MOSCOW, December 30 (RAPSI) – President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a provision according to which individuals who use their apartments as drug dens can be sentenced to seven years in prison, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper writes.

According to the document, a new provision will be added to Article 232 of the Criminal Code, introducing punishment for “the systematic provision of one’s premises to users of drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues.”

“Systematic” is understood as the provision of one’s premises for these illegal purposes more than two times. The punishment for this will be up to seven years of imprisonment.

Russia's anti-drugs czar Viktor Ivanov said in June that about 8 million Russians use drugs and almost 150,000 people have been jailed for drug-related crimes. The UN says Russia, a nation of 142 million people, accounts for about a fifth of the world's heroin consumption.