2013: President of Ukraine Buys Cocaine & Marijuana Online

KIEV — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday brought cocaine and marijuana bought on the Internet to a government meeting to show how easily they could be procured in the country.

At a televised meeting, Yanukovych brandished test tubes of cocaine and marijuana he said his staff bought on the Internet and slammed officials for failing to fight drug trafficking.

"What work can we talk about if you can buy the full range of narcotics through an Internet store?" the president asked angrily at the meeting with ministers and the prosecutor general.

He opened a red case filled with labelled test tubes, which he said contained cocaine, marijuana and illegally obtained prescription medicines.

"I consider the actions of the security forces in exterminating and preventing this evil are insufficient, and possibly criminal," he said.

The party of Yanukovych's arch-rival, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, responded by saying the president should be prosecuted for drug-trafficking.

"If Yanukovych brought in (cocaine), then it's up to 10 years in jail for distribution," said an official in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc party, Andriy Kozhemyakin, the Rosbalt news agency reported.

After the meeting, officials set the drugs on fire in an inner courtyard of the presidential administration building.

Yanukovych, who comes from the country's Russian-speaking East and is friendly towards the Kremlin, was inaugurated as president in February.

--

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

—Thomas Jefferson