” itself, were exotic.

BUSINESS Online has not yet been able to find any documentary mention of this on the territory of the TASSR. , a veteran of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a retired police major, who, after serving as a district police officer, was alternately the head of three Kazan sobering-up stations - in the Kirovsky, Sovetsky districts of Kazan and in the village of Yudino - and served in these positions for a total of more than a dozen of 28 years in the internal affairs bodies, in in a conversation with an editorial correspondent, he said: “I retired in 1991, and then drug addiction was not such a problem as it is today. There were isolated cases. And drunkenness and alcoholism were considered a real disaster at that time. This is where all our attention and efforts were directed.” The police did not receive any specific instructions regarding drug addicts, especially since as a last resort Only medical assistance was provided. Of course, there were no special forces to combat illegal drug trafficking. But whether this turn itself took place is for you to judge.

Mansur Idrisov / Photo 16.mvd.rf

“DOSTOEVSKIES” IN THE TIMES OF ANDROPOV

He describes the curious “experience” of the existence of Soviet “narco-families” in his book “Curious Things” military medicine and expertise" doctor and writer Andrey Lomachinsky: “Andropov was in power then, and, according to him, it was necessary to fight more against violations of labor discipline... In my fifth year, I was on ambulance duty. One day the dispatcher gave me a call, and he laughed: “Well, young man, go meet your family, it looks like there’s a lot of money to be made there.” These words meant nothing to me at the time. But it turned out to be simple: Soviet drug addicts lived in families. Not in terms of husband and wife, a unit of society. Their families consisted of any number of drug addicts of both sexes of different ages. The head of the family was always the Dostoevskys - those who wore the “straw hat”. In fact, Dostoevsky could wear anything on his head according to the season, from nothing to a fur hat, and he wore a “straw hat” to his family. “Hat” in ancient Narkomanian meant poppy straw. Then there was socialism, and there was no drug trafficking yet, so the family people’s commissars selected from among their midst the most physically strong, financially responsible and “morally steadfast” persons, identifying them as the purveyors of raw materials, or the Dostoevskys. They were the first shuttle traders, the prototype of drug trafficking of that time - they went to the south, where they didn’t so much buy something there as simply play dirty tricks in the dachas, tearing out poppies at the roots. True, they didn’t completely offend the grandmothers - they tore out exactly two-thirds of what was planted, so that the grandmother would plant it again the next year. Then communism was expected, it was officially believed that there could be no drug addiction in the USSR due to socialist conditions, so the cops turned a blind eye to such “dacha residents” - as long as they didn’t break into the houses. Well, a night of hard work yielded from one to ten suitcases of raw materials, depending on the area. The Dostoevskys lived like Lenin - in huts. The poppy seeds were dried there, crushed, and packed into plastic bags, which were tamped into suitcases. As soon as the “hat” has collected the required number of suitcases, it’s time to go home. By the early nineties, those drug addicts had already physically died out...”

“SUPPLIERS AND SPECULANTS WHEN TRANSPORTING HASHISH RESULT TO VARIOUS KINDS OF TRICKS”

But there were facts and phenomena that could not be called curious - this is no laughing matter. The Russian state archive of socio-political history contains a message from the Ministry of Public Order (then the Ministry of Internal Affairs) of the RSFSR, addressed to the Bureau of the CPSU Central Committee for the Russian Federation. This message was dated May 8, 1964, and it, naturally, was classified as “Secret”. A detailed presentation of this document is provided by the publication “Top Secret”.

Minister of Public Order of Russia Vadim Tikunov was extremely concerned that more and more drugs were being imported into the territory of the Russian Federation. The main suppliers of the potion, according to him, were Kazakhstan and Central Asia. “Recently,” the minister wrote, “the use of narcotic substances, especially hashish, has become widespread.” Hashish was the most desirable drug for interested citizens. “In pursuit of easy money,” writes Tikunov, “suppliers and speculators resort to various kinds of tricks and tricks when transporting hashish. They place it in specially made suitcases with a double bottom, in jars of canned fruit or jam, and stuff it into rubber balls, watermelons, and melons. They often send it in parcels or luggage.” As a rule, long-distance train conductors and restaurant car workers, that is, people professionally associated with transport, were used as carriers.

From the minister’s message, members of the Bureau of the CPSU Central Committee for the RSFSR learned that, it turns out, Soviet drug addicts “often steal narcotic substances from pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, warehouses and other places where medicines are stored, or receive them from pharmacies using stolen prescriptions.” And other drug addicts entered into “a criminal conspiracy with medical workers, buying drugs from them or receiving prescriptions for a certain fee.” The places where “such facts took place” are Bashkiria, Checheno-Ingushetia, Udmurtia, Omsk, Kuibyshev, Saratov, Orenburg regions and, of course, Moscow.

IN KAZAN, SCHOOLCHILDREN WERE SMOKED SO MUCH THAT THEY COULD NOT CONNECT TWO WORDS

A kilogram of hashish brought drug dealers a profit of 700–800 rubles, which in 1964 was 8–9 average salaries. Only in Omsk region 62 drug suppliers and traffickers arrested by the police sold more than 800 kg of hashish to drug addicts. At that time, it was believed that approximately one tenth of illegal actions in this area were stopped. Thus, only Omsk drug addicts could smoke up to 8 tons of dope in a year. The figure, especially for those times, is quite large...

The largest drug dealer in Omsk (this city appears most often in General Tikunov’s message) was a certain Shneiderovich, who made more than 50 thousand rubles from the sale of hashish (only according to data recorded by the police). In 1964, with this money you could buy a dozen Volga cars. For comparison: chapter Soviet state- First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and head of the USSR government Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who was dismissed a few months after the quoted letter was discussed in the Central Committee, received a salary of just over 600 rubles a month.

