YEREVAN. – According to the American special services data, there are three-hundred thousand, one-hundred-and-sixty thousand, and twenty thousand drug addicts in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan respectively, sociologist Aharon Adibekyan said during a press conference on Monday.

But the event’s other speaker, the Narcological Clinic Director Petros Semerchyan, noted that he disagrees with Adibekyan’s figures because their center has 3,893 registered patients, thirty two of whom are women from capital city Yerevan. He added that studies are conducted in Armenia every two years to check the actual number of drug addicts in the country. 

“According to last year’s statistics, Armenia has 12,700 intravenous drug addicts and 21,000 cannabis-using drug addicts. Drug addiction is spreading all through the world, including Armenia, but Armenia is in the best situation,” Semerchyan said. He added that ten to eleven people die every year in Armenia as a result of [drug] overdose, and the average life expectancy for a drug addict is fifty years.  

“There is the President’s executive order, in terms of combating drug addiction in Armenia, and all the departments that are associated with this problem deal with it,” the Narcological Clinic Director noted.