No to drugs

Many are aware of the dangers of drug use, but those "brave" individuals who use them tend to forget about the risks. It can be stated with certainty that drugs, even of plant origin such as cannabis or poppy, cause immense harm to citizens' health, and their illegal manufacture, processing, acquisition, storage, transportation, or mailing without the intent to sell is strictly punishable by law.

The sanction under Part 1 of Article 328 of the Criminal Code for illegal trafficking of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and their precursors provides for punishment of up to 15 years of imprisonment. Criminal liability may be incurred by a person who simply picked a prohibited plant and keeps it.

For instance, citizen L., who is employed, single, and has no minor children dependent on him, was visiting his girlfriend one winter evening. During his visit, he engaged in correspondence on the "VKontakte" social network with a young man he had not met before. In the course of their conversation, the young man offered L. to purchase hashish from him. L. did not know why he was specifically chosen. Since L. and his girlfriend were planning to attend a wedding the next day, L. decided to purchase hashish to relax well with his girlfriend afterward. After ordering the narcotic substance online and picking it up at the designated location, the young man took the hashish with him to the wedding cafe. However, L. never experienced any "high" as he was met by police officers at the train station, who had him under surveillance. During a personal search, a compressed block of powdered substance weighing 0.37 grams, which is a dangerous narcotic drug – hashish – was found and seized from L. The actions of L. were deemed to contain elements of a crime under Part 1 of Article 328 of the Criminal Code, specifically the illegal acquisition, storage, and transportation of narcotic drugs without the intent to sell. By court verdict, L. was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment. In accordance with Article 78 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, L. will not have the imposed sentence executed if, during a probationary period of 2 years, he does not commit a new crime and fulfills the obligations imposed on him by the court, including

in the amount of 120 hours, and also pay a criminal law compensation to the state in the amount of 100 basic units, totaling 21,000,000 rubles, within six months after the verdict enters into legal force. And he could have avoided tarnishing his fate with this crime; he only needed to refuse the offer of a stranger.

Vitebsk Transport Prosecutor
Senior Counselor of Justice A.A. Tsarikov