In fact, the amounts from drug sales that Shneiderovich received from Kazakhstan were much larger. Police operatives estimated them at a gigantic sum for those times - up to half a million rubles. And this is already up to a million doses...

Surprisingly, in accordance with the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960 (entered into force on January 1, 1961), major drug dealer Shneiderovich faced a ridiculous sentence. Art. 224 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Manufacture or sale of poisonous or narcotic substances” (the crime also included storage and acquisition) provided for only imprisonment for up to 1 year, or correctional labor, or a fine of up to 100 rubles. True, for the systematic implementation of such acts, Shneiderovich could be imprisoned for up to 5 years. And that was the maximum!

In Kazan, as General Tikunov noted, the apartment of the drug dealer Safin, detained by the police, was visited daily by at least 50 drug addicts young age. Drug abuse in schools has become commonplace. Even the minister was amazed by the fact that some schoolchildren were stoned during breaks to such an extent that they could not put two words together: “The police have identified many drug addicts from among the students of the schools of the Ministry of Education. In some schools, students smoke hashish during breaks between classes and, under the influence of drugs, are unable to continue their studies.”

THE ASSORTMENT OF SOVIET PHARMACIES WAS A KLONDIKE FOR DRUG ADDICATORS

Drug addiction was growing in the Union in areas other than hashish. For a modern drug addict, the assortment of Soviet pharmacies in the 1950s–1980s would be a real Klondike. In the fifties, for example, stomach tablets based on natural opium were freely sold, and later ephedrine, codeine, and various kinds of barbiturates. It was not difficult to prepare some kind of “happy” potion. But in the sixties, for example, the number of “pharmacy” drug addicts who prepared something themselves was very small. Back then they were only interested in “pure” drugs like morphine, Omnopon, cocaine drops and other prescription drugs.

They only “realized” about heroin in 1956, and even then not very significantly. The certificate from the USSR Ministry of Health stated: “By order of the USSR Ministry of Health N152 dated 6/IV-1956 from list “A” toxic substances the drug heroin was excluded as prohibited for use in medical practice; instructions were given on subject-quantitative accounting in pharmacies of hydrochloric morphine, opium extract and fenadone.”

About drug addiction in the Central Committee, the government and the union The Supreme Council A fairly large number of citizens wrote. Parents of drug addicts complained that no one was helping them in their troubles. And vigilant citizens reported that drug trafficking was proceeding calmly throughout the country, including Moscow. In a letter from one of them - a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee Anastas Mikoyan- it was said: “I understand that I am not writing in an official capacity. Much is said and written about moral character people and that the current generation will live under communism. But, if you look closely at young people, I don’t mean everyone, but those who stand and sit idly for hours on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, starting from Garden Ring before the circus, and especially on Sundays. One had to wonder: what are they doing? It turns out to be the sale of opium. This generation is from 20 to 16 years old. In the evening, at the Express cinema, the same youth express themselves, and the police of the 18th and 17th departments, on whose territory Tsvetnoy Boulevard is located, and Petrovka, 38, which is nearby, apparently are not interested. They put everything on the public, which mainly consists of pensioners, and the police only occupied themselves with education—isn’t that too little? Before it’s too late, stricter measures should be taken, what do you think?”

The letter was sent for verification to the leadership of the Moscow police, and its chief is a police commissioner of the third rank Sizov- On November 5, 1964 he reported: “The facts indicated in the statement of Mr. Shibanov A.G. about the sale and use of drugs in the city. Moscow correspond to reality. In the mountains In Moscow, especially in 1963–1964, cases of drug use among young people, including morphine and anasha, became more frequent. In order to prevent cases of drug sales and use, public order authorities, with the participation of the public, systematically conduct operations in places where drugs are sold. As a result of the work carried out in 1963–1964. for the sale of narcotic substances under Art. 224 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, 53 people were brought to criminal liability. During the same time, 1,600 people using drugs were identified. The current legislation of the RSFSR does not provide for any coercive measures, other than moral ones. This circumstance complicates the real fight against drug addicts.”

DRUG TRADE SHARES TOP PLACE WITH ILLEGAL ARMS TRADE

In general, the problem “at the top” was almost ignored. And here is the result. The informational and journalistic resource “No to Drugs” provides statistics for the next decade: “From 1971 to 1976, 16 tons of various narcotic substances were seized in the country, the cost of which, according to the “black market” price list, amounted to an amount equal to 25 million rubles. ( At that time, 1 dollar at the official exchange rate of the USSR was worth 88 kopecks -approx. ed.). Every year about 5 – 6 thousand drug addicts are removed from the register due to criminal prosecution. In 1976, there were 59,954 drug addicts registered with the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

However, it was not only us who realized the scale of the trouble a bit late. “The integration of the world economy, including its technical improvement, has a side effect — integration of the illegal economy. Drug trafficking, which constitutes a significant part of this shadow economy(according to experts, drug trafficking shares the first place in the underground business with the arms trade), in fact, used integration processes to conquer world space. <...> As a result, the “profit margin” of the drug market is constantly growing and today ranges from 300 to 2000 percent.”

Only in June 1988, at a special session on international problem drugs of the UN General Assembly, 184 states signed the declaration — For the first time, virtually the entire world community expressed its readiness to speak out against drugs. Russia was also among the signatories. And on time — The “dashing 90s” were approaching...

The Soviet Union has sunk into oblivion. Its legal successor, the Russian Federation, from a state where previously the drug business was only in its infancy, is rapidly acquiring the “triune status” of a producing country, a transit country and — what's the worst thing — to a drug-consuming country. The number of drug addicts in it is increasing significantly. The number of drug addicts officially registered with doctors in Russia in the middle of last year was about 800 thousand people. The unofficial number of drug addicts in Russia, according to many studies, — 7 million people. Drug trafficking in it is now systemic in nature.

