http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/od_nm/russia_submarine_cannabis_dcMOSCOW (Reuters) - A sailor on one of Russia's flagship nuclear submarines was convicted Wednesday of growing cannabis at his barracks and pushing it to fellow servicemen.
ADVERTISEMENT
Alexander Panov, who served on the Dmitry Donskoy nuclear submarine, started growing cannabis on the window sill of the barracks over a year ago, Russian news agencies reported.
"When the three plants he was cultivating grew above 1 meter, the sailor brought them into the stockroom," RIA news agency quoted judge Oleg Arkhipov as saying.
"He dried out the crop and then started to use it and distribute among his colleagues."
The military court in the Arctic town of Severodvinsk, the heart of Russia's northern submarine fleet, sentenced Panov to two years in a prison camp.
The 175-meter (574 feet) Dmitry Donskoy, one of Russia's newest submarines, was refitted several years ago to carry up to 20 ballistic inter-continental missiles.
A test missile was misfired from the submarine last year for reasons which are still being investigated.
A string of accidents in the Russian navy, including the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in 2000, have underlined the post-Soviet decline of Russia's armed forces.