Drug control law

Police in Thessaloniki detained nine suspected members of a drug trafficking ring on Friday.

The arrests of five foreign nationals and four Greeks aged between 28 and 64 were carried out in different parts of the northern port city.

Greece on Monday issued the first licences to private companies for growing medicinal cannabis in the country, part of an attempt to tap a burgeoning market worth billions.

Those arrested are suspected of manufacturing and trafficking illegal drugs, and for illegal possession of firearms.

The Special Criminal Court imposed remand in custody on a 77-year-old woman charged with membership in an organized crime group involved in the distribution of drugs in the Lyulin quarter in Sofia, said the press office of the Appellate Prosecutor's Office.

People can't be punished for possession of marijuana in Georgia, the small nation on the shores of the Black Sea in the Caucasus region, following a ruling by the country's highest constitutional review court on Monday.

On 19-20 June 2018, the Ministry of Interior co-organised the 3rd COPOLAD II Annual Conference 'Women and drug policy. Progress and challenges in the implementation of the gender approach and the empowerment of women as a cross-cutting matter'. The event was part of the calendar of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Nathan Larson, a self-confessed pedophile, has run for a congressman in the US state of Virginia in the November election for the US legislature.

He supports the legalization of pedophilia, and has been in prison for 16 months in the past because he has threatened the US president with death, writes USA Today, quoted by FOCUS News Agency.

Istanbul police seized more than 400 kilograms (881 pounds) of illegal drugs including heroin and skunk cannabis during anti-drug operations in the city, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on May 23, citing police sources. 

EU National Drug Coordinators held a meeting on 3 May in Sofia in the framework of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The meeting dedicated to prevention and therapeutic treatment of the use and abuse with new psychoactive substances (NPS) was organised jointly by the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Health.

Two Brazilian women, aged 23 and 24, were arrested at Athens International Airport on Sunday evening for trying to smuggle more that than 1.8 kilos of cocaine into the country, authorities said on Wednesday.

According to police, the women had swallowed 185 small packages containing a total of 1,845 grams.  They had arrived in Athens from Sao Paolo in Brazil via Lisbon.