PLUS “THE DETERMINATING INFLUENCE OF THE WEST”

Why did this wave cover our country? “During the 90s, a powerful system of organized crime was formed in Russia, which has a huge impact on financial flows, — writes in the publication “Society Against Drugs”, a candidate of medical sciences Razia Sadykova, who worked as director in those years Republican Center prevention of drug addiction among the population under the government of the Republic of Tajikistan. — Moreover, by the middle of the decade, the economic redistribution of property in the country as a whole was completed, all segments of the commodity market were saturated, and the period of super-profits in this area was over. Thus, it can be assumed that the vector of interests of the economic crime organized during this period is gradually moving from the sphere of privatization, smuggling and semi-legal trade to other areas that guarantee effective financial returns. The drug trade is such an area. Today, the value of the Russian drug market is estimated by experts at 5–7 billion dollars; in the near future this value is expected to increase two to three times. <...> The socio-economic situation in Russia is of decisive importance in the formation of a pro-drug social climate. A significant part of the population is below the poverty line, social stratification continues, and as a result, part of the population is marginalized. Drug trafficking is becoming one of the elements of the system of obtaining additional income. This point becomes especially relevant among teenagers and young adults.” Plus the notorious “corruptive influence of the West.” There, during the 20th century, drugs were given the characteristics of elements of subcultures — youth, dance, philosophical, sexual, leisure and so on. And in Russia, with the collapse of the dominant totalitarian ideology, a social ideological vacuum was formed, which this “pernicious influence” did not fail to fill...

DRUG INDICATORS OF TATARSTAN ARE QUITE “MODEST”

How does Tatarstan look today in the context of this all-Russian disaster? Let's start with statistics. According to data provided by the Deputy Chief Physician for the Medical Unit of the Republican Clinical narcological clinic Rezeda Khaeva, at the beginning of last year, 9,368 patients with drug addiction were registered at the dispensary with drug addiction doctors of the republic; — 9095 people. The indicators are quite “modest”. The prompt inclusion of Tatarstan in the all-Russian fight against drug addiction had an impact on state level.

On July 6, 1999, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tajikistan, by its resolution, created a republican interdepartmental commission to combat drug abuse and their illegal trafficking. As a result of its work, a special power structure to combat this scourge. Over the course of these years, the security organization has changed its name and departmental affiliation several times, and today it is called the Republican Department for Drug Control (UKON). Today she celebrates her professional holiday.

For the umpteenth time I re-read all the comments to the article I recently posted “Soviet youth in the 60s – 80s of the 20th century”: http://maxpark.com/community/2100/content/2090875

And once again I throw up my hands - maybe I didn’t live in the Soviet Union? Maybe I dreamed everything or I was just unlucky in life? No, I'm not the only one. Thank God, I haven’t lost my mind yet and I remember everything perfectly. Why do other people stubbornly not remember the negative things about life in the USSR? Is this being done on purpose, deliberately, to once again emphasize the current chaos? Or did we all live in such different conditions under Soviet rule that now we cannot find common language? It turns out that this is a difficult question and I do not undertake to give an unambiguous answer to it.

When I was less than eighteen years old (1979), when I entered aviation school, for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to meet people from almost all regions Soviet Union. And there wasn’t much difference between us - we all lived in approximately the same conditions, except, of course, the Muscovites. And even then, their distinguishing feature was only their place of residence - in everything else they were no different from us, and even more so in intelligence. But in terms of practicality in life, Muscovites were head and shoulders above everyone else.

The first thing that really surprised me was that I was the only person in the entire training company from the village. The second is the craze of my peers for Western music and all sorts of fashionable clothes (my knowledge of foreign music was limited to Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, and at that time I had never bought jeans for myself). Third - drug addiction...

I will dwell on the latter in more detail. I’ll make it clear right away that I haven’t made anything up and haven’t added a single extra word. I will speak as it really was, anticipating the negative reaction of many former Soviet citizens.

As I already said, people were from all over the Soviet Union, but there was a predominance of cadets from Moscow and the Moscow region, Central Asia (mainly from Aktobe and Tashkent), the Caucasus ( Mineral water, Baku, Black Sea coast of the Caucasus) and local Krivoy Rog residents. From all other cities of our vast Motherland, in best case scenario, there were two people each, but even that was very rare.

I’ll give an example from my training platoon: four from Moscow and the region, five from Central Asia, four from the Caucasus and four Krivoy Rog residents - of all those listed, only one is Armenian, the rest are Slavs. Approximately the same situation was observed in other educational units.

So, almost all representatives from Central Asia, Baku, Black Sea coast Caucasian and local. Moreover, nationality in in this case played a big role - all non-Russians smoked, and Russians in the majority.

In my platoon of weed lovers there were five people - two from Central Asia, one from the Caucasus, one from the Volga region and one local. Do you think they hid their addiction much? Hell no! Often this was done in the corridor in the open.

There were also people who liked to inject themselves. I can say this with 100% certainty only about one person from Baku - I myself saw how he warmed up his “potion” in a teaspoon. I’m sure there were also such “amateurs” among his friends. By the way, all drug addicts were the best friends with each other throughout their entire studies.

When, after graduating from college, I arrived at my place of work, it turned out that among the other young specialists who arrived with me from aviation schools from other cities, with the exception of two people, ALL the rest were drug addicts...

They were sent to work out the required three years in Grozny as a punishment, unlike me, who lived not far from this city...

Until the mid-1980s, neither drugs nor drug addicts existed in the USSR. At least that's what official statistics said. Of course, this is a lie, and there were drug addicts. However, their percentage against the general background of total drunkenness that swept through Soviet society was extremely small. together with the author of the Telegram channel “PAV Directory” talks about unknown pages of Soviet psychedelia.

