Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jun 2004
Source: International Herald-Tribune (International)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2004
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212
Author: C.J. Chivers, New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Russia (Russia)

RUSSIA SEEKS BALANCE IN PENALTIES FOR DRUG USERS

(MOSCOW) Vladimir Loginov, 25 years old but with the tired eyes of a man 
much older, sat reading the Russian criminal code and explaining his fate. 
He had been arrested on the streets in 1999, accused of possessing 
approximately a quarter gram of heroin.

He spent five years and two months in prison. By the time he left, he had 
contracted tuberculosis.

Under a new Russian drug policy, such a bleak journey through the country's 
penal system for small-scale drug possession has become much less likely. 
After years of harsh penalties for people convicted of possessing small 
amounts of illegal drugs, Russia has liberalized policies underpinning the law.

The effect is not legalization, or even free-spirited tolerance. No one 
mistakes Moscow for Amsterdam. Possession of small amounts of illicit 
substances remains punishable by fines, and possessors of larger amounts or 
drug trafficking risk prison.

But the new policies restore a balance between crime and punishment and 
protect small-time drug offenders - those caught with as many as 10 doses 
of illicit substances for personal use - from prison and its associated 
risks. Drug treatment specialists and aid workers describe the change as a 
breakthrough that could alleviate prison overcrowding and perhaps the 
spread of infectious diseases. "It is a liberalization of thinking, and in 
this sense it is a revolution," said Dr. Oleg Zykov, a member of President 
Vladimir Putin's Human Rights Commission and president of No to Alcoholism 
and Drug Addiction, a nongovernmental organization counseling drug users.

In theory, Russian drug laws already worked much like many laws in the 
West, delineating drug crimes by degree. Suspects were charged according to 
the amounts of drugs they were accused of possessing, with progressively 
stiffer penalties for larger quantities.

In practice, however, it had been almost impossible for a suspect to be 
classified as a small-time user.

To determine charges, the police and courts used a table of weights to 
classify charges, and critics said weights were set absurdly low.

For example, a "large" amount of heroin, punishable with imprisonment, was 
five-thousandths of a gram. "We are talking about dust," Zykov said.

Such policies seemed at odds with the spirit of the law. "The will of the 
legislators was distorted," said Lev Levinson, head of New Drug Policy, a 
nongovernmental organization. Last year, Putin signed a law amending 
drug-possession charges, allowing possession of as many as 10 doses before 
risk of imprisonment. This spring, a commission compiled a table of weights 
defining 10 doses of heroin as a gram. The threshold for cocaine is a gram 
and a half. For marijuana, it is 20 grams, or more than half an ounce. The 
table took effect last month by resolution from Prime Minister Mikhail 
Fradkov, to the praise of organizations sometimes critical of Russian 
practices. "It brings the criminal regulations in the country closer to 
those accepted by the world community," said Alexander Petrov of Human 
Rights Watch.

Still, the new practice has divided elements of the government. Last year 
Alexander Mikhailov, deputy head of the federal anti-drug agency, called 
drugs "weapons of mass destruction." When the prime minister released the 
new standards, Mikhailov railed against them. Drug use is generally 
considered less common in Russia than in the West. Alcoholism remains the 
dominant addiction. But drug use has sharply increased since the collapse 
of the Soviet Union, authorities say, and the spread of heroin injection, 
with its contribution to a surge in HIV cases, is particularly worrisome.

The problem seems unlikely to wane. Putin noted last week that heroin 
trafficking into Russia from Afghanistan had increased since the defeat of 
the Taliban in 2001. With heroin having become a permanent part of Russian 
life, advocates expressed hope that the new law might allow for the release 
of many small-time drug users now in prison, reducing the risks of exposure 
to HIV and tuberculosis, which are often contracted in jails.

By one survey, as many as 65,000 people were imprisoned under the old law, 
Zykov and Levinson said.
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