Ruling Civil Contract party lawmaker Hayk Sargsyan has proposed tougher penalties for drug trafficking, including prison terms of up to 15 years, during a session of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs.

“We are further tightening the punishments предусмотренные for drug distribution,” he said while presenting in second reading his draft amendments to Armenia’s Criminal Code and Code on Administrative Offenses, according to Panorama.am .

Presenting the proposed changes, Sargsyan said that distributing drugs in large quantities or through information technologies could carry prison terms of up to 10 years.

“For especially large quantities, involving minors, or selling drugs to minors, I propose prison terms of up to 15 years.

Under the current law, selling drugs through Telegram carries only a 3-6 year sentence. Under this draft, the punishment would increase to 5-10 years.

Current legislation sets a 3-6 year sentence for selling drugs to minors. This proposal raises it to 8-15 years.

I also propose stricter penalties for cultivating, producing, purchasing or storing drugs for personal use. The maximum fine would increase from tenfold to twentyfold, while imprisonment would rise from one year to two years.

For obtaining drugs in large quantities or through information technologies, the fine would rise from 10-30 times to 20-40 times the base amount, while prison terms would increase from two years to four years.

For obtaining drugs involving minors, against minors, or in especially large quantities, imprisonment would increase from 2-5 years to 3-6 years,” the lawmaker said.

The draft also proposes doubling fines for producing, preparing, acquiring or storing small quantities of drugs for personal use, raising them from 200,000-400,000 drams to 400,000-800,000 drams.

If the same offense is repeated within one year, the proposed fine would increase from the current 400,000-800,000 drams to between 800,000 and 1.6 million drams.