Czech trace

The history of Soviet psychedelia dates back to 1951, when “ encyclopedic Dictionary medicinal essential oils and poisonous plants" As soon as it was published, this publication turned into a real alphabet for domestic consumers and potion producers. The circulation sold out almost instantly.

The book provided comprehensive information on how, where and when to collect ergot (the main component of LSD), as well as extremely detailed instructions for processing and producing the relevant substances. For the untrained reader, this information is useless, but a professional chemist can easily synthesize a variety of isomers of lysergic acid.

The encyclopedia was also valued outside the Soviet Union: second-hand book dealers sold it exclusively for dollars - from 50 and more.

In other countries socialist camp they knew even more about psychedelics. Thus, at the dawn of the 1960s, Czechoslovakia was the only country in the world where it was possible to establish the production of pure pharmacological LSD. Some research participants had unlimited access to it. Among them was an American psychiatrist who visited the Soviet Union in 1964.

During his seven years at the Prague Institute of Psychiatric Research, he studied all kinds of psychedelics. Together with his wife Christina, Grof made a tremendous contribution to the development of psychological science - he put forward revolutionary theories at that time, developed a powerful non-drug method of self-exploration and psychotherapy, called holotropic breathing.

Ironically, it was the American Grof who was the one who introduced the Soviet Union to real LSD. At first, the scientist did not want to go to a country where the foundations of depth psychiatry did not exist and Freud was banned. But soon I got the idea to join the research of Vladimir Myasishchev’s group, which was developing methods of dynamic psychiatry. The prudent Grof took with him 300 ampoules of LSD-25. Then the drug was equated to aspirin, so there was nothing to fear.

At the Leningrad Bekhterev Institute, Grof read open lectures on the use of LSD in psychotherapy. He spoke Russian fluently, and his performances were always sold out. In a narrower circle, research on psychedelics took on a different format.

Photo: Yuri Dyakonov / Boris Kavashkin / TASS

“During the first meeting at the Bekhterev Institute, we presented a report on our work with psychedelics and proposed an LSD session with the participation of all interested team members. “The members of the therapeutic team with great joy agreed to go on a journey into the deep spaces of their psyche with the help of a means that did not bear the stamp of Freudianism,” wrote Grof.

The enthusiasm of Leningrad scientists is easy to explain. At that time, there were no official studies of psychedelics in the Soviet Union. And the existing projects looked ridiculous. For example, biochemist Lipin studied the effects of psilocybin (a substance similar to LSD) on the blood vessels of rabbits' ears. At the same time, there were rumors that LSD and mescaline were actively used by the KGB during interrogations and for ideological indoctrination.

However, there was no confirmation of this. And huge amounts of money were allocated for research in the field of parapsychology and extrasensory perception. The annual budget of these programs exceeded 20 million rubles, since Soviet intelligence services saw huge military potential in such research.

Stanislav Grof spent four whole weeks in Leningrad. During this time, he not only managed to give several dozen lectures and visit, but also became close friends with Soviet scientists at parties fueled by vodka. And he decided to make a reciprocal gesture, donating “a fair number of remaining ampoules of LSD to Leningrad colleagues so that they could continue their research.”

Grof's visit had a huge influence on Leningrad psychiatrists. And the American psychiatrist Isidor Zifferstein, who arrived in the Soviet Union a few years later, witnessed large-scale transformations. Scientists from the Bekhterev Institute, who previously referred to Pavlov’s works, constantly talked about Eastern philosophy, various schools of yoga and Zen Buddhism, and talked about books such as “Oh, Brave New World!” and "The Island" by Aldous Huxley, Journey to the East.

“Knowing that mentioning a possible connection between psychedelic sessions conducted by employees and changes in their interests could have unpleasant consequences for them, I restrained myself and did not talk about the most likely explanation for Dr. Zifferstein’s mysterious discovery,” Stanislav Grof recalled.

Features of national psychedelics

Many people wonder where drug addicts came from in such a closed country as the USSR, where they got LSD and other drugs. The answer to it in his book “LSD. Hallucinogens, psychedelia and the phenomenon of addiction” is given by the famous narcologist Alexander Danilin.

On the one hand, information about mysterious drugs from places not so distant was brought by inmates. So on Soviet streets“pseudohallucinogens” appeared. The second source of drug distribution was the intelligence services. Organ workers often shared, of course, for money, with their acquaintances, friends and loved ones the “mysterious substances” that they borrowed from scientific institutions. And first of all, LSD-25 was removed from such laboratories.

Sources from prisons were mainly related to homemade drugs. The substances stolen from the laboratories, on the contrary, were chemically pure.

One gets the impression that Soviet citizens were ready to die just to know the truth of esoteric experience. Indeed, the majority used hallucinogens for their spiritual quests, among which, of course, LSD was in first place. Ways have been found to obtain both a chemically pure substance and a product synthesized in clandestine laboratories.

One of the most famous groups where they learned to synthesize LSD on their own was called “Context”. Several times a month, or even every week, group members gathered for “self-awareness marathons.” The most significant in this regard sad story Nikolai Tseng: after another session of LSD therapy, he went out into the street and threw himself under a tram, leaving a note saying that he still managed to learn the secrets of this world and now he was going to another.

Do not forget about mushrooms, which, along with LSD, were the main hallucinogen of the Soviet Union. They were taken with all the lawlessness inherent in the people, that is, in doses several times higher than lethal. Many died, and the survivors perceived these deaths as a given and a kind of offering on the altar of self-knowledge.

In search of meaning

Domestic psychonauts, unlike their American counterparts, did not perceive the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms or the use of LSD as main goal and did not elevate these substances to absolutes. For the majority, they served only as a tool for maximum quick transition to other states.

