Soviets Pledge Increased Cooperation in International War on Drug Abuse

VIENNA — The Soviet Union on Thursday pledged to cooperate more in the global war on drugs, a reflection of Moscow’s new determination to come to grips with a problem it scarcely recognized a few years ago.

The Soviet representative, Deputy Health Minister A. M. Moskvichev, said the Kremlin is seeking to increase cooperation with other governments to tackle the problem of drug trafficking.

U.N. officials say that until recently, Moscow took little interest in the drug problem, but under the leadership of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, it has acknowledged both its own addiction problems and the need to tackle the international trade.

Malaysia, meanwhile, defended its policy of executing traffickers.

Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Fadzil Che Wan told a 135-nation U.N. conference on drug abuse that “we deem capital punishment as a punishment befitting the crime.”