CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR DRUG USE AND DRUG INTOXICATION

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of criminally punishable actions related to narcotics and psychotropic substances (manufacturing, acquisition, possession, transportation, dispatch, etc.), which are committed without the intent to sell and defined in Part 1 of Article 309 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as forms of the objective side. The authors drew attention to practical situations where a person attempts to ingest (swallow) a purchased narcotic or psychotropic substance in order to evade criminal liability under Part 1 of Article 309 of the Criminal Code. When ingesting such a narcotic substance in non-public places, there is no criminal liability under Ukrainian legislation; only the presence of a public place allows for the qualification of the person’s actions under Article 316 of the Criminal Code. Also, there is no criminal liability when a person is in a public or non-public place in a state of “narcotic intoxication.” In the authors’ opinion, these are shortcomings of the criminal legislation that require correction by supplementing the objective side of Part 1 of Article 309 with new forms related to “drug use” (in any location, not just public) and “being under the influence of narcotics”. Based on the research findings, the authors proposed to present the objective side of Part 1 of Article 309 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the following wording: “Illegal production, manufacturing, acquisition, possession, transportation, dispatch, or use of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, or their analogues without the intent to sell, as well as being under the influence of narcotics, are punishable by...”. The authors’ proposed amendment to Part 1 of Article 309 of the Criminal Code should function as a general criminal law norm regulating drug use in any location, while the existing Article 316, “Illegal Public Drug Use,” should remain a specific provision applied to cases of drug use in public places. In the authors’ opinion, expanding the content of the objective side in Part 1 of Article 309 by including additional forms will help ensure effective counteraction to drug-related behavior and will have a significant preventive impact on potential drug offenders.