Domestic psychonauts felt the danger of these substances and understood that one day they could get stuck in them forever. It is safe to say that the task of domestic enlightenment with the help of drugs was to fight hallucinations, since during such an action it was extremely important not to lose touch with reality - in view of the huge risk of falling into hallucinations completely. Naturally, none of these mushroom addicts were able to achieve their final goal.

Soviet psychonauts were actively looking for inner freedom and tried to free themselves from the shackles of the Bolshevik world. They did not want to live in it, but to fight it by physical methods were unable to. This is fantastic confirmation that Russian drug addicts were not chasing the effect of LSD and other drugs, but were simply looking for ways to special condition consciousness. Therefore, in domestic practice, vodka and alcohol, and not mushrooms and LSD, were the main hallucinogens.

flowing roof

All esotericists, researchers of the UFO phenomenon, people selflessly searching for traces of the Yeti or the ruins of ancient civilizations in the mountains and forests can be classified as adherents of Russian psychedelia. The main thing that unites them is faith and sincerity in their search.

Unfortunately, domestic psychiatrists and psychologists did not have the opportunity to independently observe the phenomenon of “American psychedelia.” Therefore, it can only be discussed indirectly, based on the available literature. The most severe consequences mental decompositions are known. First of all, this is a transition to the category of schizophrenics and a stable stay in a psychiatric hospital.

Psychonauts fled away from society, sought self-awareness in remote villages, where in the vast majority of cases everything ended in accepting others psychotropic substances, such as opiates and alcohol. Long-term use of all this led to irreversible consequences for the psyche, turning people into real monsters.

The most famous of these cases is the story of “Kunta”. Several students aged 16 to 25 decided to create the new kind yoga They named her "Kunta". the main task- transformation into magicians.

The guys led antisocial image life, got rid of all documents, settled in a long-abandoned school in one of the villages of Karelia. They developed a system of meditation on symbols, which they believed turned them into powerful magicians. To this day, you can meet those who have heard that guys, with the help of their magical powers, seduced girls, put out fires, saved drowned people and treated terminally ill people, or, well, drove out cockroaches once and for all.

In the process of searching for an entrance to parallel worlds, Kunta adherents took a wide variety of substances that they could get their hands on: mushrooms, marijuana, alcoholic drinks and, of course, LSD. As a result, by the early 1990s, none of the 15 members of this group were left alive. Only a few adherents did not die from a drug overdose. For example, the founder of the group was killed in a fight, receiving more than twenty stab wounds.

Today we can say with confidence that the majority of adherents of such esoteric truths have very few options for further existence: either vodka in a destroyed village house on the edge of the country, or a psychiatric hospital, or death from the knife of their own fellow believers.

***

Grof S. When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities / S. Grof - Sounds True Inc., 2006

Lebedko V.E. Chronicles of Russian Sannyasa / V.E. Lebedko - Theme, 1999

Danilin A.G. LSD. Hallucinogens, psychedelia and the phenomenon of addiction / A.G. Danilin - Tsentrpoligraf, 2001.

In 1980, there were 86 thousand registered drug addicts in the Soviet Union who had undergone special treatment. But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

There is a common belief that until the 90s of the 20th century, drug addiction practically did not exist in our country. However, medical and police statistics revealed today show that this is not entirely true.

Legacy of the Civil War

In fact, the problem of drug addiction in the USSR has always been on the agenda.

Firstly, narcotic drugs were massively used in Central Asia, Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus, where this was a kind of national tradition. A dangerous situation existed in Ukraine, the Don, Kuban, Stavropol, and the Far East, where hemp grew predominantly.

Secondly, drug addiction developed in big cities European part of the USSR. In the 1920s and 1930s there were many cocaine addicts and morphine addicts. This became a legacy of the Civil War, when smugglers and interventionist troops brought great amount cocaine and opium.

The Prohibition Law of 1914 also played a negative role, under which the state stopped producing and retailing alcoholic beverages. All this led to mass drug addiction among large sections of the population. So, almost all revolutionary sailors Baltic Fleet used cocaine. Moreover, both in its pure form and diluted with alcohol and water. This narcotic drink was called “Baltic tea”, or less noblely - “Sivoldai”.

The party leadership and creative intelligentsia also widely used drugs in the 1920s. For example, the writer Mikhail Bulgakov was a famous morphine addict, and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky dabbled in cocaine. According to some reports, narcotic drugs Even the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, received it.

After the end of the Civil War in Russian cities Thousands of Chinese demobilized from the Red Army settled. Without decent jobs, the Chinese opened hundreds of underground opium dens. The main visitors to such establishments were not only criminals, but also young workers and students.

The wealthier part of the population, as well as women, used morphine and cocaine. It was then that the famous criminal song was born:

We are flying, our wings are torn off,

My heart sank with quiet pain.

Cocaine silver dust

All my roads are covered with snow.

The use of “marafet” in the 1920s became an obligatory element of criminal and youth culture. Such processes did not at all please the leaders of the Soviet Union, who had already formed Grand plans industrialization and collectivization of the country. And the “drug dealers” were in no way fit to be builders of socialism. Therefore, in 1929, a tough fight against drug addiction began in the USSR. The GPU and the police blocked the channels for the supply of imported drugs to the USSR, closed drug dens, and destroyed hemp crops. Drug use itself began to be considered a criminal offense. Drug addicts were forcibly treated in medical institutions, and the most malicious were sent to “get some air” in the nearest forced labor camp or to the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

By the mid-1930s, the number of drug addicts had decreased significantly. The severity of the problem was removed, and the few remaining people who liked to “hang around” went deep underground.

