The government has submitted bills for consideration that will increase the punishment for "drug propaganda on the Internet." Now it will lead to criminal liability. Now for the "propaganda of drugs on the Internet" provides for administrative liability under Art. 6.13 of the Code of Administrative Offenses with a fine of up to one and a half million rubles for legal entities and up to 30 thousand rubles for individuals.
The bills introducing criminal liability were developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on behalf of the president and the government in order to "counter the illegal trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances using the Internet."
The department clarified that the amendments will be made both to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses, as well as to the federal law “On Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances” and to certain legislative acts. The envisaged punishment for promoting drugs on the Internet has not yet been reported.
In February 2021, a law was passed introducing criminal liability with a term of imprisonment of up to 15 years for inducing drug use on the Internet (Article 230 of the Criminal Code). For propaganda of drugs in the network, only administrative punishment was previously provided. Under this article , journalist Yuri Dudya was fined 100 thousand rubles for his interview with Ukrainian blogger Ivangai (Ivan Rudskoy) and Russian rapper Morgenstern (Alisher Valeev). The court saw facts of drug propaganda in them. In addition, administrative cases under the same article were also initiated against musical performers Morgenstern and Eldzhey .