Esquire editor fined for ‘promoting drugs’

The editor-in-chief of Russian Esquire has been fined $1,300 for promoting drug use in the media.

­This comes after Esquire’s online version published “Consumers’ Weed,” an article that included information about a website selling drugs.

“We did not aim to promote or propagandize drugs,” Dmitry Golubovsky told journalists. “We rather wanted to show the weird drug market relations around the world. We wrote that the availability of drugs is in itself an indicator of consumerism.”

The article – “a very short one,” as Golubovsky remarked – was immediately taken off the magazine’s website.

This is not the first time Esquire has come into trouble with the state. In February 2012, the magazine was fined for a vodka ad that violated Russia’s advertisement law, Pravo.ru reported.

The Russian version of Esquire was established in April 2005. Its circulation is 135,000 issues.

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