update algeria and many more

Romania reduces the personal-use penalty forcuts cannabis possession penalties and other risk drugslets courts impose fines

Law 522/2004 amended Article 4 of the drug law to distinguish risk drugs from high-risk drugs in personal-use offences. For risk drugsPeople caught growing, including cannabis, unauthorised cultivation, production, purchasebuying or possessionpossessing cannabis for personal consumption now carriedthemselves could receive six months to two years' imprisonment in prison or a fine, replacing the original two-to-five-year range from 7 March 2005. High-[@1] The amendment separated cannabis and other “risk drugs retained” from the higher drug category, whose personal-use penalty remained two to five years. Published on 7 December 2004, the amendment took effect three months later. Separate provisions on[@1] Its treatment-linked waivers or postponement ofalternatives to punishment had awere deferred commencement and are not treated as operative on this dateuntil the new Penal Code took effect.[@1]

Romanian Ministry of Justice, Portal Legislativ — Law 143/2000 as at 7 March 2005 1 unchanged

sentencing, treatment, home-growing

The penalty range and fine alternative changed, but personal possession and growing remained crimes within the same whole-point score bands.

otherdeath

sentencing, treatment

Algeria promulgates a health law combining narcotics penalties andoffers treatment exemptionswithout prosecution and narrows drug death penalties

Law 85-05 replaced the 1975 drug ordinance within a wider health law. Article 245 punished unlawful use of substances or plants classified as narcotics withPeople who used illicit drugs faced two months to one year in prison, a 500–5,000-dinar fine, or both under the new health law. Articles 249–253 provided non-prosecution or possible exemption from punishment linked to treatment[@1] Unlike the repealed 1975 ordinance’s broad capital clause, and allowed courtsthe new death clause applied to order detoxification and medical supervision. Article 248 separately allowed capital punishment for specified trafficking orand facilitation offences affecting the Algerian people'’s moral health. The date is promulgation; publication[@1,2] People who followed on 17 February. This records the historical frameworkprescribed treatment could avoid prosecution, without claiming these rules all originated in 1985 or thatand courts could order treatment legalised cannabis useand withhold punishment.[@1]

algeria-drug-ordinance-1975, algeria-law-04-18-2004, algeria-treatment-diversion-procedure-2007

Algerian Official Gazette 15, 21 February 1975 — Ordinance 75-9 of 17 February 1 unchanged

possession 0 · cultivation 0 · enforcement 0 · sharing 0 · consumption 1 · access 0

2007-08-05

Algeria sets proceduresa medical route for treatment instead of prosecuting drug users to avoid prosecution

Decree 07-229, signed on 30 July and published on 5 August 2007, implemented the treatment provisions of the 2004 drug law. It set outThe implementing decree required medical assessment, detoxification and reports to support treatment or medical supervision, doctors' reports for people who used illicit drugs.[@1] Doctors had to prosecutorsnotify the prosecutor of progress or interruption, and certificates supporting a completion certificate supported a decision not to prosecute users who followed the prescribed care. Confiscation of seized plants[@1] Seized drugs and substances remained required. The procedure appliedplants still had to narcoticbe confiscated; the decree was signed on 30 July and psychotropic drugs generally, including cannabis, rather than creating a cannabis-specific exemptionpublished on 5 August.[@1]

algeria-law-04-18-2004, algeria-medical-authorisation-rules-2007

sentencing, youth, police-powers, treatment

Algeria allows the death penalty in aggravatedrestores drug casesdeath penalties and expands maximum sentences

Law 25-03 amended the 2004 drug law again. It allowsThe amendment restored death sentences in severalfor specified aggravated cases: synthetic-drugsupply offences already punishable by life, trafficking that causes death or serious harm to public health, offences by aincluding transnational organised group,crime and use or threatened use of a firearm. Algeria has carried out no execution since 1993[@1] It also required the maximum legal penalty when examinations established that an offender was under the influence of drugs when committing an offence.[@1] Pupils screened during periodic medical examinations, with consent from their legal representatives or the relevant juvenile judge, could be directed to treatment without prosecution based on those results.[@1]

possession 0 · cultivation 01 · enforcement 2 · sharing 0 · consumption 1 · access 0

Algerian Official Gazette 43, 13 July 2025 — Law 25-03 of 1 July Le Matin d'Algérie — Trafic de drogue : neuf condamnations à mort, première application de la nouvelle loi

algeria-law-04-18-2004, algeria-law-23-05-2023, algeria-first-death-sentences-2026

2023-09-18

thresholds, campaign, patients

Romania'’s parliamentSenate rejects decriminalising 3 greplacing cannabis charges with a three-gram fine

AThe Senate rejected a bill to stop prosecuting possession ofthat would have replaced criminal penalties for possessing up to three grams of cannabis for personal use with an administrative fine of 1,000–3 g was turned down by every,000 lei.[@1,2] Its electronic roll call records 103 votes for the rejection report, one against and four abstentions.[@3] The proposal then went to the Chamber of Deputies, where a joint committee that examined itrejection report followed in December.[@2]

Romanian Senate — original three-gram cannabis proposal, L384/2023 Romanian Senate — legislative record for L384/2023, PL-x 537/2023 Romanian Senate — electronic vote on the rejection report, 18 September 2023 Wikipedia — Cannabis in Romania

romania-three-gram-proposal-2023, romania-penal-code-2014

tighteningother

home-growing, sentencing, treatment

Algeria rewrites thelowers personal growing penalties of itswhile raising drug lawfines

Law 23-05 amended the 2004 drug law. Buying, using or holding drugs for personal use carriesAlgeria added a two months -to two years in-five-year prison term and a fine of 20200,000 to 50–500,000 dinars. Growing-dinar fine for growing cannabis knowingly carriesfor personal consumption; the original law had imposed life imprisonment without that exception.[@1,2] For personal use, buying or possession, the prison range stayed at two months to fivetwo years when it is for personal use. Trafficking carries 10, while the fine floor rose to 20 years,000 dinars, with a fine alone still possible.[@1] The amendment also strengthened treatment protections for minors and life when committed by an organised gangincreased penalties for certain suppliers.[@1]

The personal-use range is not shown to differ from Law 04-18, and growing for own use still means two to five years in prison.

Algerian Official Gazette 32, 9 May 2023 — Law 23-05 of 7 May Algerian Official Gazette 83, 26 December 2004 — Law 04-18 of 25 December TSA — Trafic de drogue et d'êtres humains : l'Algérie durcit sa législation (21 May 2023)

possession 0 · cultivation 0 · enforcement 2 · sharing 0 · consumption 1 · access 0

algeria-law-04-18-2004, algeria-law-25-03-2025

Romania's new penal code lowers the cannabis prison minimum penalty for personal possessionand opens a treatment route

The reform accompanying the new Penal Code reduced the Article 4 penalty for unauthorised personal-use cultivationFrom 1 February 2014, production, purchase orpersonal possession, buying and growing of risk drugs such as cannabis from six months to two years' imprisonment or a fine tocarried three months to two years in prison or a fine. The fine alternative already existed under; the 2005 amendmentprevious minimum was six months. For high[@1,2] People charged with personal-risk drugsuse offences could be assessed for an assistance programme and, with their agreement, enter it; following the former two-to-five-year range became six months to three years. Personal possession remainedprogramme could let a criminal offencecourt waive or postpone punishment.[@1] The changes accompanied the new Penal Code.[@1]

Romania — Law 187/2012 implementing the Penal Code, official financial regulator reproduction Romania — Law 522/2004, original Official Gazette (7 December 2004) Romanian Ministry of Justice, Portal Legislativ — Law 143/2000, March 2014 republication Romanian Ministry of Justice, Portal Legislativ — Law 143/2000 as at 7 March 2005 IDPC — Romania: Drug-related offenses reduced as new criminal code is enforced

sentencing, treatment, home-growing

romania-drug-control-law-2000, romania-personal-use-penalty-reduction-2005, romania-3-grams-rejected-2023

2013-10-10

medicaldebate

cbdpatients

Romania allows low-THCRomanian agencies deny reports of a new medical cannabis medicineslegalisation

A limited law permitted medicines derived fromAfter reports that Romania had legalised medical cannabis with less than 0, a contemporary account quoted the national drug agency saying there had been no legislative change and no cannabis medicine had been approved for the Romanian market.2% THC[@1] The medicines agency said Sativex could seek authorisation, but its manufacturer had not approached it. In practice almost nothing became available[@1] Existing law already restricted medical use to prescribed pharmaceutical preparations.[@2]

Romania Insider — Castle Craig clinic: Romania has not legalised medical marijuana (10 October 2013) Romania — Law 339/2005, original text reproduced by a family medical practice Wikipedia — Cannabis in Romania

romania-cannabis-medicine-controls-2006, romania-three-gram-proposal-2023

otherdeath

Algeria promulgates a replacementrepeals its drug-law death clause but keeps life sentences

Law 04-18 replacedAlgeria’s replacement drug law repealed the narcotics provisions of the 1985 health law. Article 12 punisheddrug provisions, including their capital clause, while setting life imprisonment for unlawful consumptioncannabis cultivation and certain supply offences.[@1,2] Illicit use or possession for personal consumption withuse carried two months to two years in prison, a 5,000–50,000-dinar fine, or botheither penalty alone. Articles 4–5 allowed specified medical or scientific activities with health-ministry authorisation. Article 6 provided non-prosecution for qualifying[@1] Qualifying users who completed prescribedfollowed treatment or underwent detoxification or medical supervision; mere agreement to treatment was not the full statutory condition could avoid prosecution. The law was promulgated on 25 December and published on 26 December 2004. Article 38 expressly repealed Articles 190 and 241–259 of the 1985 law.[@1]

Algerian Official Gazette 8, 17 February 1985 — Law 85-05 of 16 February 1 unchanged

sentencing, treatment, home-growing

The repealed capital clause covered trafficking/facilitation; these remain at the minimum sharing score. Personal-use imprisonment, fine and treatment possibilities remain within the existing score bands.

algeria-health-law-drug-framework-1985, algeria-treatment-diversion-procedure-2007, algeria-law-23-05-2023, algeria-law-25-03-2025

The Boggs Act gave marijuana and the narcotic drugs one scale of penalties: two to five years in prison for a first offence, five to ten for a second and ten to twenty for a third, each with a fine of up to $2,000.[@1,2,3] From the second offence, probation, suspended sentences and parole were barred.[@4] Seventeen states and Alaska passed their own "little Boggs acts" by 1953.[@4]

Five months after it began, Mexico suspended a regulation that had let doctors prescribe controlled doses to people dependent on drugs.[@1] The programme principally supplied morphine; the contemporary cannabis proposals described in the historical literature never became law.[@2,3]

The film later known as Reefer Madness linked cannabis smoking to violence and mental collapse, before finding a later audience as an underground comedy.[@1,2] AFI and BFI catalogue it as 1938, while other references use 1936; this entry follows AFI's year.[@1,2,3]

The American Magazine published Marijuana, Assassin of Youth, associated with narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger.[@1,2] Its sensational accounts portrayed cannabis as a cause of violence and the destruction of young people[@2]; the article is evidence of propaganda, not confirmation of its allegations.

