Drug abuse was the talk on Thursday among the Cabinet members. Alexander Fyodorov, deputy director of the Federal Drug Control Service, introduced a new programme to cut the number of addicts in Russia, requiring a 3bn rouble injection.
      
      
       The official statistics says the number of addicts is 500,000, while recent studies prove the figure is twelve times more – some 6 million going the wrong way, or 4% of the nation.
      
      
       The dispute started by Mr Shoigu, emergency minister, calling for accurate figures to be announced, was ended by Mr Zhukov, currently presiding in the government, who said the project proposed by Mr Fyodorov should reverse the negative trend and bring the number of addicts to 950,000-1.2 million, according to the target of the programme.