Russians will no longer be jailed for carrying small amounts of illegal drugs under a new law that came into effect this week. President Vladimir Putin signed the legislation in December, specifying administrative fines or community service for possession of no more than 10 times the amount of a "single dose" of drugs.

It took the five months since Putin signed the bill for various lawmakers and organizations to agree on what constitutes a single dose. Anyone caught in possession of these amounts or less cannot legally be detained, a spokeswoman for the Moscow branch of the Federal Anti-Drug Service said.  Instead, a report will be filed and the fine will be determined by a court.

The new amounts are 20 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of hashish, mescaline or opium, 1.5 grams of cocaine, 1 gram of heroin or methamphetamine, and 0.003 grams of LSD. Under the old standards, someone caught with as little as 0.1 grams of marijuana could be jailed. It is important to note that foreigners can be expelled from Russia or denied re-entry even under the new, more relaxed drug laws.

Alexander Mikhailov, deputy head of the Federal Anti-Drug Service, sounded less than pleased about the new rules in an interview with the Moscow Times.

"Now drug addicts have the right to run around with their pockets full of marijuana," he said, "and we can't even detain them."