Samuel Caldwell, a labourer in his late fifties, was arrested at a Denver hotel on 2 October, the day after the Act took effect, while selling cannabis to Moses Baca.[@1,2] Three days later Judge Foster Symes gave Caldwell four years in Leavenworth and a $1,000 fine, and Baca eighteen months for possession.[@1]

Most states had already restricted cannabis.[@1,3] The federal act did not ban it outright but taxed and registered every transaction so heavily that legal supply, including prescriptions, became impractical.[@1,2,4] The first arrests came within days.[@1]

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon appointed Anslinger to head the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics.[@1] Cannabis was not at first a concern of his; he came to treat it as a serious threat in 1934, and three years later his bureau drafted the Marihuana Tax Act.[@1,2]

19161917-0902-1409

France bans hashish inextends its narcotics controls to colonial Algeria

DecreesA decree of September 1916 and9 February 1917 appliedextended the new French drug lawnarcotics rules to Algeria, according to the French government’s account to the League of Nations.[@1] Those rules controlled import, export, trade, possession and prohibited hashishuse; a further decree in January 1932 applied the updated French system and expressly named cannabis, resin, preparations, extracts and tinctures.[@1] Colonial councils had discussed restricting kif before the national controls.[@1]

League of Nations — Preliminary note on Indian hemp, O.C.1542 (23 May 1934) Wikipedia — Cannabis in Algeria

colonial, trade

algeria-cannabis-controls-1932, algeria-drug-ordinance-1975

The Texas border city's ordinance was the first American measure to draw on Mexican beliefs that marijuana caused madness and violence.[@1] Between 1915 and 1930 practically every state west of the Mississippi passed an anti-marijuana law.[@1] Bonnie and Whitebread date the ordinance, which banned sale and possession, to 1914, and say a fight involving a user was said to have set it off.[@2]

After hearing nearly 1,200 witnesses across British India, the commission concluded that moderate use of hemp drugs does practically no harm and that banning them would be unjustified.[@1,3,4] It recommended taxing and licensing them, which remained the system in India until 1985.[@2]

The draft Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act was submitted to the American Bar Association in 1932, approved and sent to the states the following year.[@1] It was meant to give states police powers the federal Harrison Act lacked and to make their laws alike.[@1] Only nine states adopted it at first.[@1] Harry Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics campaigned for it with the Hearst newspapers as an ally, President Roosevelt backed it in a radio message in March 1935,[@1] and by the mid-1930s cannabis was regulated as a drug in every state, 35 of them under the uniform act.[@2] The commissioners adopted the final draft on 8 October 1932 by 26 votes to 3, with cannabi … total ban; a state could cover it simply by adding it to the definition of narcotic drugs.[@1,3]

The drummer Gene Krupa is jailed on a falsified marijuana charge that falls apart

Gene Krupa, the most famous drummer of the swing era, was arrested in San Francisco and sentenced to one to six years at San Quentin for using a minor, his teenage valet, to carry marijuana. He was released on bail after about three; he served six months pending appeal.[@2] The charge is now described as falsified, and the charges were later dismissed as improperly filed. The case broke up his orchestra.[@1]

Keith Stroup, the founder of the reform group NORML, found a worn print of Reefer Madness at the Library of Congress, learned that the film was in the public domain and bought a copy for 297 dollars.[@1] He showed it on college campuses after his lectures to raise money for reform.[@1] Students who were meant to be frightened laughed, the film became a midnight cult movie, and "reefer madness" became a name for exaggerated drug scares.[@2,3]

Under a full-width headline, "Is the Mexican nation 'locoed' by a peculiar weed?", an American paper blamed the violence of the Mexican Revolution on marijuana.[@1,2] It was one of many stories of the time that tied the drug to Mexican bandits and migrants.[@1] The Library of Congress now presents this coverage as tied to anti-Mexican propaganda and warns that many such articles contain slurs.

Victor Licata, 21, killed his parents and three siblings with an axe in Ybor City, Tampa.[@1,2] The press blamed marijuana, and Harry Anslinger later made the case the centrepiece of his warnings, describing a sane young man undone by the drug.[@1,2] Licata had been diagnosed with dementia praecox, an old name for schizophrenia; marijuana appears nowhere in his psychiatric reports.[@1,2] He was committed to the state mental hospital.[@1]

The studios' Production Code, written in 1930, began to be strictly enforced in July 1934 under a new Production Code Administration.[@1] One of its rules was that "illegal drug traffic must never be presented".[@2] Drug films left the studios to small independent producers, who toured them from town to town as warnings to parents: the exploitation cycle that produced Reefer Madness.[@2]

Dorothy Davenport, the widow of the silent starwho signed as Mrs. Wallace Reid, who had died while trying to overcome a morphine addiction, co-directed and co-wrote this exploitation film about a schoolgirl drawn into drink, marijuana and sex. She played a juvenile-court official herself[@1] It was billed for adults only, a framing that helped the film past localand censors in Virginia demanded a record number of cuts before it could be shown.[@1] It is now in the public domain.[@1,2]

The exploitation producer Dwain Esper made Marihuana from a script by his wife, Hildagarde Stadie, and toured it through his own company, Road Show Attractions. It follows: a young woman's slide from a beach party to the drug trade.[@1,2] Esper later bought Tell Your Children and reissued it as Reefer Madness.[@3]

Wikipedia — Reefer Madness 2 unchanged

Assassin of Youth, directed by Elmer Clifton for BCM Roadshow Productions, borrowed its title from Anslinger's magazine article of the same year.[@1] A reporter goes undercover among teenage marijuana smokers while a young heiress is framed by a rival for her inheritance.[@1,2] It is often called a copy of Reefer Madness and shares one of its actresses, Dorothy Short.[@1]

William C. Woodward, legislative counsel of the American Medical Association, was the last witness at the House hearings and the only one against the bill.[@1,2] No evidence had been produced from prisons or from the Children's Bureau to back the claims, he said, and a prohibitive tax would shut out medical uses still worth study.[@1] Weeks later a congressman told the House floor that the association supported the bill.[@2]

Made to cash in on the 1948 arrest of Robert Mitchum and Lila Leeds, She Shoulda Said No! starred Leeds herself as a chorus girl whose marijuana smoking drives her brother to suicide.[@1,2] It was directed by Sam Newfield under another name, and the showman Kroger Babb reissued it as The Devil's Weed and Wild Weed.[@1]

PrisonPersonal cannabis growing carries two to five years in prison and a fine for. Use and personal usepossession can bring prison, a fine or either alone, with court-ordered treatment as an alternativeroutes for qualifying users. Since 2025Specified aggravated drug production and trafficking offences can carry the death penaltysentences.

Law 04-18 of December 2004 prohibits possession, with prison and a fine for personalIllicit use; courts can order detoxification treatment in place of the sentence for users who comply. Since the May 2023 amendment the range for buying, usingbuying or holdingpossession for personal use isconsumption carries two months to two years in prison and a fine of 20DZD20,000 to –50,000 dinarsfine, or either penalty alone.[@law23] Qualifying users who undergo detoxification or medical supervision can avoid prosecution under the treatment provisions.[@law23]

tsa23, wikilaw23

Growing cannabis knowingly carries life imprisonment under the 2023 amendment; when it is for personal use,consumption carries two to five years in prison and a fine of 200DZD200,000 to –500,000 dinarsfine.[@law23] The general offence of knowingly growing cannabis unlawfully carries life imprisonment; the personal-use penalty is a separate exception added in 2023.[@law23, l0418]

tsa23law23, wikil0418

Recent amendments pair 'therapeutic justice' for users with tougher deterrence against traffickingThe law provides treatment-linked non-prosecution and permits courts to withhold the ordinary use penalty when the treatment conditions are met. Algeria is a major transit route for Moroccan resin[@law23] Since 2025, the maximum legal penalty must be imposed when the prescribed examinations establish that an offender was under drug influence during the offence.[@law25]

mblaw23, law25

Trafficking carriesGiving or offering drugs to another person for their personal consumption is an offence carrying two to ten years in prison, with higher penalties in specified cases.[@l0418] Wider production and supply offences carry ten to twenty years and up, twenty to life; a May 2023 amendment sharply increased penalties across productionthirty years for specified professional or official offenders, and salelife when committed by an organised criminal group.[@law23]

mbl0418, wikilaw23

UseIllicit use is a crime: the May 2023 amendment carrying two months to Law 04-18 setstwo years in prison and a penalty range for buyingDZD20, using or holding for personal use000–50, and courts000 fine, or either penalty alone.[@law23] Treatment or medical supervision can order detoxification treatment in place oflead to non-prosecution under the sentence for users who complylaw’s conditions.[@law23]

tsa23law23

None: Law 04Recreational supply is prohibited.[@l0418] Medical and scientific controlled-18drug work requires health-ministry authorisation, as amended in May 2023, punishes buying or holding for personal usewith an application and growing cannabissupervision procedure set out in the 2007 regulations.[@care07]