“Glass” is the most expensive

In the 1940-1950s, there were a tiny number of drug addicts in the USSR. Mostly these were people who were seriously injured at the front during the Great Patriotic War. With the help of morphine and other illegally acquired drugs, they reduced their physical suffering. The police turned a blind eye to such violations of the law, understanding the suffering of former front-line soldiers.

A new round of drug addiction in the Soviet Union began in the 1960s. And this was due to the spread of popular Western rock music among the masses, as well as hippie culture. As is known, this youth movement arose in Western countries and was accompanied by almost obligatory intensive use of drugs.

In the Soviet Union, “hippie” citizens also began to regularly take drugs. Opiates, including heroin, were made handicraft in kitchens. Partially from opium poppy shipped from Central Asia. Partly from the oilseed poppy, which grew everywhere in the European part of Russia.

Also widely used were plundered medical institutions medicines. In special drug jargon, medical drugs were called “glass”, since the drugs were packaged in glass ampoules. This was the most elite type of Soviet drug addiction. Medicinal drugs manufactured industrially, caused less harm to health, and one could sit on the “glass” for years, maintaining good physical shape.

Marijuana, anasha, hashish, plan and other “grass” were made from hemp growing in the Chui Valley or other southern places. Among the stimulants, ephedra, also known as “Jeff,” has gained immense popularity. Craftsmen made it from ingredients found in home medicine cabinets. Later, the famous Pervitin, also known as “Vint,” appeared.

What Soviet drug addicts were deprived of was cocaine. Its deliveries from abroad were tightly stopped by the joint efforts of customs and the KGB. An example of a person who used cocaine is Vladimir Vysotsky. But he, apparently, snorted the “powder” only abroad, and at home he supplemented it with other drugs.

From “hanky” to “jeff” and back

During the late USSR, there were about a million drug addicts in the country. Young people smoked weed or cooked something called “chernyashka” or “khanka” from poppy seeds. Those who had minimal knowledge of chemistry made “Jeff” or “Vint”.

Only wealthy clients could afford pharmaceutical drugs, since one ampoule of “glass” cost 25 rubles - a lot of money at that time. Completely crazy teenagers ate “fun mushrooms” and snorted gasoline or Moment glue in the basements.

Gradually, drug addiction began to have a significant impact on crime and the state of public order. Drug addicts committed robberies, burglaries and thefts to get money for drugs.

In correctional labor colonies, the number of drug-related crimes by 1985 increased by more than 3.5 times compared to 1961. Convicts, returning from work at external production facilities to the residential area, often carried drugs through checkpoints and also threw narcotic drugs over fences.

In general, the years of Brezhnev’s “stagnation” were characterized by a gradual deterioration of the drug situation in the country. At that time, peculiar “communes” or “families” of drug addicts became a typical phenomenon. “Families” consisted of a certain number of drug addicts of both sexes of different ages living in the same city, but no more than a dozen people. As a rule, these were former hippies or beatniks who were addicted to drugs during their turbulent youth. They all worked somewhere and lived with registration, since the Soviet Criminal Code severely punished parasitism and vagrancy. Many of them had higher education and sometimes, until they “broke together,” they even occupied prestigious positions. But mostly such citizens worked as simple engineers, architects, and artists. Men, even with higher education, often worked as stokers, loaders and janitors.

The head of the "family" was the one who wore the "straw hat". That is, in other words, he obtained poppy “straws” for the family.

In the spring, the “head of the family” quit his job and went “to the south” for three months. There, having found a wild poppy plantation, he extracted up to ten suitcases of raw materials, depending on the area. Often other “earners” also worked with him. They lived in huts, where they dried poppy seeds, packed them in plastic bags, which they packed into suitcases. Having collected the required number of “straw” suitcases, the earner returned home.

This “gold reserve” was enough for the commune for a whole year. And the next summer everything was repeated all over again. After all, there was no Tajik or Gypsy drug trafficking at that time, and no one brought heroin to the house. Therefore, Soviet drug addicts had to engage in “wild” preparation of homemade “khanka”.

Such “communes” could exist for any length of time, and they self-liquidated only in the early 1990s, according to objective reasons when completely different times came.

Sunday library:

Sunday library:

New marathon. Drugs in the USSR

How did you get along under the Bolsheviks?

How did you get along under the Bolsheviks?

The publishing house “New Literary Review” published a book by historian Natalia Lebina, “Soviet Everyday Life: Norms and Anomalies,” dedicated to the formation of Soviet everyday life from fashion, leisure and sexuality to drunkenness, suicide and prostitution. VOS presents a chapter devoted to the problem of drug addiction in society as a reaction to a system of strict regulations and prohibitions.

Natalia Lebina

Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Scientific Consultant of the Scientific Research Institute "Heritage" of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Author of the books “Prostitution in St. Petersburg (40s of the 19th century - 40s of the 20th century)”, “Everyday life” Soviet city: norms and anomalies. 1920-1930s", "The Everyman and Reforms. Pictures of the everyday life of townspeople during the NEP and Khrushchev decades,” “Encyclopedia of Banalities. Soviet everyday life: contours, symbols, signs”, “Soviet Petersburg: “new man” in the old space.”

A publishing house of intellectual literature, created in 1992 at the peak of democratic reforms. Today, one of the leaders in the humanities literature market, in addition to books, publishes the magazines “New Literary Review”, “Emergency Reserve” and “Fashion Theory”, 29 book series and holds two annual scientific conferences (Big and Small Bath Readings). The special UFO project “Culture of Everyday Life” is widely known.

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Natalia Lebina

Soviet everyday life: norms and anomalies.

Soviet everyday life: norms and anomalies.

From War Communism to Big Style

M.: “New Literary Review”, 2015.

