Moscow blames US for ‘heroin tsunami’ sweeping Russia. bbcnews. April 06, 2010. Since 2001 opium production in Afghanistan has risen nearly 50 fold and in Russia the result is an epidemic of heroin abuse. Russia now has around 2.5m heroin addicts and at least 30,000 of them will die this year.The Russian authorities accuse the United States of helping the drug suppliers by refusing to destroy opium crops in Afghanistan. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from the Siberian city of Novo-kusnetsk. Watch video