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Russian MP to initiate bill imposing criminal liability for repeated drug use

Punishment may range from six to twelve months in prison

Dmitry Nosov Anna Isakova/TASS

Dmitry Nosov

© Anna Isakova/TASS

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. A Russian lawmaker plans to initiate a bill imposing criminal liability for repeated drug abuse.

A spokesman for Dmitry Nosov, a member of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house with LDPR, told TASS a bill to this effect will be submitted to the lower parliament house on Thursday.

The bill provides for criminal liability for those who have been brought to administrative liability for the use of drugs or psychoactive substances without doctor’s prescription or new potentially dangerous psychoactive substances more than two times. Punishment may range from six to twelve months in prison.

"Drug abuse has become a serious problem for our country. More and more our citizens use or at least tried drugs. Drug addiction is ‘growing younger’ year after year," Nosov noted in an explanatory note.

According to official statistics cited by the lawmaker, about 500,000 drug addicts have voluntarily registered with medical institutions. Twenty percent of them are schoolchildren, 40% are people aged from 16 to 30, and 20% are people of older age. An average age when teenagers start drug use is from 15 to 17. In the recent time, this age has a tendency of lowering down to 13.

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