Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jun 2004
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2004 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: C.J. Chivers

RUSSIA SEEKS BALANCE IN DRUG-USE SENTENCING

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 here in 1999, accused of possessing 
roughly 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 possession of larger amounts or 
drug trafficking risks prison.

But the new policies restore a balance between crime and punishment and 
protect small-time drug offenders - those caught with up to 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 V. Zykov, a member of President Vladimir V. 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," Dr. 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 Mr. Putin signed a law amending 
drug-possession charges, allowing possession of up to 10 doses before 
risking imprisonment. This spring a special 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 - more than half an ounce.

The table took effect last month by resolution from Prime Minister Mikhail 
Y. 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 
Aleksandr Mikhailov, deputy head of the federal antidrug agency, called 
drugs "weapons of mass destruction." When Prime Minister Fradkov released 
the new standards, Mr. Mikhailov railed against them.

Drug use here is generally considered less common than in the West. 
Alcoholism remains the dominant addiction. But drug use has sharply 
increased since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities say, and 
the spread of heroin injection, with its contribution to a surge in H.I.V. 
cases, is particularly worrisome.

The problem seems unlikely to wane. Mr. Putin noted this 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 
H.I.V. and tuberculosis, which are often contracted in jails. By one 
survey, as many as 65,000 people were imprisoned under the old law, Dr. 
Zykov and Mr. Levinson said.

Aid workers also say the law may help reduce the corruption they say 
surrounds arrests of the indigent and the young, Mr. Loginov, who insists 
he was framed by police officers who planted heroin in his clothes and 
apartment, said the new table would make it more difficult to rig cases. 
"With these new amounts, this won't happen anymore," he said.
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