MOSCOW, September 23 (RAPSI) – The Committee on Security and Countering Corruption of Russia’s State Duma has backed amendments to antidrug laws concerning online inducement to the drug use and recommended lawmakers to pass them in the first reading.

Numerous publications promoting unlawful actions in support of liberalization of Russia’s antidrug laws, among them those where participants could get seeds of drug-producing plants, have persuaded us that this bill was needed to be developed, Committee Chair and an author of the document Vasily Piskarev says.

Lawmakers propose to introduce a separate provision criminalizing inducement to use drugs, psychoactive substance, or similar products via the internet in the respective article of Russia’s Criminal Code.

The bill envisages prison terms from 12 to 15 years in case such actions resulted in the deaths of the victims or other serious consequences.