Published in Moscow in 2008, Legal Narcotic Aggression in Russia: Chronicles of an Undeclared War, compiled by Hieromonk Anatoly (Berestov) and N. V. Kaklyugin, is a 400-page documentary and advocacy collection concerning the non-medical use of medicines and other formally legal sources of narcotic substances in Russia. It brings together materials from 1998–2007: statements by physicians and public figures, a round-table resolution, correspondence with public authorities and their replies, regulatory texts, clinical papers and case descriptions, press reports, and medical photographic appendices.
The compilers use the expression “legal narcotics market” to describe access through ordinary pharmacies or retail outlets to medicines with dependence potential and to products from which controlled substances could be obtained illegally. Particular attention is paid to codeine-containing cough and pain medicines. The book discusses consumption far above therapeutic doses, the development of dependence, and the illegal conversion of such medicines into desomorphine. This connection appears explicitly in materials dating from 2006–2007, together with proposals for prescription-only supply, strict inventory and sales controls, and enforcement of pharmacy dispensing rules.
The medical section contains material on codeine dependence, tianeptine, dextromethorphan, and other psychoactive substances. One paper examines a small clinical group of 23 patients treated in 2003–2005 for dependence involving codeine-containing medicines. Other chapters document appeals to drug-control, health, regulatory, and prosecutorial bodies and reproduce contemporary media coverage.
The volume should be read as a historical record of warnings, testimony, and regulatory advocacy preceding the best-known wave of desomorphine dependence. It is not independent proof of every quantitative, causal, legal, or accusatory statement it contains. Assessments concerning public authorities, companies, and individuals remain the claims of the compilers, speakers, or republished authors and require verification against primary official records, judicial decisions, and peer-reviewed research.