tsa23l0418, care07

Law 25-03 of 1 JulyThe 2025 allows alaw permits death sentencesentences for drug production and trafficking offences inspecified aggravated circumstancessupply offences, including conduct by a transnational organised group,crime and use or threatened use of a firearm, or conduct that causes death or is liable to cause serious harm to public health. The[@law25] It also provides capital punishment for specified recruitment offences near educational establishments and for repetition of an offence already carrying life imprisonment.[@law25] These provisions are not limitedapply to a particularlisted drug offences and therefore coverinclude serious cannabis offences. Algeria had observed a moratorium on executions since 1993, but courts imposed the first death sentences under the new drug law in October 2026, in cocaine and pregabalin cases.[@law25]

law25, matin26

None;Controlled-drug production, handling, import, export and cannabis cultivation require authorisation from the law allowshealth minister for medical or scientific exceptions only with ministerial authorisationpurposes.[@care07] Applicants must identify the operation, product, quantity and use; permits are subject to checks, stock records and secure storage requirements.[@care07]

wikicare07

No programme; theThe statutory exception for authorised medical useand scientific exception is not used in practiceimplemented through health-ministry authorisation.[@l0418, care07] The 2007 procedure requires details of the proposed work, a criminal-record extract and an official inquiry into the applicant; import and export permits last three months per operation.[@care07]

wikil0418, care07

The retained sources do not establish collateral consequences beyond2025 amendment allows removal of acquired Algerian nationality for crimes under the penalties described abovedrug law, following the nationality code’s procedures.[@law25] Foreigners convicted of drug-law offences can face exclusion from Algeria; permanent exclusion is mandatory for the crimes specified by the law.[@law25] The law also requires negative drug-screening results in recruitment files for the listed public and private-sector bodies, with implementing details set by regulation where needed.[@law25]

law25

No cannabis clubs are known, and theThe law leaves no room for them:criminalises growing cannabis and supplying cannabis, including giving or offering it to another person are both prohibitedfor personal consumption.[@l0418, law23] It provides no authorised recreational club supply route.[@l0418]

tsa23l0418, wiki, mblaw23

There isVisitors have no legalauthorised recreational supply for anyone. Since the May 2023 amendment of Law 04-18[@l0418] Personal use, buying, using or holding drugs for personal use carriespossession can bring two months to two years in prison and, a fine of 20DZD20,000 to –50,000 dinars; Law 25fine, or either alone.[@law23] Drug-03 of July 2025 allows a death sentencelaw convictions can also bring exclusion from Algeria, with permanent exclusion required for production and trafficking in aggravated circumstancesthe specified crimes.[@law25]

tsa23l0418, law23, law25

Algerian Official Gazette 43, 13 July 2025 — Law 25-03 of 1 July Algerian Official Gazette 83, 26 December 2004 — Law 04-18 of 25 December Algerian Official Gazette 32, 9 May 2023 — Law 23-05 of 7 May Algerian Official Gazette 49, 5 August 2007 — Decree 07-228 of 30 July Le Matin d'Algérie — Trafic de drogue : neuf condamnations à mort, première application de la nouvelle loi (October 2026) Algeria National Office for the Fight Against Drugs and Drug Addiction — Law 25-03 of 1 July 2025 TSA — Trafic de drogue et d'êtres humains : l'Algérie durcit sa législation (21 May 2023) Loi n° 04-18 du 25 décembre 2004 relative à la prévention et à la répression de l'usage et du trafic illicites de stupéfiants (UNODC SHERLOC, PDF) Wikipedia — Cannabis in Algeria More Blossom — Algeria country report 3 unchanged

PossessionPeople caught with cannabis for personal use leads to acan have their case dropped after probation and any required health referral instead of prosecutionmeasures. Cuttings and seeds are sold legally; medical access is limitedGrowing to dronabinol andobtain the drug is a few productscrime. Patients can receive cannabinoid medicines, including dronabinol.

Possession is still a criminal offence under the Narcotic Substances Act, butPossessing cannabis for small amounts for personal use remains a crime, with a basic maximum of six months in prison or 360 day-fines.[@ris] For cases that meet the law's conditions, prosecutors must normally step back: since 2016put the case goeson hold for one to the health authority instead ('therapy instead of punishment')two years, and proceedings are dropped if the person cooperates with any health measure orderedmeasures such as treatment where needed. No fixed gram limit is written into the law.[@ris]

Growing cannabis to obtain THCwith the purpose of obtaining the controlled drug is an offencea crime. Seeds and non[@ris] The personal-flowering plants and cuttings are sold openlyuse form carries up to six months in shops as ornamental plantsprison or 360 day-fines; the offence begins whendepends on that purpose, so plants are grown to produce the drugcan fall under it before flowering.[@ris]

FirstPolice report personal-time users are diverted rather than convicted. Dealinguse cases to the prosecutor and larger quantities are punished with prisonnotify the health authority.[@ris] Prosecutors must put qualifying cases on hold under the law's conditions; this also covers unpaid supply for another person's personal use.[@ris]

PassingGiving cannabis to another person is an offence, treated more leniently when.[@ris] Cases involving unpaid andsupply for that person's personal use can be put on hold and later dropped under the same conditions as one's own personal use.[@ris]

Consumption itself is not an offenceThe law punishes acquiring and possessing cannabis, but it implies possessionincluding for personal consumption.[@ris] People caught with cannabis for personal use can have their case put on hold and so triggerslater dropped, with health assessment or treatment where the same diversion procedurelegal conditions require it.[@ris]

There is no recreational source, club or dispensaryRecreational supply remains prohibited.[@ris] Patients can obtain a narrow range ofreceive prescription cannabinoid medicines, including: a parliamentary report names Sativex, Canemes and pharmacy-compounded dronabinol;.[@parl] Current prescribing rules allow approved cannabis-extract medicines and highly purified THC for pharmacy preparations, while cannabis flower cannot generally be prescribedremains excluded.[@svg]

ris, parl, svg

Reliable national information about lawfulGrowing cannabis production was not established byto obtain the retained sourcesdrug for manufacturing medicines is reserved to AGES, the Austrian health and food-safety agency, or a subsidiary at least 75% owned by it.[@ris] The harvest may be supplied only to businesses authorised to manufacture and wholesale medicines and poisons.[@ris]

ris

Reliable national information about legally availablePrescription options include approved medicines made from cannabis products was not established byextracts and pharmacy preparations using isolated delta-9-THC of more than 95% purity.[@svg] Cannabis flower cannot be prescribed under these rules.[@svg] A parliamentary report identifies dronabinol drops or capsules among the retained sourcesavailable preparations, alongside Sativex and Canemes.[@parl]

svg, parl

Limited to pharmaceutical cannabinoids such as dronabinolPatients can obtain cannabinoid medicines on prescription, including pharmacy-compounded dronabinol. Herbal[@parl] A parliamentary report describes reimbursement where medically justified and approved by the insurer's reviewing doctor.[@parl] The prescribing rules permit approved cannabis-extract medicines and highly purified THC preparations, while excluding flower cannot generally be prescribed.[@svg]

parl, svg

The retained sources do not establish collateral consequences beyondA case put on hold comes with a probation period and any required health measures.[@ris] Prosecution can resume if the penalties described aboveconditions are breached.[@ris] Once probation ends successfully and the required measures are completed, the prosecutor finally drops the case.[@ris]

ris

The Narcotic Substances Act punishes growingSeeds unmixed with flowering or fruiting tops are excluded from the controlled-drug definition of cannabis plant only.[@svg] Growing plants or cuttings becomes a criminal offence when itthe purpose is done in order to obtain the controlled drug. Seeds, and plants and cuttings that are not being grown for that purpose, are therefore not banned as such; flowering is not the only test.[@ris] The basic personal-use offence starts once they are growncarries up to produce cannabissix months in prison or 360 day-fines.[@ris]

svg, ris

Austria's road law punishes drivingDriving while impaired by drugs and setsis an offence; there is no blood limit fornumerical THC, so impairment has to be established limit. Police may stop drivers at random but need suspicion to test; an oral-fluid test can be used at the roadside and the evidential test is blood taken at a hospital.[@euda_dd] The licence is withdrawn for at least four weeks and the fine runs from government's penalty table lists an €800 to –3,700 euros; there is no prison sentencefine, a one-month licence withdrawal and traffic coaching for thea first offence.[@driving]

euda_dd, driving

The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 27,355 cannabis-related drug law offences in Austria in 2024, against 25,322 in 2023.[@euda_dlo] Of the 2023 total, 19,672 were for use or possession for use.[@euda_dlo] The number has come down from a peak oftotal peaked at 37,751 in 2017. Countries count these differently (offences or offenders, criminal or administrative), so the figure is not comparable across borders.[@euda_dlo]

Clubs exist without any legal basis. A Europe-wideEuropean survey of cannabis social clubs carried outconducted in 2018 and 2019–19 received answersresponses from four Austrian cannabis social clubs in Austria, and; its authors could not say how many more were active. The study notes thatestablish the model is prohibited throughoutfull number operating in the European Unioncountry.[@pardal20] Supplying cannabis remains an offence, that clubs sit inincluding through a legally sensitive position,club; qualifying unpaid personal-use cases can be put on hold and that many have been dissolved after court decisions or police raidslater dropped. Nothing more recent was found.[@ris]

pardal20, ris

There isVisitors have no legallawful recreational supply for anyone.[@ris] Possession isremains a criminal offence under the Narcotic Substances Actcrime, but for small amounts forwhile qualifying personal-use the case normally goes to thecases can be put on hold and later dropped, with health authority instead of the prosecutormeasures where needed.[@ris]

The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 2,370 kg of herbal cannabis and 1,745 kg of cannabis resin seized in Austria in 2024, against 2,470 kg and 183 kg in 2023.[@euda_szr] Herbal cannabis was seized on 13,587 occasions and resin on 2,030.[@euda_szr] Plant seizures came tototalled 40,101 plants. Countries record seizures differently, so the figures are not comparable across borders.[@euda_szr]

RIS — Suchtgiftverordnung, consolidated prescribing rules and controlled substances Austrian Government — Driving licence withdrawal: offences and penalties 6 unchanged

FromSince 1 January 2026 adults aged 21+ may grow up to three plants and keep up to 100 g of cannabis at home (or 25 g in public)elsewhere. There is no regulated recreational marketRecreational sales remain illegal. MedicalPharmacies dispense medical cannabis is on e-electronic prescription, with insurance cover, and low-THC products are sold freelycovering 90% of the cost up to 30 g a month.

