docs/research/history-gibraltar-gap-2026-10-24.md +62 −0
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+# Gibraltar history gap and profile audit — 24 October 2026
+
+## Changes
+
+Nine new events fill the largely empty period before the existing medical reforms: the October 1951 possession rules, September 1960 rule-making amendment, June 1973 drug statute, December 1985 overseas-recipient wording, August 1989 supply presumption, March 1995 ship powers, June 1995 Harris judgment, November 2012 replacement code, and December 2025 possession sentence. Four medical events were revised for clearer wording, inline citations, tags and explicit unscored reasons where appropriate. Their IDs and existing dates were preserved.
+
+Four articles were added (1951, 1989, Harris, 2012); the existing 2019 medical article was rewritten. All five have four headings, 350–500 words, inline source marks, history links and a country link. The profile's twelve text blocks now use keyed inline citations. Its former claims that possession cases universally end in fines, no cultivation licences exist, and visitors have no lawful import exception were replaced with the actual statute, regulatory exceptions and individual case outcomes.
+
+Current scores, medical status and recreational status are preserved. Exact score **12**. The chain remains estimated 100 → 11, then 2019 access 0 → 1 giving 12. No representative national sentencing series was found to justify a numerical enforcement change. Statutory maxima and isolated fines are described separately. A maximum increase within an already criminal regime does not, by itself, prove a move to routine imprisonment.
+
+## Evidence and source boundaries
+
+Downloads, text extractions, selected page images, scripts and build logs are retained in `tmp/history-gibraltar-gap-2026-10-24/`. Sources were read directly, with the following scope; downloading a large consolidation does not mean every unrelated criminal offence was read.
+
+### Colonial controls and first restriction
+
+- UN **E/NL.1951/37**, two pages: read the March 1951 amendment, including Governor Kenneth Anderson's assent on 15 March, new section 4A and the one-month/£150 ceiling. This is an enabling power, not itself the October possession rule.
+- UN **E/NL.1952/2–3**, three pages: read the possession rules on p. 2, made **18 October 1951**, and checked the page image. The instrument title refers to raw opium but rule 2 also expressly covers Indian hemp and coca leaves. It provides a fine **or** prison, and possession through another person's control or holding. The unrelated third-page order schedules other drugs. The public event uses the rule-making date; a separate gazette publication/commencement day was not recovered.
+- UN **E/NL.1960/106**, one page: read the complete amendment deleting section 4A(2). Assent **22 September**, gazette publication **23 September 1960**. The event explicitly describes publication. Removal of the enabling-law penalty ceiling is not assumed to have rewritten the 1951 rule's own fine/prison limits automatically.
+- The existing first-restriction estimate stays unchanged. These sources prove an express 1951 possession offence, but do not establish the first import, medicinal or trade control. The 1951 enabling law refers to the 1935 revised edition of an earlier Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. A League-era catalogue lead points to a 1937 order, but its actual text was not recovered. The estimate therefore must not be replaced with an unsupported first-ever date.
+
+### The drug Act and its amendments
+
+- Official **1973 Act final consolidated edition**: read commencement/amendment and renumbering tables, definitions and relevant possession, production, supply, cultivation, quantity presumption, punishment and sentencing-table clauses. Verified **1 June 1973** commencement and **23 November 2012** repeal. The website labels its sole version 1 June 1973, but its download incorporates later amendments through 2007. The public entry limits the original-date description to the underlying separate offences (sections 6–7 and the renumbered cultivation clause), and dates later additions separately. It does not backdate the final quantity presumption or maritime powers to 1973.
+- Original **1985-20**, both pages: adds supply wording addressing a recipient outside Gibraltar. Effective date 5 December matches the principal Act's amendment table. Its intended effect and limits are explained using Harris, rather than assuming it created jurisdiction over all foreign transactions.
+- Original **1989-27**, all three pages: new section 7B, 20 g cannabis/resin commercial quantity, rebuttable presumption, mixtures/preparations and no-physical-possession rule. Date **10 August 1989** matches the principal Act table. It later became section 9 through renumbering. The amount is an evidential trigger, not lawful possession.
+- Original **1995-05**, relevant new sections 11C–11F and enforcement Schedule 5 read, with the amendment's commencement clause and principal Act table. Maritime provisions commenced **10 March 1995**, later than assent 1 March and publication 2 March. Other parts had separate commencement, including the precursor-regulation section in 1999; the maritime event does not backdate those parts. Authority/consent restrictions for another state's ship and territorial waters are retained in the description.
+- Original **1998-46** read: changes the official responsible for analysis certificates; omitted as an administrative change with little cannabis-history value.
+- Original **2004-02** read: Schengen-related changes, impossible attempts and precursors. No separate public event added; it does not show that every traveller provision began then.
+- **1991-15** original amendment also read where relevant to drug penalty changes. Section 36 changes “14 years” to life in **column 4** for production/supply/intent rows. The final old consolidation prints life in both Class A and B columns. Without the original earlier sentencing table and complete amendment reconstruction, the public history does not attribute a new Class B life maximum to that 1991 wording or to 1973. The 2012 and current code tables independently and clearly print life in the Class B production/supply/intent rows.
