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Putin calls for criminal punishment for spreading drug information in Internet

Сourts will also be obliged to send persons who commit administrative offences when intoxicated by drugs to clinics to undergo a mandatory rehabilitation course

Vladimir Putin Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP

Vladimir Putin

© Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP

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Russia unconditionally against legalization of "light drugs" — Putin

MOSCOW, July 22 /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to finalize a bill on criminal punishment for persons who illegally spread information on the purchase, storage, transportation, production and processing of drugs and psychotropic substances in the territory of Russia via the Internet. The bill, which was published on the Kremlin website on Wednesday, is to be submitted to the Russian State Duma soon.

The president demanded using off-court measures to restrict access in the territory of Russia to information, which appears in the Internet, on means, methods, production and application of potentially dangerous psychotropic substances as well as places of their acquisition.

President Putin also introduced a term like "comprehensive rehabilitation and resocialization of drug addicts" and stressed the need to strengthen administrative penalties for drug addicts who ignore a court ruling to undergo mandatory treatment.

Under the new bill, courts will be obliged to send persons who commit administrative offences when intoxicated by drugs to clinics to undergo a mandatory rehabilitation course.

The government was also told to consider the expedience of introducing amendments concerning the termination of criminal proceedings against persons who take drugs and psychotropic substances without doctor’s prescription and who commit light crimes on condition that they want to be rehabilitated and resocialized and agree to compensate the damage, which they have caused.

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The Russian government is supposed to submit proposals on forming a harmonized approach of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union) member states to registration of new potentially dangerous psychotropic drugs and introduce administrative and criminal punishment for their illegal sale by November 1.

President Putin said it was necessary to study a possibility of creating a Russia-EU working group for problems of drug addiction and illegal trade in drugs.

The government jointly with executive power bodies in Russian regions and territories is to open specialized rehabilitation centers for underage drug addicts and create special laboratories in Russia’s Federal Districts to examine how narcogenic new potentially dangerous psychotropic substances are by December 1.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) are expected to analyze their supervision practices and submit their proposals on amending Russian laws with an aim to exclude a requirement to initiate criminal proceedings against unidentified persons if the fact and circumstances of selling drugs cannot be confirmed.

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Vladimir Putin Fight against drugs

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