Since 1 January 2026, adultsAdults aged 21+ may keep up to 100 g of dried cannabis at homein their own dwelling and carry up to 25 g in publicelsewhere. Above that it steps up: 26–50[@z167] More than 100 g in public or 101–and up to 200 g at home is a misdemeanour, andor more than 25 g and up to 50 g elsewhere, is an administrative offence.[@z167] Above 200 g at home or 50 g elsewhere, possession for personal use is a felonycrime.[@z40]

expatsz167, normlz40

Up to three plants per adultAdults aged 21+ may grow, at your primary residence onlyharvest and process up to three cannabis plants for themselves on property they own or otherwise have a legal right to use.[@z167] Four or five plants is a misdemeanouran administrative offence; more than five is a felonycrime.[@z167, z40]

expatsz167, normlz40

InsidePossession and growing within the limits nothing is punished,age and quantity limits are lawful; the firstnext band above them is a misdemeanour. Larger quantities and any supply are crimesthose limits brings an administrative penalty of up to CZK50, though000.[@z167] Crossing the 2026 reform also reduced sentencescriminal threshold for cannabis offences comparedpersonal possession or growing carries up to six months in prison in the basic case, with other drugshigher sentences for larger quantities.[@z40]

normlz167, expatsz40

The reform covers only your own possession and growing. Selling or handing cannabis or giving it to someone else is stillremains a supply offence under the criminal codecrime, evenincluding a gift between friends and without payment.[@z40] The basic supply offence carries up to one year in prison, with higher sentences for aggravated cases.[@z40]

expats, bocz40

Use itself has never been an offence, and the 2026 law does not create consumption zones or bans of itsAdults aged 21+ may possess cannabis for their own use within the legal limits.[@z167] Smoking restrictions and municipal ordinancesbans still apply in public transport, schools, playgrounds and there are no licensed venuesindoor restaurant areas, among other places.[@smoking]

expatsz167, smoking

There is no legalAdults can grow their own cannabis within the three-plant limit.[@z167] Selling it or giving it to others remains a criminal offence, so recreational market: no shops and no cannabissupply clubs (clubs may be considered later)have no authorised route to distribute it. Products under 1% THC are sold freely, and pharmacies[@z40] Pharmacies dispense prescribed medical cannabis on prescriptionas flower or extracts.[@sukl]

expatsz167, bocz40, sukl

Only personalMedical cannabis growers need a licence from the State Institute for Drug Control, which inspects the cultivation is allowedsite before granting it. Commercial growing is limited[@z167] Personal growers aged 21+ may grow up to licensed medical producers, a sectorthree plants for themselves; that is expanding and exporting, andpermission does not allow them to low-THC hempsupply other people.[@z167, z40]

bocz167, saklz40

Home-grown flower forThe personal-use, low rules cover home-THC hempgrown cannabis and CBD products upits processing within the plant and possession limits.[@z167] A legal commentary distinguishes ordinary drying or making ointments from manufacture using chemical extraction to 1% THCconcentrate cannabinoids, and pharmacy-dispensed medicalwhich remains a criminal offence.[@advd] Medical patients can obtain prescribed flower and extracts through pharmacies. No legal THC edibles or concentrates for adult use.[@sukl]

bocz167, expatsadvd, sukl

Medical cannabis is issuedPatients receive medical flower or extracts on an electronic prescription and, dispensed inthrough pharmacies; public.[@sukl] Approved prescribers include general practitioners as well as the listed specialists.[@sukl] Public health insurance reimbursed mostcovers 90% of the cost of up to 30 g a monthlymonth; reimbursement above that quantity, and prescribing has been extended beyond specialists to general practitioners needs the insurer's approval.[@sukl]

sakl, bocsukl

The Czech Republic effectively applies zero tolerance for THC atPeople aged 18–20 remain outside the wheelpersonal possession and growing permission, with a very low blood threshold that regular users can exceed long after usewhich starts at 21. The age limit[@z167] Driving has a separate rule: reaching 2 ng/ml of 21 leaves 18–20delta-year9-olds outside the legal regimeTHC in blood makes a driver legally affected, even when their possession of cannabis is lawful.[@police_thc]

expatsz167, police_thc

The Addictive Substances Act defines cannabis as the flowering or fruiting top of the plant, or an above-ground part that includescontaining the top.[@z167] Seeds, and young plants without those tops, fall outside that definition; cuttings count towards the three plants an adult.[@z167] Growing cannabis is separately regulated: adults aged 21+ may grow up to three plants for their own use. Seeds, not being cannabis in law, fall outside the controls on selling it; the Act has no rule on selling cuttings.[@z167]

The THC threshold isAt 2 ng/ml: reaching it makes of delta-9-THC in blood, a driver is legally affected under Regulation 41/2014.[@police_thc] The Supreme Court's separate judicial threshold of 10 ng/ml in blood serum establishessupports a state excluding fitnessfinding of unfitness to drive for the criminal offence. For administrative[@ns20] Administrative driving under the influence, BESIP lists carries a CZK7,000–25,000 fine, six points and a six-to-eighteen-month driving ban.[@besip_penalties] Refusing alcohol or drug testing carries CZK25,000–75,000, six points and an eighteen-to-thirty-six-month ban. A roadside screening result must be distinguished from laboratory quantification; the 2 ng/ml rule is not a statement that every positive saliva test proves that concentration.[@besip_penalties]

epravo16, police_thc, ns20, besip_penalties

With no legal shops, cannabis is supplied by home growing and a domestic illegal market. The national monitoring centre describes cultivation as mostly for the grower's own supply, alongside small grow rooms:In 2024 police uncoveredfound 109 indoor growing sites in 2024, down from 138 in 2023, mostmostly with fewer thanat most 50 plants, while large operations keep declining. Production usually covers local or[@nms25] Home growing supplied personal and community demand; smaller surpluses are bought up by organised groups and exportedbought some surpluses for export, mainly to Slovakia and Austria. Seizures in criminal cases in 2024 came to[@nms25] Criminal-case seizures totalled 609 kg of dried cannabis and 7,100 plants, with an; average herbal cannabis potency ofwas 11% THC. Sales are moving online,[@nms25] The monitoring centre also reports drug sales through social networks, darknet markets and couriers.[@nms25]

These figures predatecover 2024, before the 2026 personal-use reform and cover all illegal drugs unless stated. In 2024 police[@nms25, z167] Police recorded about 4,200 primary drug crimes, 2% of all crime;.[@nms25] Cannabis accounted for about 35% of the people detained for them were held in connection with cannabis, second todrug crimes and methamphetamine at about 47%. Possession for; personal use made uppossession accounted for 21% of those detained, a share that keeps risingdetainees. Courts[@nms25] Across all drugs, courts convicted 2,545 people, most often giving a suspended sentence (: 53%); received suspended sentences and 26% went to prison. There were[@nms25] Authorities also recorded 10,369 administrative offences, almost all for holding a small amount for personal usequantities.[@nms25]

nms25, z167

There are no shops and no clubsThe personal possession permission applies to adults aged 21+, so nobody, resident or visitor, can buy recreational cannabis legally; the 2026 reform covers only an adult'swith a limit of 25 g outside their own possession and home growingdwelling. Products under 1% THC are sold freely[@z167] Visitors have no authorised recreational shop or club supply: selling cannabis or giving it to anyoneanother person remains a crime.[@z40] Importing it across the border is also a supply offence.[@z40]

expatsz167, z40

The law has no place for cannabis clubs, but some exist. A Europe-wide survey carried outconducted in 2018 and 2019–19 received answersresponses from two Czech cannabis social clubs in Czechia and found that clubs had been present there since the late 1990s. An impact study for a regulated market in 2022 proposed licensed non-profit associations of up to 50 members[@pardal20] The current law permits personal growing five plants each, and the government draft of January 2024 still included clubspossession, butwhile supplying other people remains a crime.[@z167, z40] A legal commentary on the reform in force since 2026 covers only personalrules treats joint growing and possession. Growing together andfollowed by dividing the harvest is not treated as each person's own growing: a legal commentary on the new code classes it as joint commission ofparticipation in the supply offence, and growing for someone else as an attempt at it.[@advd]

pardal20, mk22z167, ex24z40, advd, expats

Národní monitorovací středisko — Souhrn Zprávy o nelegálních drogách v České republice 2025 (January 2026, PDF) Criminal Code 40/2009 — current text (Zákony pro lidi) Health Protection Act 65/2017 — smoking restrictions (Zákony pro lidi) SÚKL — Medical cannabis: types, indications and prescriber specialties Supreme Court — THC concentration and unfitness to drive (21 October 2020) Národní monitorovací středisko — Souhrn Zprávy o nelegálních drogách v České republice 2025 (January 2026, PDF) epravo.cz — Přestupek, nebo trestný čin? Limitní hodnota THC vylučující schopnost řídit motorové vozidlo (22 March 2016) Magazín Konopí — Konopné kluby v Česku (19 December 2022) Expats.cz — Cannabis cafés and self-growing: Czechia presents draft of new marijuana law (11 January 2024) Expats.cz — Inside Czechia's 2026 cannabis law NORML — Czech legislation takes effect legalizing personal possession Business of Cannabis — Czech Republic to decriminalise cannabis from 2026 SAKL — State Agency for Medical Cannabis 5 unchanged

Adults may carry up to 25 g in public and keep up to 50 g of dried cannabis at home.[@bmg, kcang] Holding 25–30 g in public (or 50–60 g at home) is an administrative offence; above that it is a crime.[@kcang] Applies to people who have lived in Germany for at least six months.[@bmg]

Up to three plants at a time per adult, at your own residence, protected from access by children.[@bmg, kcang] Yield above the 50 g home limit must be destroyed.[@bmg] A fourth plant is a criminal offence.[@kcang]

A 2013 law theoretically allows licensed cultivationCultivation, import and manufacturesale of cannabis for medical use, but no licence has ever been granted are allowed under Law 339/2005 with strict government authorisation and supervision.[@cms]

pp, cms

One of Europe's most restrictive: cannabisCannabis may be prescribed for medical use only as a pharmaceutical product.[@cms] The controlled-derived medicines with upsubstances law requires a prescription and permits patients to 0hold the prescribed quantity of their controlled medicine.2% THC were authorised on paper in 2013, but there are no approved products, no producers and no prescriptions.[@medical339]

ppcms, medical339

Romania — Law 339/2005, original text reproduced by a family medical practice 9 unchanged

Historically among the EU's harshest laws; a 2024 penal-code reform cut sentences for small amounts, but possessionPossession and personal growing remain crimes: even the lowest cannabis quantity band carries up to one year in prison, and up to two plants carries up to six months. CBD is legalMedical cannabis has no lawful access programme.

