Criteria for penalization of illicit manufacture, sale or shipment of drugs

The article is devoted to the consideration of the criteria for penalizing crimes related to the illegal manufacture, sale or shipment of drugs. The author formulates the concept of a criterion for penalizing drug crimes, analyses the existing prerequisites for strengthening the punitive potential of the sanction of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The attention is drawn to the importance of taking into account the existing criteria for penalization in order to timely reform criminal legislation, in particular the penalization of drug crimes.