In November 2020, a new strategy of state anti-drug policy until 2030 was approved in Russia by Presidential Decree.
The new drug policy strategy-2030 is actually a continuation of the old one and continues the general trend of tightening and restricting the rights of drug users in Russia. Not only that, the text of the strategy states that the new anti-drug policy will be based “on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” and that “legalisation of marijuana” is a “threat to national security”. The new-old strategy also explicitly mentions banning substitution therapy programmes, preventing “legalisation of drugs” and introducing measures against “unjustified expansion of the use of narcotic analgesics” for pain relief.
Anya Sarang, head of the Andrei Rylkov Foundation, said in a comment to Radio Liberty that the strategy is “a reflection of the government’s mood and policy” and that NGOs working to help drug users need it only to understand “the general direction of repressive drug policy in Russia. (The full text of the new drug policy strategy is available at the link).
As activist Timur Madatov writes in a piece for Radio Liberty, the authors of the strategy report that during the period of implementation of the previous strategy (2010-2020), law enforcers uncovered over two million crimes related to drug trafficking, almost three quarters of which were serious and especially serious.
During the previous drug strategy, Russia introduced norms expanding the ability of courts to send citizens for drug treatment – as Madatov characterised the process, “the state is trying to expand the practice of involuntary treatment”. But in fact, the country is recording an increase in the number of people who died from drug use (according to the strategy, it was 3.7 thousand in 2011, and 4.6 thousand in 2019), and a decrease of almost 40 per cent in the number of diagnoses of drug-related mental disorders. This means that people who use drugs are even less likely to seek drug treatment.
The quality of drug treatment is also low – according to data provided by Madatov, in 2019 only 65% of the total number of people who successfully completed court-ordered drug treatment successfully completed it, while the number of people who successfully completed treatment and remained in remission for a year or more was not even 20%.
Against the background of statements about the need to expand drug treatment programmes, the criminalisation of people who use drugs in Russia is one of the main obstacles to access to prevention and treatment. Over the past decade, Russia’s overall prison population has fallen significantly (by 40%), but the number of citizens serving prison sentences for drug-related offences has fallen by only 3% at the same time. Almost 30 per cent of all male prisoners are convicted for drug offences, while for women this figure reaches 40 per cent.
As part of the implementation of the new drug strategy, in December 2020, Russia also introduced new penalties for online drug propaganda. The State Duma passed a law on amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, adopting an article introducing additional fines for online propaganda. The law provides fines for ordinary citizens – from 5 to 30 thousand rubles, officials – from 50 to 100 thousand, legal entities – from a million to one and a half, writes the publication “Knife“. The law also toughens fines for telecom operators and Internet service providers who ignore Roskomnadzor’s demand to restrict access to such information.
Also in the State Duma under consideration is a law on criminal liability for drug propaganda online. About it earlier wrote the portal TalkingDrugs.
Vasily Piskarev, head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, said that the law on propaganda would help in the fight against websites and pages in social networks where drugs are sold, as well as against groups “inclining teenagers and young people to drug use”.
But in practice, things turn out to be quite different. In September 2020, the Leninsky District Court of Penza fined local resident Yulia Korotkova four thousand rubles, who in 2018 published a photo of her wearing socks with a print of cannabis leaves, according to 66.ru newspaper.
The very concept of “drug propaganda” is very vague, and can be used to prosecute not only organisations providing harm reduction services, but also independent media, as well as writers and musicians.
“Anything can be considered propaganda: any film where the characters use drugs, any Russian rock songs, and publications about a book you read that mention authors who used drugs. In this case, a whole cultural stratum is lost. And that’s terrible! This bill will bring nothing except that police officers will get additional sticks,” lawyer Yulia Fedotova told 66.ru.
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