> The drug of choice there was/is alcohol. Here it seems to be prescription opiates (in addition to alcohol).
These situations are not even remotely comparable.
The fraction of Americans who abuse opiates is tiny compared to the percentage of Russians who abuse alcohol.
As a rough approximation, about 2.5 million Americans have an opiate abuse issue in 2016[1], out of a population of 319 million. This is about 0.8% of the population.
Statistics from the Soviet Union are hard to find due to the government's indifference to the problem, but even official news sources -- which routinely greatly underreported the true magnitude of social problems -- put alcohol abuse rates at 19% of the population.[2] Also note that the amount of drinking you have to do to be considered "abusing" alcohol is far, far greater in Russia than in the US.
These situations are not even remotely comparable.
The fraction of Americans who abuse opiates is tiny compared to the percentage of Russians who abuse alcohol.
As a rough approximation, about 2.5 million Americans have an opiate abuse issue in 2016[1], out of a population of 319 million. This is about 0.8% of the population.
Statistics from the Soviet Union are hard to find due to the government's indifference to the problem, but even official news sources -- which routinely greatly underreported the true magnitude of social problems -- put alcohol abuse rates at 19% of the population.[2] Also note that the amount of drinking you have to do to be considered "abusing" alcohol is far, far greater in Russia than in the US.
[1] http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addi... [2] http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/6/824