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Red Book List15.07.2004
Galina Yuzefovich, Alexander Panov "Weekly Journal" has already written several times about the fact that the Federal Service of the Russian Federation for the Control of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances has serious claims against the book products of the publishing house "Ultra. Kultura". The matter has reached the courts and the seizure of several publications. Representatives of the Federal Drug Control Service explained their position to "Weekly Journal" (see No. 115). Now, the art director of "Ultra. Kultura" Alexander Kasyanenko and the editor-in-chief of the publishing house, poet and translator Ilya Kormiltsev have asked for a meeting with our observers Galina Yuzefovich and Aleksandr Panov. They consider it especially important to express their position, since the representatives of the publishing house believe that the authorities are simply avoiding any contact with them. - So what is the current legal status of your books, which are questionable from the point of view of the Federal Drug Control Service? Alexander Kasyanenko: First, a court decision was officially made on the book by Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar, "Marijuana: The Forbidden Drug," and after all the events, on two more books - "Storming Heaven" by Jay Stevens and "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved" by Alexander and Ann Shulgina. And when books from our publishing house were confiscated from Stolitsa-Service, a large Moscow book wholesaler, all the, let's say, hot titles were taken along with the claim for confiscation: "An Anthology of Contemporary Anarchism and Left Radicalism," the Islamist collection "Allah Does Not Love America," dedicated to the events of September 11, and Yulia Yuzik's study of the phenomenon of Islamic female suicide bombers, "Brides of Allah" - there were no court decisions on them. Moreover, all of them were confiscated, according to the protocol, as means of drug propaganda. The seizure was also carried out by representatives of the Federal Drug Control Service. - So, the entire print run of "Marijuana" was confiscated? A.K.: No, how can you take it away? The book came out two years ago and it was all sold out. So their entire haul at Stolitsa-Service was nine copies, I think. And then they picked up about thirty more in other places. - Were your books also confiscated from stores?
A.K.: Well, in theory, they should have. But in reality, as far as I know, no one really bothered the stores. The Drug Control Service needed noise, not real results. If they really start confiscating books, then they should probably start with us - at least come and have a serious talk. And no one contacted the publishing house at all. We only found out about the confiscations from the press. The State Tax Committee had nothing to do with the stores.
- And from a purely legal point of view, should those books on which court decisions were made be removed from sale? A.K.: No. All the court cases that have taken place are administrative, which make claims exclusively against specific chains of stores. And the decisions of these courts are of the following nature: book-selling organizations are fined a certain amount for distributing specific books. However, in order to legally remove a book from sale, there must be a decision against the book itself, and not just on the fact of its distribution in one separate store. Ideally, of course, the State Tax Committee should have filed a lawsuit against the publishing house, to prove that it publishes illegal literature, but this is already a scandal, and the Drug Control Service does not need this. - So no one has filed a lawsuit against you and there are no claims against you as a publishing house? A.K.: Moreover, no one even wants to meet with us. It seems like they are hiding from us. Ilya Kormiltsev: About a year ago, the prosecutor's office showed us a list of book titles for which there are real decisions to ban them. For example, "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler. But in this case, there was no decision to ban "Marijuana" as such. A.K.: In my opinion, they there at the State Tax Committee are most afraid of the fact that the decision to ban the book would actually be made. In general, "Marijuana - Forbidden Medicine" was originally published by Yale University Press, and they were very surprised when our Drug Control Service began to declare that this book and others like it were being printed with money from the international drug mafia. - But a special examination was conducted on the book "Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine". A.K.: Yes, but we have not seen its results. And the court ruling does not mention any examination. - Is there any legal procedure for such cases? Who should conduct the examination and how is it done? And who can demand it to be carried out? I.K.: The prosecutor’s office - there are no other authorities. A.K.: We had one such precedent. The authorities acted according to the law in the case of our publication "Allah Does Not Love America". First, the book was officially purchased with money from the prosecutor's office. Then it was examined in Yekaterinburg. Then the results of this examination were sent to Moscow, to our place of registration. The Moscow prosecutor's office sent the book to the Research Institute of the Prosecutor General's Office, and the verdict was: this book does not promote extremism and violence. That was the end of the matter. - But you can’t help but admit that many readers of your publishing house’s books may indeed be impressed by the propaganda of drugs or Islamic