+
+### Harris: decision date versus report volume
+
+The official report **1997–98 Gib LR 11–23** actually states a judgment date of **1 June 1995**. Read headnote, facts and relevant judicial reasons, including the distinction between recipient location and intended supply location. Harris carried 737 g resin in 140 swallowed packets from Spain through Gibraltar to England. After arrest in England and later surrender in Gibraltar, he admitted possession/import/export but contested the additional intent-to-supply count. All three judges dismissed the Crown appeal. This was not a general acquittal of every cannabis offence.
+
+The court recounts Stanley's earlier airport cannabis case and the legislature's attempted response in 1985. Stanley's original judgment was not retrieved; no separate event with an invented decision date was added. The Harris event and article accurately attribute that background to the later court's account.
+
+### Replacement code and current law
+
+- Downloaded the actual historical **Crimes Act version at 23 November 2012**, distinct from the current download. Read the commencement table, relevant Part 21 clauses, sections 524 and 599, cannabis listing and Schedule 8. The old drug Act was repealed; drug regulations continued. No commercial-quantity presumption appears in the new Part 21. This is established through comparison with the repealed law, not merely a missing search result: the replacement's complete relevant drug-offence sequence was read.
+- Compared old Class B possession row (six months summary/five years indictment) with new row (twelve months summary/five years indictment), both fine/custody sentencing tables. Visually checked historical 2012 PDF p. 476. No claim is made that twelve months is a typical possession sentence.
+- Read new section 505: adults supplying on/near schools at relevant times or using couriers under eighteen; the court must treat these as aggravating and say so in open court. This is a mixed reform with the omission of the presumption, so category **other**, with an explicit unscored explanation.
+- Current **Crimes Act version 23 July 2026**, selected relevant sections 500, 503–508, 518, 524–526, Schedule 5 cannabis listing and Schedule 8. Verified current Class B possession up to twelve months summary or five years indictment; cultivation-specific offence nine months/fourteen years; Class B supply/intent statutory maximum life on indictment. The separate production offence also has its own sentencing entry. The cultivation and production rows must not be conflated.
+- Section 518 concerns occupiers/managers knowingly permitting cannabis smoking. It must not be confused with section 519's separate personal-use offence for prepared opium. No new cannabis-consumption offence was inferred from the opium section.
+- Royal Gibraltar Police **22 December 2025** report: actual court sentence **19 December**, arrest **18 December**, approximately 127 g resin and **£800 fine**. Event uses the sentence day. The report supports that one outcome, not universal fine-only practice.
+- Royal Gibraltar Police supply-case report: nineteen-year-old Sean Macmichael, cannabis resin found in sofa, possession/intent-to-supply, 200 hours community work. Used as an individual profile observation; the visible article lacks a reliable court-date field, so no separately dated history event was invented.
+
+### Medical rules and visitors
+
+- Original 2019 amending regulations read, including definitions, trained GHA practitioner, product approval, patient possession conditions, no smoking, four condition groups and schedules. Verified commencement **16 October 2019**. Government's **22 October** explanation and **8 September 2023** training/Cantourage announcement read in full relevant body. No first dispensing date or patient total is established by the 2023 release.
+- Current **2005 regulations**, 64-page consolidation through **15 October 2026**: relevant definitions, general licensing, regulations 10A/12A, medicine schedules, import/export and traveller provisions read. The new 2026 pharmacist/paramedic rules were checked; they do not replace the GHA-only Schedule 2A practitioner route. Pharmacist prescribing is confined to Schedules 4/5, and the paramedic list names other medicines. No broad cannabis-prescriber expansion was added.
+- **Regulation 31** is broader than a Schedule 2/3-only exception: it permits possession and travel to/from a Schengen state with a valid Article 75 certificate, personal prescribed quantity limited to **thirty days**. The profile records the statutory certificate route; it does not say any foreign prescription alone suffices, and no claim is made that the traveller is restricted by a schedule limitation absent from this clause.
+- 2021 industry Act's first page still says **Not In Force**, checked 24 October 2026; relevant commencement and licensing/commission clauses read. It remains an assent milestone, separate from the operating legal authority of the 2019 medicines regulations.
+- The existing 2017 source and account were retained for the narrow Sativex rescheduling; no new availability claim was added. Neither the 2017 event nor the 2023 supply announcement is newly assigned a score. The existing 2019 access score is preserved, and the date of actual first patient supply remains a research gap.
+
+## Verification and ownership
+
+The verifier checks unique IDs, categories, valid tags, readable title lengths, source coverage for all inline references, related/history/country links, article word counts and heading counts, all twelve country citation blocks, and unchanged pre-existing score vectors/current statuses. Five articles have 390–406 words and four headings each. `data-status.cjs chain gi` reports no flagged steps.
+
+A fresh production build and rendered checks verify the thirteen affected history pages (including all five article bodies), country reference scopes, tag pages, exports and profile API. Results and build cleanup are appended after completion. The commit is restricted to these nine added/four revised history objects, Gibraltar's profile, five article files and this memo. A private index isolates the commit while preserving other staged and working changes; `source-archive.json` is excluded.
+
+Final results: fresh production build passed with **3,954 pages**. Rendered verification passed **141 citation links**, all affected event/article and country reference scopes, tag pages, clean history/score exports, profile API date 2026-10-24, exact score 12 and unchanged Limited medical status. All five articles passed word-count, heading, citation and internal-link checks; whitespace checks passed. The owned temporary `site/` build was deleted after these checks. Research downloads, extraction files, selected images and logs were retained.