The population of large Russian cities became acquainted with drugs not thanks to the Bolsheviks coming to power. The seemingly harmless sniffing of tobacco, quite common in Russia, had a stupefying effect. In the 19th century, morphine addicts, ether addicts, and hashish smokers appeared. The development of medicine was inevitably accompanied by the emergence of dependence of a certain category of people on medicines, and, of course, primarily from those who had narcotic influence. Already in late XIX centuries, cases of addiction to opium have been documented. Morphine was also popular (primarily among people who had direct access to medicines and syringes - doctors, nurses, pharmacists). At the beginning of the 20th century, drugs began to act as an indicator of a person’s belonging to new subcultures. Emerging spiritual and ideological movements were surrounded by new ones everyday practices, often having a more shocking and irritating character to the average person than the trends themselves. These practices were opposed to official and dominant norms of behavior. It is not surprising, therefore, that drugs have become an accompanying element of modern culture in Russia. At the beginning of the century, metropolitan bohemia was fond of smoking opium and hashish. G.V. Ivanov - poet Silver Age- he recalled how, out of politeness, he had to smoke with the St. Petersburg journalist V.A., famous in pre-revolutionary times. Bondi a thick cigarette filled with hashish. Bondi, for some reason discerning in Ivanov a born hashish smoker, swore to the poet “colorful dreams, lakes, pyramids, palm trees... The effect turned out to be the opposite - instead of dreams, nausea and unpleasant dizziness.” On the eve of the First World War, cocaine, which was already very fashionable in Europe, began to penetrate into Russia. Initially, this rather expensive drug was used by chic ladies of the demimonde, sometimes by senior officers, and wealthy representatives of bohemia.

October 1917, in addition to the social system, radically changed the type of Russian drug addict, clearly democratizing him. The First World War played an important role in this process. It should not be forgotten that often addiction to morphine, in particular, was a consequence of severe wounds, the cure of which required surgical intervention with the use of drugs. However, in the medical environment, morphine was used not only by patients, but also by doctors themselves. Data from 1919–1922 indicate that in Petrograd almost 60% of morphine users were doctors, nurses, orderlies, the rest passed military service. But it was not only injuries and physical suffering that prompted him to inject himself with morphine. Medical and police supervision over the use of narcotic drugs was also weak.

The victorious people were not slow to take up drugs - both a certain type luxury previously available only to the propertied classes. The desire to change the hierarchy of standards of behavior was clearly visible here. In 1918, the Petrograd police uncovered a “morphine club” operating on one of the ships of the Baltic Fleet. Its members were completely “revolutionary” sailors, who not only acquired the drug in an organized manner, but even recruited new members for their club. In new social conditions The broadcast was not forgotten either. Its strong hallucinogenic effect even attracted members of the new Bolshevik elite. Artist Yu.P. Annenkov recalled how in 1919 in Petrograd he, together with N.S. Gumilev received an invitation from B.G. Kaplun, then managing the affairs of the Commissariat of the Petrograd Soviet, sniffed the confiscated ether. Kaplun himself only portrayed himself as an ethereal addict, but he indulged the weaknesses of others with obvious pleasure, viewing drug addiction as a code for a bohemian personality. Annenkov recalled:

“Kaplun brought four small bottles filled with ether from another room... Everyone brought the bottle to their nose. Me too, but “going into dreams” did not attract me: I only wanted to see how this would happen to others... Gumilyov did not move. Kaplun closed his bottle, saying that he wanted to sleep normally, and, looking intently at Gumilyov, shook my hand and left the office, saying that we can stay in it until the morning.”

Clandestine opium dens also continued to exist in Soviet Russia. But cocaine still enjoyed particular popularity after the revolution. Literally three months after the Bolsheviks came to power, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was forced to state: “Whole gangs of speculators have appeared distributing cocaine, and now it is a rare prostitute who does not poison herself with it. Cocaine has recently spread among layers of the urban proletariat. The “silver dust” of cocaine was inhaled with pleasure not only by people associated with the criminal world, but also by workers, minor civil servants, Red Army soldiers, and revolutionary sailors. Cocaine was much more accessible than vodka. Firstly, many private pharmacies were closed and their owners tried to sell off existing medicines, including narcotic substances. And secondly, German-made cocaine was smuggled from German-occupied Pskov, Riga, and Orsha. During the Civil War, chic cafes and restaurants ceased to exist in Petrograd, and bags of drugs began to be sold in ordinary teahouses. People quickly dubbed them “freaky”. In such teahouses, scenes similar to the one described in his study by G.D. often unfolded. Aronovich is a well-known narcologist in the 1920s: “On a May evening (1919), a girl of 17–18 years old, with a tired, lifeless face, wearing a headscarf, came up to me at the entrance to the teahouse and asked for bread. I didn’t know what she collected for “snuff,” that is, cocaine, but soon I saw her among the visitors, she almost forcibly snatched a bag of cocaine from the hands of a teenager who approached her, and when he demanded money from her, she took off her boots and gave them back to the seller for 2-3 grams of cocaine and was left in torn stockings.” Doctors noted that in the 1919–1920s, cocaine psychosis was a fairly common occurrence. Moreover, 60% of drug addicts were people under 25 years of age.

During the NEP years, in conditions of free trade, cocaine, popularly nicknamed “marafet,” became especially widespread. Until 1924, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR did not define any clear sanctions against drug distributors and users. In the 1920s, cocaine was sold in markets mainly by boys with cigarette trays. True, sellers often cheated and added aspirin, chalk, and soda to the drug. This, of course, reduced the effect of cocaine, but could hardly save him from addiction to it. After all, avid cocaine addicts sometimes consumed up to 30–40 grams of powder per day, trying to achieve the effect.

