Dangerous Substances and their Classification in Forensic Science

Abstract

A number of articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contain the terms "potentially dangerous psychoactive substances", "environmentally hazardous substances", "other dangerous chemical and biological substances"; etc., which are often included into special lists conditioning the dangerousness of a given substance. It is well known that when investigating crimes related to these substances (all the above mentioned substances are grouped together by the author as "dangerous substances"), the latter usually require forensic research. So far, in forensics there is no clear understanding of the concept of hazardous substances. Its forensic rationale should be focused on the actual criminalistic realities. The solution to forensic tasks is not the final, but an interim goal in investigating crimes. The paper proposes a version of the author's definition of the concept of hazardous substances, considers their basic typologies and classifications.