Some Problems of Qualification of Crimes in the Field of Illicit Traffic Drugs

Abstract

The article deals with the issues of qualification of sales of narcotic drugs, presents the main trends of judicial practice in assessing the actual circumstances of specific criminal cases and their impact on the qualifications of the offense. Attention is focused on certain aspects of the identification of a seized narcotic substance as a single consignment or related to different episodes of sale. Using examples of judicial practice, various approaches to the qualification of the sale of narcotic drugs as a single criminal act or as a set of crimes are summarized. The positions of the courts on the correlation of finished sales and situations in which one part of the narcotic substance was sold and the other withdrawn during operational activities were investigated. It is concluded that the practice materials presented in the article demonstrate the absence of a clear direction in the qualification of the considered elements of a crime.

Keywords

• drugs
• narcotic drugs
• sale of drugs
• sale of narcotics
• qualification
• single offense
• total offense
• attempted