RUSSIA SEEKS BALANCE IN DRUG-USE SENTENCING

MOSCOW - Vladimir Loginov, 25 years old but with the tired eyes of a man
much older, sat reading the Russian criminal code and explaining his fate.
He had been arrested on the streets here in 1999, accused of possessing
roughly a quarter gram of heroin.

He spent five years and two months in prison. By the time he left, he had
contracted tuberculosis.

Under a new Russian drug policy, such a bleak journey through the country's
penal system for small-scale drug possession has become much less likely.

After years of harsh penalties for people convicted of possessing small
amounts of illegal drugs, Russia has liberalized policies underpinning the
law. The effect is not legalization, or even free-spirited tolerance. No
one mistakes Moscow for Amsterdam. Possession of small amounts of illicit
substances remains punishable by fines, and possession of larger amounts or
drug trafficking risks prison.

But the new policies restore a balance between crime and punishment and
protect small-time drug offenders - those caught with up to 10 doses of
illicit substances for personal use - from prison and its associated risks.
Drug treatment specialists and aid workers describe the change as a
breakthrough that could alleviate prison overcrowding and perhaps the
spread of infectious diseases.

"It is a liberalization of thinking, and in this sense it is a revolution,"
said Dr. Oleg V. Zykov, a member of President Vladimir V. Putin's Human
Rights Commission and president of No to Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, a
nongovernmental organization counseling drug users.

In theory, Russian drug laws already worked much like many laws in the
West, delineating drug crimes by degree. Suspects were charged according to
the amounts of drugs they were accused of possessing, with progressively
stiffer penalties for larger quantities.

In practice, however, it had been almost impossible for a suspect to be
classified as a small-time user.

To determine charges, the police and courts used a table of weights to
classify charges, and critics said weights were set absurdly low. For
example, a "large" amount of heroin, punishable with imprisonment, was
five-thousandths of a gram. "We are talking about dust," Dr. Zykov said.

Such policies seemed at odds with the spirit of the law. "The will of the
legislators was distorted," said Lev Levinson, head of New Drug Policy, a
nongovernmental organization. Last year Mr. Putin signed a law amending
drug-possession charges, allowing possession of up to 10 doses before
risking imprisonment. This spring a special commission compiled a table of
weights defining 10 doses of heroin as a gram. The threshold for cocaine is
a gram and a half. For marijuana, it is 20 grams - more than half an ounce.

The table took effect last month by resolution from Prime Minister Mikhail
Y. Fradkov, to the praise of organizations sometimes critical of Russian
practices. "It brings the criminal regulations in the country closer to
those accepted by the world community," said Alexander Petrov of Human
Rights Watch.

Still, the new practice has divided elements of the government. Last year
Aleksandr Mikhailov, deputy head of the federal antidrug agency, called
drugs "weapons of mass destruction." When Prime Minister Fradkov released
the new standards, Mr. Mikhailov railed against them.

Drug use here is generally considered less common than in the West.
Alcoholism remains the dominant addiction. But drug use has sharply
increased since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities say, and
the spread of heroin injection, with its contribution to a surge in H.I.V.
cases, is particularly worrisome.

The problem seems unlikely to wane. Mr. Putin noted this week that heroin
trafficking into Russia from Afghanistan had increased since the defeat of
the Taliban in 2001.

With heroin having become a permanent part of Russian life, advocates
expressed hope that the new law might allow for the release of many
small-time drug users now in prison, reducing the risks of exposure to
H.I.V. and tuberculosis, which are often contracted in jails. By one
survey, as many as 65,000 people were imprisoned under the old law, Dr.
Zykov and Mr. Levinson said.

Aid workers also say the law may help reduce the corruption they say
surrounds arrests of the indigent and the young, Mr. Loginov, who insists
he was framed by police officers who planted heroin in his clothes and
apartment, said the new table would make it more difficult to rig cases.
"With these new amounts, this won't happen anymore," he said.