AFTER MONTHS OF BATTLES DUMA PASSES A PROHIBITIONIST DRUG BILL. THIS TIME A DECISIVE STEP TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF POLICE STATE IS TAKEN WITHOUT A FUSS AND AT SO SWIFT A PACE. RADICAL PARTY AND CORA OPEN A NEW FRONT OF ANTIPROHIBITIONIST STRUGGLE IN RUSSIA

Moscow, January 16, 1998. On December, 10 the State Duma passed in the third reading, on December 24 the Council of Federation approved and on January 8 the President signed the federal law "On drugs and psychotropic substances".

Several months of battles in the Parliament and a large-scale campaign in the Russian press preceded this event. At first the Council of Federation rejected the bill, then the President put a veto upon it. Now, in a few days and while New Year holidays are in full swing, the bill passes through all prickles of the Russian law-making kitchen incredibly rapidly - things go so swimmingly! - passed by over in absolute silence by the Russian Press, both "paper" and "virtual" electronic.

The adoption of the Drugs law as it is signifies victory of the most reactionary prohibitionist anti-scientific antilegal forces - generals of the war against drugs that had been lost a long time ago, of those who did not learn and did non understand anything.

Besides other things, the new law provides the following:

- placing a ban on personal use of drugs and psychotropic substances without medical prescription (art. 40);

- placing legal ban on use of heroin and other substances of ListI, even for the medical purposes (art.14);

- the possibility of forced medical examination for any person suspected of "illegal use" of drugs (art. 44) exclusively according to the decision of investigative bodies of the militia;

- placing legal ban on distributing by any means, including computer network, of any information about the ways, methods of development, production, use of drugs and places where one can acquire them and also of the information that explains the advantages of the use of some kinds of drugs over the others (art.46);

- forced medical treatment for drug addicts (art. 54);

- placing a ban on medical treatment of drug addicts by private health services (art.55).

No doubt, this law according to which millions of loyal Russian citizens who at least once in their life have smoked grass may be considered as infringes of the law (or even criminals) will only aggravate the problem of drug addiction in Russia; it will chuck out of our society and deprive of any medical aid thousands of drug addicted; it will lead to trampling down civil liberties and further consolidation of police state in Russia.

The adoption of this law will only lead to a greater criminalization of the problem of drugs and drug addiction and a further growth of the power of narcomafia.

The position taken by Russian legislators stands out in a particularly bad light against the background of the European situation which finally began to change. Day by day grows the understanding of the fact that it is necessary to look for new ways to solve the problem of drugs.

Transnational Radical Party (TRP) and its collective member Radical Antiprohibitionist Co-ordination (CORA) struggle on a world scale for:

- legalisation of production, distribution and use of cannabis and its derivatives (hashish, marijuana), setting for these substances the same regulations as those actually fixed for alcohol and tobacco;

- depenalization of personal use of all kinds of drugs;

- "therapeutic freedom" and the right of drug addicted to an adequate medical cure, in particular for the possibility to use heroin and methadone for medical purposes;

- antiprohibitionist revision of international conventions for drugs as the main obstacle in the way of transition of different states to a new policy for drugs.

With the adoption of a new federal law "On drugs and psychotropic substances" in Russia we - Russian citizens who share pragmatic, liberal, libertarian views - open a new front of antiprohibitionist struggle, i.e. a campaign aimed at making concrete changes in Russian legislation for drugs.

The first landmark of our way will be public debates "Antiprohibitionism: a new approach to the problem of drugs", planned for the beginning of February in Moscow. We hope that many deputies of the State Duma and of the Moscow City Duma, physicians, lawyers, political and public figures will participate in this meeting.

Transnational Radical Party