MOSCOW, December 30 (RAPSI) – People caught using their premises as drug dens in Russia will now face up to seven years in prison, after President Vladimir Putin signed legal amendments stiffening the penalty for such crimes, the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper writes.
The amendment sets out terms of up to seven years for “the systematic provision of one's premises to users of drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogs.”
“Systematic” means as little as more than twice, according to the bill.
Russia's anti-drugs czar Viktor Ivanov said in June that about 8 million Russians use drugs and almost 150,000 people have been jailed for drug-related crimes. The UN says Russia, a nation of 142 million people, is the world’s largest heroin market, accounting for about a fifth of the world's consumption.
