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Azerbaijani resident Arifa Mammadova, 21, has been using drugs for already four years. The daughter of the headmaster of a school confesses that she tried cocaine for the first time at 17 during the birthday party of her friend. The only thing she regrets about is that she also got her sister hooked on drugs, and her family broke up, Haqqin.az reports.

According to the website, the number of drug addicts among women rapidly grows in Azerbaijan. According to the country’s main narcologist, Lyudmila Jafarova, the number of drug addicts in Azerbaijan has grown by ten times over the past five years. And if before adults generally used drugs, now the “white death” has made its way to schools. Every year millions of manats are spent on drug addiction preventive measures, however, everything is in vain.

According to official statistics, 28,656 drug addicts are registered in Azerbaijan, and 11.4 thousand of them are in Baku. However, the website highlights that the figure only covers the registered addicts. According to the same statistics, more than 70% of the addicts used drugs for the first time at 15.

According to Jafarova, the number of drug-addicted women increased by 5.4% only during the last year. In addition, drug addiction has become a real problem in high schools, lyceums, and higher education institutions.

“It is necessary to openly confess that a serious problem has emerged in schools. This year, we have held trainings with school psychologists, who also confessed that drugs are used in schools,” Jafarova said.

The specialist notes that most of the people applying to the Narcological clinic are 16 or 17 year old teenagers. Among them are also students of 7th grade. Even an 8-year-old drug addict is registered in the Republican Narcology Center.

“Students of 6th and 9th grades apply to us on the condition of anonymity. We do not register them, as the appeals are anonymous. At the same time, the 80% of the registered drug addicts are between 18 and 35 year old,” Jafarova said.

Children, whose parents use drugs or alcohol, are more likely to become drug addicts. Such parents simply are not interested in their children and do not control them. “Last year, 15 students of 8th grade applied to us, and they said they had used hemp at a party. Children confessed that they had learned about the drug from the Internet,” Jafarova said.

It is noted that if before children from well-to-do families used drugs, now even poor layers of the population use them, and several kinds of drugs known among addicts are sold in pharmacies.

According to International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, one 14-year-old drug addict and six 15-to-17-year-old addicts are currently placed under preventive supervision in Azerbaijan.

In total, 2587 people were prosecuted in Azerbaijan for illegal narcotics trafficking in 2015, and 7 of them were under 18.