Possession isPossessing even a crime under section 171 of the Criminal Code as rewritten by Act 40/2024, in force from 6 August 2024. Holding cannabis in a "negligible amount", which the Act's annex of cannabis is a crime carrying up to one year in prison.[@code] The code sets that band at up to 2 g of material or; above 2 g, up to 200 mg of THC, carries up to one year can still place it in prison; a "the lowest band.[@code] A small amount", up to five times that, carries six months to three years; and a largergreater amount or a repeat offenceconviction within 24 months, carries one to six years. For other drugs the lowest tier carries up to two years.[@code]

tz40, gp24code

Growing is a separate offence under section 172 since August 2024. Cannabis grown only for one's own use in a negligible amount, at mostup to two cannabis plants solely for personal consumption, without distribution or profit, carries up to six months in prison; a small amount, up.[@code] Three to two and a half times that,five plants carries up to two years; a larger amount, and the next quantity band six months to three years, and the ranges rise to.[@code] Sentences reach five to fifteen years for the largest quantities or other aggravated cases. Production and trafficking under section 173 start at one to five years.[@code]

tz40code

Sentences were reduced, but prison remains a realistic outcome,Personal possession and casesgrowing remain criminal offences.[@code] Courts can withhold punishment for the lower possession and growing offences while ordering treatment and up to two years of people facing a decade over home-grown cannabis still make headlinesprobation under the code's conditions.[@code]

rsi, spcode

Production andManufacturing or trafficking fall under section 173 ofin the Criminal Code:lowest quantity band carries one to five years in prison for the smallest amounts, rising in steps to ten to twenty-five years or life in the most serious cases.[@code] The code separately includes obtaining cannabis for another person's personal consumption within its possession rules when the largestquantity and no-distribution, no-profit conditions are met.[@code]

tz40, wikicode

Use is not itself an offence, butThe code punishes possession is, and the Criminal Code counts acquiringgrowing for personal consumption.[@code] Its definition of possession includes buying, importing or otherwise obtaining a drug for one's ownpersonal use as possession, so acquiring cannabis to consume remains a criminal offence.[@code]

tz40, wikicode

NoThere is no lawful recreational cannabis supply or medical cannabis programme.[@cms] The legal sourceguide describes medical cultivation, import and sales as prohibited.[@cms]

No licensed production for consumption;Hemp cultivation is allowed for industrial fibre and seed, or for research needs.[@z139] Research growers need a health-ministry approvalpermit.[@z139] Varieties in the EU common catalogue, including those listed when they were sown, are exempt from the cultivation permit requirement.[@z139] Medical cannabis production remains prohibited.[@cms]

z139, cms

CBD was removed from the controlled-substance list in May 2021.[@cms] CMS’s July 2024 guide describes CBD products; no legal for internal use as prohibited.[@cms] Recreational THC products and medical cannabis have no lawful supply route.[@cms]

cms, wiki

It is not permitted to growGrowing, import or sellimporting and selling cannabis for medical use remain prohibited; the country has no medical cannabis access programme.[@cms]

AFor eligible lower-level possession and growing offences, a court can withhold punishment while ordering treatment.[@code] If the person completes the conditions successfully, the code treats them as having no conviction isfor the offence; otherwise the court can impose a criminal recordsentence.[@code]

wikicode

Act 139/1998 allows hemp toHemp may be grown in Slovakia only for industrial fibre and seed or for research purposes, with a.[@z139] A ministry permit valid fornormally lasts one year; industrial growing means growing for fibre and seed, but varieties in the EU common catalogue, including those listed when sown, are exempt from that permit requirement. The Act treats obtaining seed as a form of processing hemp and says nothing separate about holding or selling seed of[@z139] Growing other varietiescannabis for personal consumption remains a crime, including up to two plants.[@code]

z139, code

No THC limit is set. The administrative offence is committed ifroad law prohibits driving while a drug is detectedcan still be present in the body, with a fine of 200no numerical THC allowance.[@road] Driving while impaired to 1,000 euros and a banthe point of being unfit carries up to a year; the criminal code separately punishes impaired driving with up to one year in prison for a repeat offender, or five for a driver of public transport, and a ban of oneunder the Criminal Code; the same basic maximum applies to ten yearsrefusing the prescribed drug examination. Police may stop and test at random; there is no roadside oral-fluid test, and blood is taken at a hospital[@code] Aggravated cases carry higher sentences.[@code]

euda_ddroad, code

The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 414 cannabis-related drug law offences in Slovakia in 2024, against 482 in 2023.[@euda_dlo] Of the 2024 total, 235 were for use or possession for use. Countries count these differently (offences or offenders, criminal or administrative), so the figure is not comparable across borders.[@euda_dlo]

No clubs are known. A Europe-wideEuropean survey of cannabis social clubs carried outconducted in 2018 and 2019–19 found, no active cannabis social club in Slovakia after online searches and contact with people in the field.[@pardal20] Current law criminalises personal growing as well as trafficking, that there did not seemleaving clubs without an authorised route to be any active club in Slovakiagrow and distribute cannabis. The model is prohibited throughout the European Union. Nothing more recent was found.[@code]

pardal20, code

There isVisitors have no legallawful recreational supply for anyone. Possession is, and personal possession remains a crime measured in usual single doses:.[@cms, code] The lowest cannabis quantity band carries up to three doses carries a maximum of one year in prison; larger quantities bring higher sentences under the current weight and up to ten doses a maximum of two yearsTHC rules.[@code]

spcms, wikicode

The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 123 kg of herbal cannabis and less than 1 kg of cannabis resin seized in Slovakia in 2024, against 112 kg and 9.5 kg in 2023.[@euda_szr] Herbal cannabis was seized on 733 occasions and resin on 26.[@euda_szr] Plant seizures came tototalled 210 plants. Countries record seizures differently, so the figures are not comparable across borders.[@euda_szr]

Slov-Lex — Criminal Code 300/2005, consolidated from 18 August 2026 Slov-Lex — Road Traffic Act 8/2009, consolidated from 1 October 2026 EUDA — Legal approaches to drugs and driving, country table (last updated May 2025) The Slovak Spectator — Parliament approves milder punishments for marijuana Wikipedia — Cannabis in Slovakia Radio Slovakia International — Man caught with marijuana facing ten years in prison Slov-Lex — Zákon č. 40/2024 Z. z. (novela Trestného zákona) Okresná prokuratúra Košice I — uznesenie 2 Pv 206/24/8802 (21 August 2024), applying the Criminal Code as in force from 6 August 2024 5 unchanged

Cannabis became a matter of international law because of a speech. It was given in Geneva … d that the matter had not been notified. El Guindy submitted a formal proposal regardless.[@1,2] ## The case he made He granted that hashish taken "occasionally and in small doses perhap … of hysteria", his "intellectual faculties gradually weaken and the whole organism decays".[@2,3] Hashish, he said, caused between 30 and 60 per cent of the insanity in Egypt.[@1] A memorandum from his delegation raised the figure to about 70 per cent.[@2,3] If cannabis were left off the list, he warned, it would take the place of opium and cocaine and "become a terrible menace to the whole world".[@2,3] ## The evidence The figures probably came from John Warnock, who ran Egypt's lunacy department from 1895 to 1923 and generalised from the patients he saw.[@1] The Cairo asylum's own report for 1920–21 attributed 19 of its 715 admissions to hashish, fewer than the 48 it attributed to alcohol.[@1] Nobody at the conference had the means to check. Most delegates had no experience of cannabis, and one account has them raising their hands for a ban "without knowing what cannabis actually was".[@2,3] ## Why Egypt wanted it Egypt had [banned hashish](/history/egypt-import-ban-1879/) for ha … a](/history/south-africa-league-request-1923/) had made a similar request the year before.[@2,3] ## The result A sub-committee recommended complete prohibition, with only Britain, India … and its drafters cut the text back over El Guindy's "somewhat uncompromising insistence".[@2,3] The [convention of February 1925](/history/geneva-opium-convention-1925/) banned exports to countries that prohibited cannabis and required import certificates elsewhere.[@1] Fourteen years later Egypt's own police chief [told the League](/history/league-russell-an … icular crime. By then the principle was fixed. The index lists the proposal for context.

