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+# Laos: recovered cannabis penalties and hemp permission — 23 October 2026
+
+Adds three history events (2005, 2013 and 2018), revises three entries (first-restriction estimate, hemp permission and 2024 drug report), writes two articles, and replaces fourteen profile blocks with inline citations. The existing UNODC black-market block is untouched. Local source files, extractions, verified event objects and scripts are retained in `tmp/history-laos-gap-2026-10-23/`.
+
+## Primary texts read
+
+- The National Assembly-endorsed English translation of the **2005 amended Penal Law**, recovered from the signed PDF link on WIPO Lex record 5795 (`penal2005-original.pdf/.txt`). Article 146(5) and (7), surrounding drug provisions, adoption/promulgation front matter and article 179 were read. Marijuana is explicit in the 2005 amended body; the original 1990 decree reproduced at the front does not establish that these same rules existed in 1990. Adoption is dated **9 November 2005**. The promulgation heading and signature disagree between November and December; the final clauses include both a 120-day rule and a specific 180-day transition for the 2005 amendments. The new event therefore records adoption, not an invented exact commencement. Duplicate raw-cannabis quantity bands in the English translation are not silently repaired or used for a precise cultivation claim.
+- The government Trade Portal's complete English **2012 penalty amendment**, record 970 (`law2007.html/.txt`, a misleading local filename inherited from the retrieval lead). It is Law 22/NA of **11 December 2012**, promulgated **17 January 2013**, operative ninety days after promulgation. **April 2013** is used at month precision. The marijuana paragraph adds separate THC/hashish/derivative bands reaching life above 500 g. It retains distinct dried-cannabis trading bands and treatment language. The portal repeatedly mistranslates the penal law as the law on criminal procedure; the substance and original law number identify the amended penal provisions. Its PDF downloads returned 403, but the full HTML body was accessible and read.
+- The government-hosted **2017 Penal Code**, No. 26/NA, adopted **17 May 2017**, promulgated **26 June 2017** (`penal2017.pdf/.txt`). Articles 318 and 320–321, printed pp. 92–95, and repeal/commencement article 425 were read. Printed/PDF page 94 was also rendered and visually checked: under 5 g marijuana for consumption goes to treatment; 5–10 g dried marijuana for consumption carries six months to two years plus LAK 5–20 million. The paragraph does not resolve the handling of quantities above 10 g for personal consumption. The trading paragraph's purpose requirement is preserved; kilogram trafficking bands are not presented as automatic personal-possession penalties. The seed offence says more than 10 g; it does not establish a lawful allowance below that weight.
+- WIPO Lex record **20158** expressly records commencement on **1 November 2018**. Its catalogue title/identifier differ from the attached code; the profile uses the code's own title and the catalogue only for the commencement date. The code's repeal clause also misdates the earlier penalty amendment; the 2012 amendment's own text supplies its dates.
+
+The 2005 event is `other`: the previous enacted cannabis wording has not been recovered sufficiently to establish the revision's net direction. The 2013 concentrate-specific addition is `tightening`, with an explicit unscored explanation; it cannot support a whole-point change in ordinary personal-flower scores from the recovered evidence alone. The 2018 replacement has mixed provisions and retained trading bands, so is `other`. No first-ever ban is invented. The first-restriction entry remains estimated, keeps its existing 1925–2007 uncertainty window and FREE before vector, but now explains the positively recovered 2005 law rather than treating an unverified 1990 cannabis text as the anchor.
+
+## Hemp permission and evidence limits
+
+The full Tilleke & Gibbins February 2023 analysis (`hemp2023.html/.txt`, also duplicated as a PDF on LaoFAB) and JETRO's own **9 February 2023** Japanese report (`jetro.html/.txt`) were read. JETRO gives **26 January 2023** commencement, but a final search found conflicting ECOLEX/FAO metadata stating **23 February 2023**. The signed Lao original was then recovered from FAOLEX (`hemp-original.pdf/.txt`). Its first and last pages were rendered and visually checked: the first is stamped **28 December 2022**, and article 37 specifies thirty days after signature. This establishes the issuance and transition rule; exact day counting and the conflicting catalogue metadata remain unresolved. The existing event keeps its verified **28 December 2022 issuance date** and explicitly describes that transition. Its tags are expanded to hemp/CBD/patients.
+
+Only the signed date and final commencement clause of the Lao original were independently checked; substantive prescription details continue to rely on the English legal analysis and JETRO. Prescription details are explicitly attributed to the legal review in the profile: flower at a 1% THC ceiling; medical products at 0.2% with CBD at least four times THC. JETRO describes strict less-than boundaries, whereas the legal review uses no-more-than wording. A full checked translation of the original is needed to resolve equality at the boundary; no new exact-threshold eligibility advice is added to the event or articles. The legal review also says the criminal laws had not been aligned and administrative details remained unresolved. A lawful permission is described, replacing the old categorical claim that there was no legal THC source.
+
+**Scores are preserved at 12**, including access 0, pending evidence of an operating patient supply route and implementing evidence. This follows the repository's treatment of authorised but unavailable programmes: limited hemp permission alone does not establish accessible medical supply. The event now records that unresolved scoring reason explicitly. Medical remains `limited`. Do not infer that permission is absent from the access score. Revisit access promptly if registered pharmacies, patient supply or implementing instruments can be established.
+
+The 2021 Tilleke legal outlook was read for the underlying narcotic-plant cultivation prohibition. Only that general rule is used; the uncertain February/March date of the 2009 implementing decree is not used for a new event. No more than 200 derived words from either Tilleke article or JETRO are used across this batch's public texts.
+
+## Enforcement reporting and remaining gaps
+
+KPL's full **21 November 2024** report (`report2024.html/.txt`) describes Minister Vilay Lakhamphong's parliamentary statement on **20 November**: 3,395 cases, 5,168 suspects, 199 foreigners and 3,583 kg marijuana over eleven months; 5,132 people supported through treatment/rehabilitation, 2,513 completed. These are all-drug arrest/treatment figures, not cannabis-specific totals. Fewer than 200 derived words are used across the revised event, profile and article. Unsupported assertions about tourist payments versus local imprisonment are removed.
+
+The original Lao 2007 law was found at Trade Portal record 693, but its provisions were not independently translated in full. The existing 2007 history account is outside this batch. The 2021 border-prohibition decision was read, but no new event is added: its commencement depends on unrecovered gazette publication, and a newer border list requires checking. The 2011 HRW report was retrieved but not relied on for present-day practice. Contemporary enforcement, a full translated review of the hemp decision, registered patient products and the earliest cannabis restriction remain research priorities.
+
+## Verification
+
+The batch verifier checks categories, tags, title lengths, source resolution, punctuation, article word counts and internal links; it also checks unchanged scores, classifications and the untouched black-market block. A production build and rendered-page/API/export checks are run before committing. Generated `site/` output is deleted after verification. Commit construction uses current HEAD plus only this batch's six history IDs, the Laos profile, two articles and this memo, preserving unrelated working and staged changes.
+
+Verification completed: the two articles contain 435 and 430 words, each with four sections. All fourteen rewritten profile blocks resolve their keyed citations. The production build passed; rendered checks found 59 valid citation links, valid tag pages and internal links, clean history exports, and matching API/CSV score 12 with medical classification Limited. `git diff --check` passed. The generated `tmp/history-laos-gap-2026-10-23/site/` directory was deleted after those checks.