At the very end of December, the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice (MJ) published a new Penal Code project. In general, this bill makes no progress towards a more liberal policy for drug users.<\/p>\n
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Possession of any quantity of illegal drugs will be liable (as now) to a term of 1 to 6 years' imprisonment, while distribution attracts a term of 2 to 8 years. There is no mention of diversion to treatment as an alternative to imprisonment, even though this possibility had been discussed, and even though the National Council on Drugs provided a written recommendation for this option to the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n
What is even worse – in the current Penal Code, there is an article, stating that for minor (insignificant) offences, related to drug possession only, the punishment could be just a fine of up to 500 EUR, instead of imprisonment. In the new bill, this provision has been dropped, which means that all drug offences, including possession of minor amounts, become punishable by imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Several NGOs had made submissions to the MJ, in the form of letters with objections and proposals. The Council of Ministers, however, approved the bill even before the (in any case extremely short) final deadline for civil objections and proposals. From now on, any reaction will have to be on a parliamentary level, while the bill is discussed in different parliamentary commissions, before being voted in the plenary.<\/p>\n
Watch Drugreporter's movie on the Bulgarian drug policies and the state of harm reduction (short version)<\/strong><\/p>\n