terrorism? I.K.: What does propaganda mean? Propaganda presupposes a monopoly on information. If I have all the television channels in my hands, and I broadcast the president's image on them all day long, that's propaganda. And we simply disseminate information. Here Mr. Alexander Shulgin wrote a book about psychoactive substances. We translated and published this book. And if you don't like it, you can write another one in which you refute Mr. Shulgin's assertions. Or the American Adam Parfrey in his book "Allah Doesn't Love America" ​​collected anti-American texts by radical Islamic thinkers and publicists, after reading which you begin to perceive the events of September 11 in a completely different way. We, the publishing house, take on the function of the Red Book: just as there are species that are under threat of extinction, so there are opinions that are under threat of extinction. And we try to preserve them. In this way, we fight for freedom of speech. - Don’t you think that your publications can influence someone in a very specific way, especially for teenagers?.. I.K.: I don't believe that a book can change anyone. If a person has said all his life: "We must kill the Khachi", then after reading "Mein Kampf", he will instead say: "Adolf Hitler bequeathed to us the extermination of representatives of inferior races". And if "Mein Kampf" did not exist, he would have written it himself. - Do you have a forecast for how your publishing house's relations with the authorities will develop further? The first attack on you was so strange. A.K.: There was one carefully calculated move in this attack. After people in uniform with personal opinions went around the stores, many sellers are simply afraid to take our books. So, commercially, we suffered greatly from this story. I.K.: As for the conflict with the authorities as such, we predicted it. Not that we were looking for it, but we understood that given our preferences and the current state of state structures, it was inevitable. And I am sure that there will be conflicts in the future. If not with the Federal Drug Control Service, then with someone else. CONTEXT Dur-lex Moscow courts have not yet acquitted all the veterinarians accused by the State Drug Control Service of selling ketamine to cats and dogs, but the brave committee has already taken on human doctors. The scandal surrounding the raids on bookstores has not yet ended, and in the Rostov Region, 700 kilos of Ukrainian ice cream, the wrappers of which mention poppy and hemp, have already been confiscated. It seems that the "State Drug Control Committee" sees its main task in starting the maximum number of the loudest scandals possible.
In interviews and at press conferences, the State Tax Committee employees insist that they are simply fulfilling their official duties. They say that the confiscated books were found to be drug propaganda by the court, and the doctors and clinics under investigation were working with drugs without a license. No matter how widespread and common such actions may be, they do not stop being violations of the law. In short, dura lex, sed lex -
It sounds convincing, but only at first glance. Why, in fact, does non-compliance with the rules for working with narcotic drugs need to be suppressed by provocations (the doctor is called to the patient, begged to help, and when he draws painkillers into the syringe, they show their ID) and handcuffs? Dozens of different kinds of services, supervisions and inspections that monitor compliance with regulations - from sanitary inspection to the protection of monuments - somehow get by with warnings and instructions. By the way, Moscow veterinarians were accused not of violating the rules, but of selling drugs. As you know, the first of the accused, Konstantin Sadovedov, was completely acquitted, not for “lack of evidence”, but for lack of evidence. That did not stop the State Tax Committee from immediately starting a new wave of similar cases. As a result, pharmacies are now requiring customers to collect and return used pain patches - to avoid being charged with drug dealing. It is difficult to appreciate the humor of Ukrainian ice cream makers who called their quite harmless product "Your Hemp Dose". But an unsuccessful joke is not grounds for confiscation. Meanwhile, in this story there was no trial at all - the employees of the State Tax Committee did everything themselves, acting in addition to their own role as experts, judges and bailiffs. Separation of powers, legal procedure - these are, apparently, prejudices of a liberal society. Which, according to the loyal ally of the State Committee, the chief child psychiatrist and narcologist of the Russian Ministry of Health Alexey Nadezhdin, is a "society of legalized drug consumption". The State Tax Committee showed particular respect for the law in the fight around the single dose. As is known, the amendments to the Criminal Code adopted this year exclude criminal liability for persons found to have less than 10 single doses. The size of the latter is determined by a government decree. The State Committee developed a draft of such a decree, in which a "single dose" was declared to be approximately one hundredth of the portions actually used by drug addicts. And when this shameless fraud failed, it declared that it would challenge the government's decision. Like the Stepmother from Shvartsev's "Cinderella", who promised to complain not only to the king, but also about the king. All this rich and diverse activity has nothing to do with the real fight against drug addiction. Unless, of course, you consider civil liberties to be drugs. B.Zh.
Weekly Magazine
Armando
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