* Up to 2.5 million Russians are drug addicts

* Drug use contributes to demographic problem

* Students may face tests

By Denis Dyomkin

MOSCOW, Sept 8 (Reuters) - High drug use among Russia's youth is a threat to national security, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

Russia is the world's top consumer of Afghan heroin, fuelling concerns in Moscow about the growth of the opium trade in Afghanistan.

"The young age of drug users is a threat to the country's national security, a serious challenge to the health of the nation and to the already extremely complicated demographic situation," Medvedev said.

Russia already faces a shrinking population because of poor diet, smoking and heavy drinking. Russian men have an average life expectancy of 59 years, far smaller than in western Europe.

A declining population, coupled with serious health problems, would undermine Russia's economy by reducing the size of its workforce.

"Experts believe the real number of (drug) users ranges between 2 million and 2.5 million," Medvedev told a meeting of top officials who make up Russia's Security Council.

"This is almost two percent of Russian citizens, and the most dangerous thing is that two thirds of this number are youths aged less than 30," he said.

Official data show that some 30,000 drug users, aged 28 on average, die in Russia each year. This compares to a total of around 15,000 dead in the far more populous Soviet Union lost during the whole of its Afghan war in 1979-89.

Alarmed by the drug trade and concerned about a spread of hardline Islamist militancy into the former Soviet Central Asian republics, Russia has taken some steps towards cooperating with the United States in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

It has allowed the United States to move supplies through Russian territory and is looking at ways of increasing international cooperation to stem the heroin trade.

Medvedev said Russia was still lacking a nationwide anti-drug strategy and pressed for tougher punishment against those involved in drug-related crimes.

Testing students in all Russian educational institutions for drug addiction could be introduced, he said.

"Greater punishment will also be applied for corruption crimes linked to the illegal drug trade... as well as for crimes linked to laundering cash from drug sales," Medvedev said. (Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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