One of the most exhaustive official studies of cannabis ever made was finished in 1894.[@1,2] It advised against prohibition, and thirty years later the men who wrote the first cannabi … ganja smokers, and on 2 March 1893 the House took up the effects of hemp drugs in Bengal.[@1,2] The Government of India appointed a commission of seven, and the inquiry was widened to the whole country.[@1] The president was W. Mackworth Young. Three of the seven members were Indian: Raja Soshi Sikhareshwar Roy, Kanwar Harnam Singh and Lala Nihal Chand.[@1] They began work on 3 July 1893, heard almost 1,200 witnesses, among them doctors, clergy and smugglers, and visited asylums across India.[@1] The report ran to more than 3,200 pages.[@3] ## What it found The commission separated moderate use, which it called "the rule", from excessive use, which was "comparatively exceptional".[@1] | | Moderate use | Excessive use | |---|---|---| | Body | "No appreciable physical injury … ncluded that the effect of hemp drugs on insanity had "hitherto been greatly exaggerated".[@2] Most of the doctors involved thought cannabis brought out an illness already present, and … it recommended Total prohibition, the report said, was "neither necessary nor expedient".[@2] It gave four reasons: the drugs' known effects, how widespread the habit was, "the social … ion only under licence, limit the number of shops and limit how much a person could hold.[@2] [Act XII of 1896](/history/india-act-xii-1896/) put this into law, and the licensed system … gate told the conference that hashish caused 30 to 60 per cent of insanity in his country.[@2] Britain and India opposed a ban, but neither delegation cited the commission's report. A newspaper did: in 1926 the New York Times quoted it against the Egyptian claims.[@2] Later inquiries reached much the same conclusions, from New York's [La Guardia report](/hi … 2/). The index lists the report for context; it moved no score in [India](/country/in/).

On From 1 February 2014 a new Penal Code took effect in Romania, andRomania lowered the drug law was amended to match it. The change did not decriminalise anything. For cannabis and other risk drugs, it reduced the minimum prison term for personal possession, buying and growing of cannabis from six months to three months while retaining the.[@1,2] The two-year maximum and the existing option of a fine remained. ## Before and after | | Before 2014 | From 2014 | |---|---|---| | Personal-use possession of risk drugs[@1, including cannabis | six months to two years in prison, or2] The same reform gave courts a fine | three months to two years in prison, or a fine | | Personaltreatment-use possession of high-risk drugs | twolinked route to five years in prison | six months to three years in prison |waive or postpone punishment.[@1,2] ## An earlier reduction already allowed fines The [2005 amendment](/history/romania-personal-use-penalty-reduction-2005/) had already introducedseparated cannabis and other “risk drugs” from drugs in the fine alternativehigher category.[@1] It set the personal-use penalty for risk drugs. The original 2000 law had prescribed two at six months to fivetwo years forin prison or a fine.[@1] The 2014 change reduced that lower prison limit.[@2] For high-risk drugs, the new personal-use offences without this distinctionrange was six months to three years. A report circulated by the International Drug Policy Consortium at the end[@2] These changes formed part of that year described broad reductions in drug penalties. Its account of the old regime does not distinguishlegislation implementing the earlier cannabis penaltynew Penal Code, whose general commencement date was 1 February 2014.[@2] The personal-use offence continued to cover growing and preparing drugs for oneself as preciselywell as the historical statute,buying or holding them.[@2] It contained no minimum quantity below which already allowed a fine from 2005possession became lawful.[@2] ## Assessment could lead to an assistance programme The same report stresses what the reform did not doalso changed what could happen after a personal-use case began. The fine is[@2] It required prosecutors to order an assessment by a criminal penaltydrug-prevention, evaluation and leaves a criminal recordcounselling centre.[@2] Depending on that assessment, so athe person fined for a few grams of cannabis is still convicted of a crimecould enter an integrated assistance programme with their agreement. ## Cannabis in[@2] The programme connected the Romanian law Law 143 of 2000 sortscriminal case to help for the person using drugs into "risk" and "high-risk". The cannabis plant and[@2] If the defendant followed its resin are risk drugsrequirements before judgment, the lower classcourt could waive punishment or postpone imposing it, which iseven where the classusual Penal Code conditions for those outcomes were not met.[@2] That decision belonged to the three-months-court.[@2] The law also addressed failure to-two-years range applies follow the programme during supervision, linking it to the rules on revoking postponement. Romania[@2] ## Treatment had first restricted hashishbeen promised earlier The original 2004 amendment had already set out treatment-linked alternatives.[@1] Its commencement clause deferred those provisions until the new Penal Code took effect, while the revised personal-use prison range and fine alternative began in March 2005.[@1] The 2014 legislation supplied the 1920sassessment, consent and a narrow 2013 law allowed medicines derived fromcourt-outcome rules alongside its further reduction in the cannabis with less than 0prison minimum.[@2% THC, with almost nothing reaching patients.] ## After the reform The penalty has not moved since. A later bill to stop prosecutingseeks an administrative penalty In 2023, deputies proposed replacing criminal penalties for possession of up to three grams was rejected in 2023 by every committee that examined itwith an administrative fine of 1,000–3,000 lei. ## Two separate reductions[@3] Their bill also sought protection for medically prescribed cannabis possession.[@3] The Senate [2005 amendmentrejected that proposal in September](/history/romania-personal3-usegrams-penaltyrejected-reduction-20052023/) reduced the cannabis penalty and introducedsent it to the Chamber of Deputies, where committees issued a fine alternativerejection report in December.[@3,4] The distinction between a criminal fine and an administrative possession offence remained central to [2014 reformRomania's cannabis debate](/historycountry/romania-penal-code-2014ro/) further reduced the minimum prison term. Neither reform made personal possession lawful. [@3,4]

opusgpt-5.56

Romania — Law 522/2004, original Official Gazette (7 December 2004) Romania — Law 187/2012 implementing the Penal Code, official financial regulator reproduction Romanian Senate — original three-gram cannabis proposal, L384/2023 Romanian Senate — legislative record for L384/2023, PL-x 537/2023 Romanian Ministry of Justice — Law 143/2000 as at 7 March 2005, Article 4 Romanian Ministry of Justice — Law 143/2000, March 2014 republication, Article 4 IDPC — Romania: Drug-related offenses reduced as new criminal code is enforced Wikipedia — Cannabis in Romania

In July 1937, *The American Magazine* published “Marijuana, Assassin of Youth,” associated with Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger.[@1,2] The illustrated article presented cannabis as a cause of spectacular violence and the destruction of young people.[@1] A copy survives in the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum's collection.[@2] It is evidence of a public campaign. Its allegations should not be read as established fin … a killer The opening account describes a young woman's death after falling from a window.[@1] The article turns an apparent suicide into a murder story by making the drug itself the killer. It then moves between scenes of laughter, altered perception and claimed criminal violence.[@1] That movement is central to its argument. The reader is offered frightening anecdotes as e … youth The surviving opening page places illustrated young people above a cannabis branch.[@2] Its headline joins the plant to the word *assassin*. The layout puts ordinary-looking yout … rgument below. The museum identifies this as an example of the era's cannabis propaganda.[@2] It should be distinguished from the exploitation film *Assassin of Youth*, which shares th … ican cannabis stories decades earlier, including coverage tied to anti-Mexican propaganda.[@3] Anslinger's article entered an existing field of fear; it did not invent every association … e methods and conclusions, rather than treating a sensational headline as a medical fact.

On 2 November 1951 Congress passed the Boggs Act, named for its sponsor, the Louisiana Democrat Hale Boggs.[@3] For the first time federal law set one scale of penalties for marijuana and for heroin, and for repeat offenders it took sentencing out of the judge's hands.[@1,3] ## A heroin scare The law was aimed at opiates, not marijuana. Between 1948 and 1951 arre … its own, found that the average federal narcotics sentence had barely changed since 1935.[@3] Marijuana was swept in because it was already part of the federal drug laws. At the hearin … one argument in 1937; now it became the official case for punishing marijuana like heroin.[@3] ## The penalties | Conviction | Prison | Probation or parole | |---|---|---| | First | 2– … later | 10–20 years | Not available | Every offence also carried a fine of up to $2,000.[@1,3] Boggs argued that the law could not draw a line between possession and peddling without opening it to abuse.[@3] ## Little Boggs acts The bureau urged the states to follow. By 1953 seventeen states and … ninety-nine years without parole for selling, possessing or administering a narcotic drug.[@3] Judges objected. On 27 May 1954 the district and circuit judges of the Fifth Circuit unanimously asked Congress to remove the mandatory minimums. Boggs called it a shortsighted recommendation.[@3] Two years later Congress went the other way with the [Narcotic Control Act](/history/us-na … fine to $20,000 and barred probation and parole for everyone except first-time possessors.[@2,3] ## Undone in 1970 The [Controlled Substances Act](/history/us-controlled-substances-act-1 … a misdemeanour. Mandatory federal sentences returned in 1986, this time tied to quantity.[@2] ## Why the index moved The [Boggs Act](/history/us-boggs-act-1951/) lowered the [United S … act](/history/us-narcotic-control-act-1956/) took the total to 7, the lowest it has been.

The law that began federal cannabis prohibition in the United States did not prohibit any … written that way because its authors doubted Congress could do directly what they wanted.[@1,4] ## Before the Act Most states had already acted, beginning with [Massachusetts in 1911](/history/us-massachusetts-first-state-1911/); by 1937 at least 46 had a marijuana law.[@2,9] What remained legal was medicine: cannabis extracts had been in the pharmacopoeia since 18 … Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930, came to treat cannabis as a serious threat in 1934.[@6] He collected some 200 police reports of crimes blamed on marijuana and, in July 1937, published "Marijuana: Assassin of Youth".[@6] ## Why a tax The Treasury was not sure a federal ban would survive in court. Its lawyer, … s Act, and was candid: "The primary purpose of this legislation must be to raise revenue."[@2] The Senate report gave the real aim, to "render extremely difficult the acquisition of marihuana by persons who desire it for illicit uses".[@3] ## The hearings The House committee sat for five days in April and May 1937. Hemp and birdseed merchants won exemptions for fibre, oil and sterilised seed.[@2] The last witness was Dr William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association, who opposed the bill.[@2] > The term "marijuana" is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the > Mexican border.[@2] He had asked the Bureau of Prisons, the Children's Bureau and the Public Health Service for evidence of the harms described; none had any, and none had been called.[@2] The committee was hostile. The House passed the bill on 14 June without a recorded vote, and Roosevelt signed it on 2 August.[@5] ## What it required Anyone handling cannabis had to register and pay a yearly tax of $1 to $24.[@1,4] Every transfer needed an official order form and a transfer tax: $1 an ounce to a registered person, $100 an ounce to anyone else.[@1] Breaking the rules meant up to five years in prison.[@1] Doctors and pharmacists were exempt on paper. The Act took effect on 1 October.[@5] The next day Samuel Caldwell was arrested in Denver for selling cannabis, and within the week he had [four years in Leavenworth](/history/us-first-tax-act-convictions-1937/).[@7] ## How it ended Congress added mandatory minimums in [1951](/history/us-boggs-act-1951/) … that complying with the Act meant incriminating oneself, contrary to the Fifth Amendment.[@8] Congress replaced it with the [Controlled Substances Act](/history/us-controlled-substance … the first laws were aimed at keeping cannabis from white youth, not at Mexican immigrants.[@9] And the hearings exempted the hemp industry that the Act was supposedly designed to destro … 1, enforcement from 3 to 2 and access from 2 to 0 for the [United States](/country/us/).

