Afghanistan countries/af.yaml
Historically one of the world's largest hashish producers. The Taliban banned cannabis cultivation in March 2023, and sharia courts punish users and traffickers with prison and flogging. The last codified drug law, from 2010, set hashish trafficking by weight and exempted certified addicts from prosecution; no comprehensive published code has replaced it since the Taliban takeover.
Possession is illegal; the pre-2021The last codified drug law set, from 2010, treats possession and trafficking on one scale. A person certified as addicted and holding up to five years depending50 g of hashish for personal use is exempt from prosecution and sent to treatment; anyone else holding cannabis is dealt with on amountthe trafficking scale. Under[@af2010] Since 2021 the Taliban, offenders are tried by have applied sharia courts, withand no comprehensive published drug code replaces these provisions.[@aan] Offenders face imprisonment and flogging.[@am]
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Article 41 of the 2010 law punished cannabis cultivation on up to one acre with up to two months in prison, with five days added for each additional quarter-acre; an organiser or instigator received double, and the crop was destroyed without compensation.[@af2010] On 19 March 2023 the Taliban's supreme leader issued a decree banning cannabis cultivation across the country: crops are destroyed and growers sent to court. Afghanistan had long been one ofare brought before the world's largest hashish producerscourts.[@am]
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Sharia punishments including flogging, are applied unevenly: hashish remains widely used and the cultivation ban has been enforced less thoroughly than the opium ban.[@aan] In a 2025 case involving hashish trafficking, a Taliban court imposed prison terms and 10– to 39 lashes on eleven people.[@afj] The last codified law also allowed life imprisonment for large-scale trafficking and death for armed resistance that caused a death.[@sherloc]
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The available cannabis-specific legislation sets prison terms rather than death forHashish trafficking. A 2025 Taliban ruling imposed seven months is graded by weight: up to three and a half years10 g brought up to one month in prison, 10 to 100 g one to two months, 100 to 500 g two to three months, 500 g to 1 kg three to six months, and 1 to 5 kg six months to one year. Above 5 kg the sentence was one year plus lashesthree months for each additional 500 g, incapped at ten years.[@af2010] Herbal cannabis followed a case involving hashishseparate scale, reaching three to ten years for more than 5 kg.[@af2010] The 2010 law also allowed life imprisonment for large-scale trafficking and narcotic tabletsdeath for armed resistance that caused a death.[@sherloc]
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Use is prohibited. A person certified as addicted who uses or holds up to 50 g of hashish for personal consumption is exempt from prosecution and taken to a treatment centre; drugan addicted person with more than that can be detained for treatment and punished.[@af2010] Outside that exemption, users face sharia punishment, and the Taliban have been rounded drug users up into compulsory treatment camps.[@aan]
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NoneThere is no legal source of cannabis for adults or patients, and no licensed medical or adult-use supply was found.[@cann] A pre-2021 plan for a licensed medical cannabis project came to nothing.[@aan]
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The available cannabis-specific legislation sets prison terms rather than death for trafficking.[@sherloc]
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Afghanistan long ranked among the world's largest hashish producers; [a 2023 Taliban decre … been enforced less thoroughly than the opium ban, and hashish remains widely used.[@aan] No recent national production or price figures were found.
Afghanistan has a *chars* [charas](resin/culture/language/charas/) and [hashish](/culture/language/hashish/) tradition: manufacture by sieving probably dates back to the nineteenth century, and growing cannabis and trading *chars*charas was a major economic asset around Balkh and the Khyber at the turn of the twentieth century.[@asc] Babur described eating *majoun*, a hashish confection, in his memoirs; nineteenth-century travellers from Elphinstone (1809) to Ferrier (1858) record Afghans drinking bhang and smoking chillums.[@asc] The Hindu Kush gave its name to [kush](/culture/language/kush/), and Afghan hashish plants were carried to California in the 1970s; the old farmers' populations are [landraces](/culture/language/landrace/).[@asc] The botanical vocabulary of [indica and sativa](/culture/language/indica-and-sativa/) also drew on Afghan drug types, which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century botanists placed under *Cannabis indica*.[@asc] [Chicken Street](/culture/traditions/chicken-street/) in Kabul became the travellers' quarter where the hashish trade met foreign customers and diplomatic pressure.[@asc]
None; aNo licensed production exists. The 2010 law allowed cultivation only under its penalty scale, and the 2023 Taliban decree bans it outright.[@af2010,am] A pre-2021 plan for a licensed medical cannabis project came to nothing.[@aan]
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No medical cannabis programme or patient supply was found.[@cann] Cannabis is not listed as a medicine in the sources read, and the 2023 cultivation ban leaves no lawful production route.[@am]
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Forced detentionA drug offence can bring imprisonment and flogging, and users can be detained in compulsory treatment centres is the main riskcamps.[@aan] A 2025 trafficking case ended with prison terms of seven months to three and a half years and 10 to 39 lashes for userseleven people.[@afj]
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No cannabis clubs are known, and the law leaves no room for them: growing cannabis and supplying it to another person are both prohibited.[@am,af2010]
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There is no legal recreational supply for anyone. Possession is illegal; under the Taliban offenders are tried by sharia courts, with imprisonment and flogging.[@cann,am] The law makes no exception for visitors.[@af2010]
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Afghanistan — Law on Campaign against Intoxicants, Drugs and their Control, Official Gazette 1025 (14 June 2010) 6 unchanged
AFN
label Certified addiction, up to 50 g hashish · treatment tolerated · term Personal use · note Exempt from prosecution and referred to treatment, label Other personal possession · treatment criminal · term Possession · note Prosecuted on the hashish or cannabis trafficking scale; Taliban courts also apply sharia punishment
AFN
label Up to one acre · treatment criminal · term Cultivation · prison 2 months · note Crop destroyed without compensation, label More than one acre · treatment criminal · term Cultivation · note Two months plus five days for each additional quarter-acre; crop destroyed, label Organiser or instigator · treatment criminal · term Cultivation · note Double the cultivation penalty
label Up to 10 g hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison 1 month, label Over 10 g up to 100 g hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison min 1 month · prison 2 months, label Over 100 g up to 500 g hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison min 2 months · prison 3 months, label Over 500 g up to 1 kg hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison min 3 months · prison 6 months, label Over 1 kg up to 5 kg hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison min 6 months · prison 1 year, label Over 5 kg hashish · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · prison min 1 year · note One year plus three months per additional 500 g, up to 10 years
label Certified addiction, up to 50 g hashish · treatment tolerated · term Use · note Exempt from prosecution; treatment referral, label Use without certification · treatment criminal · term Use · note Sharia punishment; compulsory treatment camps
none
No industrial-hemp exception, THC limit or licensing scheme was found. The 2023 decree bans cannabis cultivation, and the last codified law made no distinction for fibre hemp.[@am,af2010]
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grey
unclear
illegal
banned
The 2010 law controlled the cannabis plant and made no seed exception; sowing was cultivation and carried the Article 41 penalties.[@af2010] Clones are plants, so keeping or trading them falls under the same ban, and the 2023 decree prohibits cultivation outright.[@af2010,am] No seed-sale or clone market was found.
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No cannabis-specific driving offence or THC limit was found in the last codified drug law or in the Taliban decrees read.[@af2010,am] The status is left unverified rather than treating a general traffic rule as a drug-driving offence.
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No national arrest or seizure figures for cannabis have been published since the Taliban takeover. The Afghanistan Justice Archive recorded a May 2025 Taliban court case in which eleven people were sentenced for hashish and tablet trafficking, with prison terms of seven months to three and a half years and 10 to 39 lashes.[@afj]
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