As medical research shows, street children were already well acquainted with marafet in the 1920s. A survey of teenagers detained for vagrancy in 1923–1924 showed that 80% of them started taking drugs at the age of 9–11 and had a persistent addiction to it. Indeed, one could “sniff marafetta” right on the street from a piece of paper, palm, or nail. Only in in some cases When, as a result of long-term drug use, atrophy of the tissues of the nasal canal occurred, it was necessary to use a goose feather. It was inserted deep into the nose and made it possible to speed up the absorption of the powder.

Of course, most often antisocial elements, in particular prostitutes, resorted to cocaine. In 1924, a sociological survey revealed that more than 70% of individuals detained by the police for body trafficking systematically used drugs. Moreover, almost half of them preferred cocaine. In the secret brothels of the 1920s, as a rule, it was possible to purchase marafet. At the end of 1922 - at the beginning of 1923, in Petrograd, the police uncovered a whole network of apartments, the owners of which were not only engaged in prostitution, but, as was stated in the protocol, they were selling cocaine almost around the clock. Prostitution researcher S. Visloukh wrote in the mid-1920s: “The trade in marafet... and other means of self-forgetfulness is almost entirely in the hands of prostitutes.” According to 1924 data, out of 548 Moscow prostitutes surveyed, 410 used drugs, becoming addicted to them after the start of the trade own body. Petty pickpockets often resorted to cheating. Large thieves were quite contemptuous of the “sniffers”, believing that cocaine dulled the reaction so necessary in their business. And yet these were people susceptible to other types of deviations. By using drugs they indicated that they belonged to an asocial environment. Much more terrible was the penetration of drugs into stable social strata, which meant the development of elements of retreatism in urban society.

Teenage drug addiction became quite widespread in the 1920s. Children from normal families, in search of romance, often visited the dens of street children and their traditional gathering places. For some teenagers, the criminal world turned out to be more attractive than the reality of the Soviet labor school, pioneer gatherings and Komsomol meetings. Well-known narcologist A.S. Sholomovich described the following case in his book, published in 1926: “One mother had a teenage son, whom everyone called “fat boy,” who disappeared for three days in some den, where he was taught to snort cocaine. When his mother found him in the brothel, she barely recognized her fat man: in front of her was a ragged, thin, emaciated man, all blue, with sunken cheeks and eyes, so broken that he did not have the strength to leave the brothel.” During the NEP years, working youth also began to join the marathon, which, in the opinion of the Communist Party, should have played decisive role in the socialist transformation of society. The proletarianization of cocaine workers, in particular, was a consequence of the workers' strong ties to prostitution. Representatives ruling class socialist society, according to 1927 data, made up almost 70% of the regular consumers of the services of corrupt women, who, as is known, actively traded in marafet. The situation was becoming critical: Prohibition contributed to the development of drug addiction. Its surge in the 1920s was explained not only by retreatist sentiments, but also by the fact that traditional forms leisure activities did not coexist with the ban on the free sale of alcohol. The Soviet government began to fight drug addiction earlier than it did against drunkenness, although the Criminal Code of 1922 did not contain regulations on this matter. A crime, according to Article 215, was considered “the preparation of poisonous and potent substances by persons who do not have the right to do so,” which was punishable by a “fine of up to 300 rubles in gold or forced labor.” In November 1924, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On measures to regulate trade” appeared. narcotic substances" It now prohibited the free circulation of potent substances, in particular cocaine, morphine, and heroin. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR was supplemented with an article providing for punishment for both the manufacture and storage and sale of drugs. The document included such forms of punishment as imprisonment for up to three years.

Drug addicts were not subject to criminal prosecution. On the contrary, in 1925, drug dispensaries began to be created in the country: the first clinical department for child cocaine addicts was opened in Moscow. The treatment was carried out purely voluntarily. By 1928, statistical surveys recorded a noticeable decline in cocaine use in Soviet Russia. The collapse of the NEP entailed a tightening of customs barriers. The influx of cocaine from abroad has decreased sharply, and the consumption of morphine has also decreased. However, people prone to retreatism began to use opium poppy and Indian hemp, which grew in the USSR. In the 1930s, this drug became the most widespread in the USSR. In the fall of 1934, a regulatory document appeared - the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the prohibition of the cultivation of opium poppy and Indian hemp. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR was supplemented by Article 179-a “Illegal sowing of opium poppy”, which stated that the cultivation of these crops without appropriate permission is punishable by “imprisonment for up to two years or correctional labor for up to one year with mandatory confiscation of the crops.” " It's hard to say whether this stopped drug addicts. The fact is that in the 1930s, Soviet government and ideological structures stopped monitoring the development of drug addiction in society. The reasons that prompted people to seek oblivion in drug dreams have not been studied. The socio-psychological characteristics of people most prone to consuming intoxicants have not been studied either. The regulatory framework necessary to effectively combat drug addiction has not changed either. People affected by this disease, like alcoholics, were sought to be accused primarily of being hostile towards socialist construction. This is, for example, evidenced by the following case. In August 1935, the Leningrad city health department discovered the theft of “a number of toxic substances” from the Lenmetallstroy pharmacy. Judging by the list attached to the special message, drugs were stolen - atropine, cocaine, morphine, heroin. The pharmacy was clearly visited by drug addicts, but the detained suspects were accused of attempted sabotage - attempting to poison food in the city canteen. It is not surprising that the system of medical and psychological assistance to drug addicts in the USSR was almost destroyed in the 1930s. During big style Various words and concepts related to the treatment of drug addiction have disappeared from everyday, censored vocabulary. Only in the early 1960s, during the period of destruction of the canons of everyday grand style, independent name- “narcology” - receives a branch of medicine that studies the consequences of drug use and treatment of people who abuse them. The word “narcologist” is also a new development of the 1960s. A new adjective “narcological” is also being formed, primarily used with the words “dispensary” and “office”. Thus, the norms of attitude towards the problem of drugs in society, which existed in the space of everyday life during the NEP years and were lost in the era of great style, were revived.