*Reefer Madness* turned a warning about cannabis into a melodrama of endangered youth. Or … can anti-cannabis campaigning, and later a film watched for the absurdity of its warnings.[@1,4] Its dating needs care. The American Film Institute and British Film Institute catalogue it as 1938; Cornell Cinema uses the familiar 1936 date.[@1,2,3] This history entry follows AFI's catalogue year while preserving the disagreement. The tit … rmed as a story AFI identifies Louis Gasnier as director and George Hirliman as producer.[@1] Its account records a foreword claiming that fictionalised scenes rest on research into marijuana addiction.[@1] The plot then joins youthful smoking to sexual danger, death and mental collapse, framed by a school principal's warning to parents.[@1] The claim to research is part of the film's rhetoric. A dramatic plot supplies no evidence … scandalous material. AFI records reissues as *The Burning Question* and *Reefer Madness*.[@1] This is why it should not simply be described as a government documentary. A film can adva … verse the lesson The BFI describes the picture's later embrace as an underground classic.[@2] Accounts of its early-1970s revival link it to campus screenings and cannabis-law reform fundraising.[@4] The same exaggerated behaviour that was meant to frighten an audience could invite a later … abis was advertised as a threat, rather than evidence that its pictured claims were true.

President Nixon appointed a commission to study marijuana and announced in advance that he would ignore it if it recommended legalisation. It recommended ending the crime of possession. He ignored it.[@1] ## Why it existed When Congress wrote the [Controlled Substances Act](/history/us-controlled-substances-act-1970/) in 1970, it put marijuana in Schedule I, with heroin.[@1] A senior health official had [advised](/history/us-egeberg-recommendation-1970/) that this be temporary, pending a study, and the Act created a commission to carry it out.[@1] Nixon appointed the members and chose a former governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond Shafer, to chair them. They included doctors, a television producer and four members of Congress.[@1] ## The report "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding" was presented to Congress and the public on 22 March 1972.[@1] It found that the public's picture of the user was wrong. Smokers were not dangerous; they were, if anything, "more timid, drowsy and passive".[@1] Cannabis did not pose a widespread danger to society, and the commission compared it to alcohol.[@1] Its recommendation followed. Possession for personal use should no longer be an offence, and use should be discouraged by means other than the criminal law.[@1] Shafer told Congress: > The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the > effort to discourage use.[@3] ## The answer Nixon had said: "Even if the commission does recommend that it be legalized … nor Congress acted, and in 1974 a Senate subcommittee came out against decriminalisation.[@2] ## The effect it did have The states listened. [Oregon](/history/us-oregon-decriminalisat … n states had done something similar by 1978, covering more than a third of the population.[@2] That in turn produced a reaction. A [parents' movement](/history/us-parent-movement-1976/) formed in 1976 and, by its historian's account, had most of those laws overturned by 1980.[@2] Marijuana stayed in Schedule I. The report has been cited ever since by those arguing that … ex lists the report for context; it moved no score for the [United States](/country/us/).

Herer invokes the Siler investigation as evidence against prohibition.[@2] The report's recommendations were more qualified than his summary suggests. A committee s … the Canal Zone. It also expressly recommended that military restrictions remain in force.[@1] The distinction matters: a recommendation against additional civilian legislation did not … tory, without inferring a national legal change in Panama or a change in adult US scores.

*Marijuana* is a Mexican Spanish word whose origin nobody has established. For its first … h to ban the plant, and it became the commonest word for it in the English-speaking world.[@1] ## The first records The word appears in print in 1846, in the *Farmacopea Mexicana*, spe … with *j* seems to be an English innovation that later passed back into Spanish and French.[@1,3] By the end of the nineteenth century smoking it was common in Mexico, as a pleasure and as … the revolutionary verses of [*La Cucaracha*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cucaracha).[@1,2,5] ## Where does it come from? | Theory | Status | |---|---| | Nahuatl *mallihuan*, "prisone … e](/history/mexico-salazar-marijuana-myth-1938/) that the madness of marihuana was a myth.[@5] ## An American choice of word English had the word by 1873, in forms such as *mariguan* a … ed it as, in the words of one account, a "foreign-sounding name" that would stigmatise it.[@1] The [Marihuana Tax Act](/history/us-marihuana-tax-act-1937/) of 1937, drafted by Harry Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, fixed the word in federal law. The American Medical Association opposed the act, [its counsel testifying](/history/us-ama-woodward-testimony-1937/) that the claims about addiction and violence were not supported. The first two men convicted under it were [sentenced in Denver](/history/us-first-tax-act-convictions-1937/) within a week of its taking effect.[@4] The Supreme Court [struck the act down in 1969](/history/us-leary-1969/), and the [Control … Laws and the Marijuana Policy Project. In Mexico it never stopped being the ordinary word.[@1]

us-marihuana-tax-act-1937, mexico-salazar-marijuana-myth-1938, us-leary-1969, mexico-city-marijuana-regulations-1869, mexico-ban-1920, us-first-tax-act-convictions-1937, us-controlled-substances-act-1970, us-ama-woodward-testimony-1937

*Reefer* is American slang for a cannabis cigarette, or for cannabis itself. It belongs t … adness* later became a joke that cannabis users told against the people who had banned it.[@4] ## Jazz slang The words come from the jazz world between the wars, before cannabis was a federal crime.[@3,4] | Word | Meaning | |---|---| | Reefer | A cannabis cigarette; also cannabis in general | | … ers; a letter Armstrong wrote from England in 1932 tells Mezzrow where and how to send it.[@2] In 1940 Mezzrow was arrested with sixty joints at the entrance to a jazz club at the New Y … memoir *Really the Blues* in 1946, and spent the last twenty years of his life in France.[@2] .[@1] | Year | What happened to the film | |---|---| | 1930s | Made as *Tell Your Children*; references disagree between 1936 and 1938 | | Following years | Sold on the exploitation circuit under several titles, beside [*Marihuana*](/history/us-marihuana-film-1936/) and the film [*Assassin of Youth*](/history/us-assassin-of-youth-film-1937/), all made outside Hollywood because the studios' [Production Code](/history/us-production-code-drugs-1934/) barred the drug trade[@8,9,10] | | — | Its copyright notice was defective, so it fell into the public domain | | [1972](/history/us-reefer-madness-campus-revival-1972/) | Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, found a print in the Library of Congress and bought a copy for 297 dollars[@1] | | 1970s | Shown on college campuses to raise money for reform, and as a midnight movie | | [1998](/history/us-reefer-madness-musical-1998/) | Turned into a stage musical, filmed for television in 2005[@6] | | [2003](/history/us-schlosser-reefer-madness-2003/) | Eric Schlosser borrows the title for a book on the drug laws' own excesses[@7] | The film found a new life as an unintended satire among advocates of reform, and a cult following within cannabis culture. Critics have called it one of the worst films ever made. Its story, with the other films and the posters, is told in the exhibition [Reefer Madness](/reefer-madness/).[@1] ## The word now Another familiar American term, [pot](/culture/language/pot/), has a less … found that marijuana led neither to addiction nor to crime. It had no effect on the law.

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Wikipedia — Reefer Madness (musical) Salon — review of Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness (15 May 2003) Wikipedia — Hays Code Wikipedia — Marihuana (1936 film) Wikipedia — Assassin of Youth 5 unchanged

Harry Jacob Anslinger ran the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics for thirty-two years, from i … ch of the world, would treat cannabis: as a dangerous narcotic, to be banned and punished.[@1] He did not begin with cannabis. When Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon [appointed him in 19 … heir own. He came to treat it as a serious threat only in 1934, his fourth year in office.[@1] ## The campaign From the mid-1930s Anslinger campaigned on radio, in magazines and before … Act](/history/us-uniform-state-narcotic-act-1932/), with the Hearst newspapers as allies.[@1] His article [*Marijuana, Assassin of Youth*](/history/us-assassin-of-youth-1937/), in *The American Magazine* in July 1937, told of a young man in Florida who had killed his family with an axe after smoking "muggles".[@3] [The killer, Victor Licata,](/history/us-licata-murders-1933/) had a history of severe mental illness; the story was repeated to Congress all the same.[@1] Such cases came from what is called his "Gore File", notes on crimes and arrests linked to … ew after the crime. He reads them as propaganda that still records real fears of the time.[@2] Anslinger's own remarks were openly racist, and he favoured the Spanish word *marihuana* over *cannabis*; see [marijuana](/culture/language/marijuana/).[@1] The campaign ended in the [Marihuana Tax Act of 1937](/history/us-marihuana-tax-act-1937/) … t but taxed every transaction so heavily that legal use, including prescription, stopped. [When the American Medical Association](/history/us-ama-woodward-testimony-1937/) forwarded the views of pharmacists and manufacturers, nearly all against his proposal, only the single supporter's letter was kept in the bureau's files.[@1] ## Abroad Anslinger took the same line to Geneva. At the League of Nations in [1938](/his … ureau Anslinger spent two years as the US representative on the UN's narcotics commission.[@1] ## Against the evidence He fought research that contradicted him. When New York's [La Gua … and the American Medical Association that criticised the criminal treatment of addiction.[@1] | Year | What he did | |---|---| | 1930 | Became the first commissioner of the Federal Bur … ania, in 1975. His papers, the Gore File among them, are at Pennsylvania State University.[@1,2]

