MOSCOW, December 8 (RAPSI) – The State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, passed in the third and final reading a bill allowing to restrict access to websites containing information about potentially dangerous psychoactive substances without prior obtaining a court ruling. 

The bill was submitted to the State Duma in April.

Under the new law, out-of-court blocking will apply in Russia to websites publishing information about methods of creation, production, use and sales locations of new psychedelic drugs expected to be dangerous to health and life including synthetic cannabinoids (“spice”), stimulants (“salts”), Utopiates, and their precursors.

The law is aimed to improve efficiency of countering action against distribution of information about new species of hallucinogenic drugs, the government said when introducing the bill.

From now on, such websites are to be put on the Russian blacklist of websites, which was launched on November 1, 2012.

The respective law envisages that websites may be blacklisted by the Federal Service for Drug Control, the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare (suicide-related content) and the Federal Agency for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (child pornography). Starting February 1, 2014, the register also includes websites promoting extremism and mass riots.

According to the law, a web page containing prohibited content will be blocked unless removed within three days of the notice. However, many communications operators do not have the technical capacity to block certain pages, and therefore they often have to restrict access to entire websites.