After two months, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has directly caused unknown tens of thousands of deaths, with widespread evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces. With no end in sight, further devastating impacts range from the displacement of millions from and within Ukraine to the prospect of global food shortages.
Another casualty of war, as they say, is truth.
Russian President Vladimir Putin makes a lot of accusations against Volodymyr Zelensky that are demonstrably and outlandishly false. These attempts of a despot to justify war include the offensive absurdity of calling the Jewish president of Ukraine a “Nazi”—which scholars have dissected, and which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just exacerbated—together with bombast and censorship aimed at rallying nationalist sentiment in Russia.
Less recognized is the deep social stigma Putin seeks to mobilize when he labels Zelensky and the elected leadership of Ukraine “drug addicts.”
The Russian word narcoman (literally “narcomaniac”), somewhat like the term “junkie,” evokes criminals willing to do anything for a fix—impoverished, deranged and immoral agents responsible for the decay of society.
The drug war in Russia, like the “special military operation” in Ukraine, has brought both suppression of facts and large-scale loss of human life.
Putin has done much to encourage those connotations by waging one of the world’s most prominent drug wars. In Russia, the government deems people with substance use disorders unfit for social participation. Labeled “socially unproductive,” they are denied driver’s licenses, faced with loss of child custody, harassed and incarcerated.
Harm reduction groups that bravely operate in the country have been severely restricted and threatened. Putin has rejected key interventions such as syringe access. Harsh “drug propaganda” laws put those who even speak about harm reduction in danger of prosecution. All this has contributed to one of the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemics among middle-to-higher income countries, largely concentrated among people who use drugs. Over 1 million Russians are now living with HIV, many of them denied basic health care.
Methadone, designated an essential medication for opioid use disorder by the World Health Organization, is also banned in Russia. As yet another indicator of suffering for people in occupied Ukraine, Russia applied this ban to Crimea after it annexed the peninsula in 2014. Up to 100 methadone patients died in the year that followed.
The drug war in Russia, like the “special military operation” in Ukraine, has brought both suppression of facts and large-scale loss of human life.
Yet the political weaponization of such language is common, too, in the United States.
By dehumanizing Zelensky with a specific appeal to “drugs,” Putin is also taking a page from the authoritarian’s handbook. Anti-drug rhetoric is a well-known tactic of strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines or Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil—perhaps the two most prominent autocrats to use drug wars to advance police control and suppression of communities they deem undesirable.
Yet we must acknowledge that the political weaponization of such language is common, too, in the United States. Donald Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign with those infamous words about Mexicans arriving in the country: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
He had many historical antecedents. We should remember John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, who candidly admitted Nixon’s drug war was the shortest route they could find to disrupt, silence, raid and arrest political enemies—namely the anti-war left and Black activists. Earlier still, through the influence of people like Harry Anslinger—the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (precursor to the DEA), and a racist law-and-order zealot—authoritarian tendencies were baked into the development of US and global drug policy. To this day, US harm reduction provision, advancing though it may be, still lags behind that in many other countries and federal funding for it pales in comparison to enforcement.
Putin’s rhetoric is more than the loose talk of a war-driven autocrat. It is a reflection of much that is wrong in the wider world.
Russia’s state-controlled media has echoed and amplified Putin’s misinformation, taking up the speculation and false accusations that Zelensky is under the influence of drugs. Putin’s evocation of drugs and “addicts” is reprehensible and deserves the same scrutiny as his other craven misrepresentations.
Equally, it is time to call out drug-related stigma for what it is here in the US and elsewhere: coded racism, classism and repression, which denies lifesaving services and supports, costing thousands of lives.
As nations seek to maintain a united stand against Russia’s invasion, it is essential to recognize that Putin’s rhetoric is more than the loose talk of a war-driven autocrat. It is a reflection of much that is wrong in the wider world. One way to resist him and his like is to affirm the full humanity of people who use drugs.
Photograph by the Russian Presidential Press and Information Office via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0
The author’s employer, Open Society Foundations, has previously provided a restricted grant to The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, to support the promotion of the film Liquid Handcuffs.
