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The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs has provided countries with internationally agreed recommendations to adapt their drug policies for more efficiency and better outcomes. This chapter focusses on the Russian Federation’s role in international drug policy, through an analysis of its national approaches and their design, as well as on its diplomatic efforts at the bilateral and multilateral levels to oppose drug policy reform. A systematic review of peer-reviewed, grey literature, policy documents, UN reports and news reports on the country’s response to drugs internally and externally was conducted between September and December 2017. Despite its efforts to oppose drug policy reform and the prioritisation of public health, the Russian Federation faces major epidemics of imprisonment and HIV. Internationally, while it has not been successful in addressing the ongoing reforms in Europe and the Americas, it has been effective in preserving its international priorities by opposing harm reduction and maintaining the prohibition paradigm at the multilateral level.

This paper focuses on nonlinear properties of economic transformation and provides illustrations from nearly a decade of economic transition experience of the formerly planned economies. A particular argument is that policies that move a system along “the edge of chaos” may have the best chance of succeeding. This paper also highlights various difficulties and possible complexities that have not been pointed out by earlier analysts. It suggests that policy makers should keep a watchful eye on smaller incremental changes in the economic and institutional environments critical for their general effectiveness, as some may have enormous impacts at certain points in a dynamically complex environment.