On March 1, a new Russian law came into effect targeting “propaganda of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues and precursors,” and psychoactive plants, particularly all public utterances judged to promote “tolerance toward” or the “attractiveness or necessity” of using these substances. Formally, the bill, which the Russian Duma passed back in 2024, amends existing regulation on narcotics. But hiding in the small print of the new law is an unprecedented attempt to rewrite the