Drug policy in Russia is -– no surprise -- highly repressive. But that was not entirely the case in the early 2000s, when dozens of harm reduction programs operated around the country and a drug liberalization law resulted in fifty thousand people being released from prison. Anya Sarang is probably Russia’s best known harm reduction advocate.

We discussed the evolution of illicit drug use, markets and policies in her country, including the transformative impact of the rapid shift to online drug markets a few years ago; the fanatical hostility of Russia’s narcological establishment to methadone and other opioid substitution treatment; and the rise, fall and bare survival of harm reduction activism and services in an ever more repressive country. We also talked about how President Putin’s drug policies compare with drug policies elsewhere in Asia and the former countries of the Soviet Union, and the ways in which his approach to illicit drugs foreshadowed the broader repression now underway in Russia.