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Keith Stroup started from a simple idea: people who smoked marijuana were consumers, and … rganization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORML), NORML.[@1,2] It still campaigns for the removal of all penalties for adults who possess, grow or casually share small amounts.[@2] Stroup studied political science at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1965, and la … m into contact with the consumer campaigner Ralph Nader, whose methods he set out to copy.[@1] ## Repeal, then reform He [founded the organisation](/history/us-norml-founded-1970/) with 5,000 dollars of seed money from the Playboy Foundation.[@1,2] At first the R stood for "Repeal". The former Attorney General Ramsey Clark advised him that "Reform" would make it more approachable, and he changed it.[@1] By the middle of the 1970s the backing of Playboy's owner, Hugh Hefner, at one point 100,0 … [failed legalisation initiative](/history/us-california-legalisation-vote-1972/) of 1972.[@2] The years suited the argument. A national commission had [recommended decriminalisation](/ … ine, and while Stroup ran NORML, until 1979, eleven states adopted decriminalisation laws.[@1] He found an unlikely fundraiser in an old scare film. In 1972 he learned that *Reefer Madn … reefer-madness-campus-revival-1972/). He showed it on college campuses after his lectures.[@3] Students who were meant to be frightened laughed, and the film became a joke about prohibition itself; its story is told in the exhibition [Reefer Madness](/reefer-madness/).[@3] | | | |---|---| | 1970 | Founds NORML | | 1970–1979 | Executive director; eleven states de … raying of Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat, which Stroup wanted ended.[@1] In retaliation Stroup told a reporter that Bourne had taken cocaine at NORML's Christmas party in 1977. Bourne was fired, and Stroup soon lost his own job: by one account, the people at NORML did not like informers.[@1] ## The return He spent the next years lobbying for family farmers and for artists, and fr … /) became [co-chair of its advisory board](/history/us-willie-nelson-norml-cochair-1994/).[@1] He stepped down in January 2005, saying the cause needed a younger generation of activists … ion in a book, *It's NORML to Smoke Pot: The 40-Year Fight for Marijuana Smokers' Rights*.[@1]

Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra was a psychiatrist at Mexico City's great public asylum, La Cas … soners. For five months in 1940 Mexico tried his approach. The United States made it stop.[@1] Born in Durango in 1898, he studied medicine in Mexico City and Madrid and psychiatry in P … In 1938 he was put in charge of the government's office for drug addiction and alcoholism.[@1] ## The myth of marijuana In October 1938 he read the [Academy of Medicine](/history/mexic … olleagues cigarettes that turned out to contain it. The paper was published that December.[@1] He also wrote in the newspapers. In an open letter of March 1938 to Lola la Chata, the bes … take the trade over: doctors would prescribe, and the dealers would lose their customers.[@1] ## The regulation of 1940 His ideas underlay the [Federal Regulation on Drug Addiction](/ … ver went beyond research and publicity; the historian Isaac Campos is clear on this point.[@2,3] | Year | Event | |---|---| | 1925 | Begins work at La Castañeda | | 1938 | Open letter to … 1939, spent his last years on the study of mental illness and died in Mexico City in 1957.[@1,2] Eighty-one years after his paper, Mexico's [Supreme Court](/history/mexico-supreme-court-2021/) struck down the ban on adult personal use of marijuana.

Few people have given their name to cannabis. Milton Mesirow, a Jewish clarinettist from … uff Smith song "If You're a Viper" used the word, and Mezzrow was called the Muggles King.[@1] He was born in 1899. As a young delinquent he went in and out of reform schools and prison … g the new music, above all Louis Armstrong, and decided to adopt their culture as his own.[@1] ## The music Critics thought little of his playing. Nat Hentoff wrote that he was so cons … at helped start the New Orleans revival, and in the 1940s he ran his own label, King Jazz.[@1] ## The viper Armstrong was one of his biggest customers. A letter of 1932, written from E … culture/traditions/the-tea-pads-of-harlem/) and of musicians who called themselves vipers.[@1] | Slang of the vipers | Meaning | |---|---| | Mezz | Marijuana, after Mezzrow | | Muggles … story in his memoir *Really the Blues*, written with Bernard Wolfe and published in 1946.[@1] Ernest L. Abel’s history, published in 1980, shows how that reputation entered the vocabul … eanings attached to a supplier’s name, rather than names for a genetically defined strain.[@2] Abel quotes Mezzrow’s own account of suddenly becoming popular in Harlem. It is a retrospe … om an independently measured account of how much of the city’s cannabis trade he supplied.[@2] ## France After the Nice jazz festival of 1948 he settled in France, where Panassié and o … ty years of his life there, died in 1972 and is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.[@1]

Thomas Wentworth Russell spent forty-four years in the Egyptian police, and for the last … , Egypt's own drug police chief told it, more than once, that hashish was not the problem.[@1] He was born in 1879, a great-grandson of the sixth Duke of Bedford, studied at Trinity Col … jor-general and the title of pasha. Under that name he was known for the rest of his life.[@1] ## Black drugs and white In 1929 the prime minister, Muhammad Mahmud Pasha, agreed to his … to heroin injected in the slums of Cairo. In his memoirs he divided drugs into two kinds:[@1] | | Black drugs | White drugs | |---|---|---| | Substances | Hashish, opium | Cocaine, mor … ndon and Geneva criticised that as brutal; Russell answered that there was no alternative.[@1] ## At the League Egypt had asked for cannabis to be controlled. In [1924](/history/geneva … le harm, and the few smokers in the villages as a joke, like the village drunk in England.[@1,2] His associate Baron Harry d'Erlanger later wrote that Russell had considered legalising ha … al-1892/) on the model of India. He never did; the ban stayed, and his bureau enforced it.[@1] In [1938](/history/league-russell-anslinger-exchange-1938/) the American observer at the L … enforcer of prohibition. The League's cannabis committee stopped work when the war began.[@2] ## Afterwards Russell retired in 1946, wrote a memoir, *Egyptian Service, 1902–1946*, and spent the rest of his life salmon fishing. He died in London in 1954.[@1]

Egypt has used hashish for eight or nine hundred years and has been trying to stop for at … had users' teeth pulled out to a modern law that allows the death penalty for trafficking.[@1] ## How it came Hemp was grown in Egypt for rope long before it was grown as a drug. [Hash … gyptian Sufis is documented, and so is a plant described as Indian hemp, grown in gardens.[@1] About 1525 a rabbi of Cairo, David ibn Abi Zimra, wrote that people in Egypt ate cannabis leaves "and are inebriated thereby, and they say that it makes one happy".[@1] ## Eaten, drunk and smoked | Form | What it is | |---|---| | Eaten | In the early centuri … tion. These are descriptions of a selected prison sample, not estimates for all Egyptians.[@4] In his 1975 chapter, Ahmad M. Khalifa describes shared sessions with a supervisor called t … account of sociability under prohibition, rather than a protocol followed by every smoker.[@3] ## Six centuries of bans | When | Who | What they did | |---|---|---| | 14th century | Th … sed to stamp out; a law to license and tax it on the Indian model was drafted and shelved.[@1,2] ## What officials believed Two views competed for half a century, and both were British. … d most of the country's insanity, and Egypt pressed for international control of cannabis.[@2] Thomas Russell, head of Cairo's police, [told the League of Nations in 1930](/history/egyp … he few smokers in the villages were regarded as a joke, like the village drunk in England.[@1,2] The historian Liat Kozma reads the campaign as more than a health measure: a centralising state's wish to civilise its lower classes, and concern for the country's image abroad.[@1] ## Now The law is severe and the custom is open. Trafficking can bring death, and possess … million plants [were destroyed in one year, 1994](/history/egypt-sinai-eradication-1994/).[@1]

In the slang of the jazz age cannabis was *tea*, and a *tea pad* was a room or an apartme … ty thought that the landlord, the agent or the janitor usually knew what the room was for.[@1] What we know of them in detail comes from an unusual source. Fiorello La Guardia, the mayo … rsations with sellers and operators. This was an informed estimate, not a complete census.[@1,2] ## Inside a pad The investigators described the pads as furnished for the clientele they … mostly blue. Incense was part of the furnishings, and the walls carried pictures of nudes.[@1] Most pads sold nothing but cannabis. Some sold whisky as well, and a few were also brothel … a Harlem rooftop, the smokers sat in pup tents and then came out to talk about the stars.[@1] The cigarettes had grades and prices, and the smokers knew the difference as a cigar smoker knows tobacco.[@1] | Name | Said to come from | Price | |---|---|---| | Sass-fras | The United States | About … were not verified genetic varieties or a laboratory ranking of national cannabis potency.[@5] The common names for the cigarettes were muggles, reefers, Indian hemp, weed, tea, gage and sticks. Peddlers wrapped them in foreign cigarette paper to suggest that the tea was "right from the boat".[@1] ## Vipers and their music The pads were one part of a wider scene. The investigators saw … ir songs; the words of that world are collected under [reefer](/culture/language/reefer/).[@1] Its best-known figure was Louis Armstrong. He first smoked in Chicago in 1927, called the … ettist Mezz Mezzrow, was at least as famous in Harlem for selling cannabis as for playing.[@3,4] ## What the investigators found Most of the smokers the study met were out of work or had … e committee's own conclusion was that it did not lead to addiction, crime or harder drugs.[@1,2] The report used the racial language of its time. Its picture of the trade singled out port … its investigators also found cigarettes sold along Broadway between 42nd and 59th Streets.[@1] ## The law Most states had already restricted cannabis when the [Marihuana Tax Act of 193 … n of the tea pads remains the most detailed record of them, made by people sent to watch.