You're reading: Russia, Kazakhstan to unify anti-drug law, says expert

Pavlodar - A Russian-Kazakh working meeting on border cooperation against drug trafficking is being held in Pavlodar, the administrative center of Kazakhstan's Pavlodar region, on Friday.

Law enforcement officials of Russia’s Novosibirsk and Omsk regions and Altai territory and Kazakhstan’s border regions, which intend to discuss a number of issues, in particular unification of drug control laws, are participating in the meeting.

“As of today, not all chemical substances, which are recognized as drugs in Russia, have standards of state control in Kazakhstan. Russia today is choking on synthetic drugs. We know that these drugs are smuggled through the Russian section to Kazakhstan as well,” Alexander Kandikov, head of the Novosibirsk region drug control service, told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.

Kandikov said he hoped that executives of the Pavlodar region interior affairs department “will come up with their initiatives on the law unification to higher level authorities.”

“Because as of today, the standards of control, which work in Russia and don’t exist in Kazakhstan, contribute to the aggravation of the situation. So the center of criminal activities will be moved outside Russia to Kazakhstan,” Kandikov said.

The official said that the threat of drug trafficking “gained certain acuity” since customs control between Russia and Kazakhstan was cancelled.

“Drug groups used this by masking drugs for consumer goods, food,” Kandikov said.

Kandikov said that “new threats from the outside, in particular from China, will be brought to Kazakhstan’s attention.”

The state border between Russia and Kazakhstan is the longest land border in the world and amounts to around 7,500 kilometers.