Russia’s Cold Turkey Drug Treatment Fails to Stem HIV

Yekaterinburg, the Siberian city where drug users used to be handcuffed to their beds to help them quit, exemplifies Russia’s efforts to stamp out the habit in a nation that has the most HIV-infected addicts.

The practice was stopped by local police in 2005, though going cold turkey still prevails, said Kiril Petrov, a coordinator with City Without Drugs, the organization whose centers used handcuffing but have abandoned that method. Users are expected to quit without the aid of addiction-easing medicines such as methadone, which is banned in Russia.