According to Izvestia, on March 14, the State Duma may adopt in the first reading a bill by senators and deputies from United Russia, who are invited to increase fines for selling medicines without prescriptions. For pharmaceutical workers and officials, they will amount to from 10 thousand to 20 thousand rubles (or disqualification for a period of six months to one year), for individual entrepreneurs from 50 thousand to 100 thousand rubles, and for legal entities – from 150 thousand up to 200 thousand rubles.
Positive opinions on the bill have already been given by two specialized committees – on health care, as well as on state building and legislation. They recommended that the State Duma adopt the new norms in the first reading.
As the authors of the bill, including First Vice Speaker of the Federation Council Andrei Yatskin and head of the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov, explain, since 2010 in Russia there has been an increase of more than 2.5 times in the number of people addicted to drugs with a psychoactive effect. .
“The so-called “drug addicts” are in great demand for drugs containing pregabalin, tapentadol, tropicamide and cyclopentolate, which do not belong to poisonous or potent drugs and do not contain either narcotic or psychotropic substances in their composition. At the same time, their use not as prescribed by a doctor causes drug intoxication, as well as persistent dependence, ”the explanatory note to the bill says.
According to parliamentarians, “drug addiction” is especially widespread among adolescents and young people due to the availability, ease of use and intensity of drug exposure. Often, mental and physical dependence on their use becomes the main reason for switching to harder drugs, the authors of the initiative say.
