"Now, when the regressive revision of criminal drug policy has been completed and when, based on the new rules, new amounts have been approved for defining large and exceptionally large amounts, two conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the figures:
"1) Since February 11, 2006 there are additional grounds for the criminal prosecution of people who use narcotics.
"2) Despite the most recent changes, compared with the situation existing until May 12, 2004, today's position does not seem to be as universally repressive as it was during the period when Academician Babayan's Summary Table was in use.
"This can be confirmed by a comparative analysis of the threshold of criminal liability with respect to the most important substances on the list (table (table11).
"If we consider the whole list, containing 232 items, we find that a decrease in amounts defined as large occurred in only 49 cases, while there were increases in 140. These amounts were increased in the majority of listed substances.
"However, almost all of the 140 substances for which the amount deemed large was increased are substances only rarely involved in illegal trafficking, while decreases in threshold occurred for the majority of popular narcotics.
"The bar for the amount criminally punishable decreased with respect to that established on May 12, 2004: by a factor of two for heroin (from 1 to 0.5), by a factor of five for opium (from 5 to 1 grams), for marijuana from 20 to 6 grams, for hashish from 5 to 2 grams, for ketamine by a factor of 5 (from 1 to 0.2 grams), for cocaine by a factor of three (from 1.5 to 0.5 grams), for LSD by a factor of 30 (from 0.003 to 0.0001 gram), for pervitine from 0.5 to 0.3 grams, for amphetamine by a factor of 5 (from 1 to 0.2 grams), and for ephedrine from 0.5 to 0.2 grams."
Levinson L. (2008). Half a gram--a thousand lives. Harm reduction journal, 5, 22. doi.org/10.1186/1477-7517-5-22
