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+# Venezuela: possession, treatment and sentencing gaps
+
+Research date: 25 October 2026. Venezuela had eight history entries before this
+pass. Four entries and three articles are added; three existing entries and the
+1993 article are revised. This closes substantial gaps between the early aggregate
+restriction estimate, the organic drug laws and the constitutional sentencing cases.
+
+## Sources actually read
+
+- [1964 Penal Code amendment supplied by Venezuela to the UN](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1297967/files/e-nl-1965-50-s.pdf),
+ E/NL.1965/50, reproducing Gazette 915 Extraordinary of 30 June 1964. Article 26
+ substitutes article 367: marijuana holdings, growing and supply carry four to
+ eight years; drug-use meeting places two to five years; attendees six months to
+ two years without bail. The full two-page reproduction was read. The year-only
+ event does not claim that publication proves commencement or first prohibition.
+- [Original 1984 law supplied to the UN](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/55480/files/e-nl-1985-93-s.pdf),
+ E/NL.1985/93, Gazette 3.411 Extraordinary, 17 July 1984. Read the offence,
+ consumer-procedure and final provisions; compared the
+ [UNODC copy](https://sherloc.unodc.org/cld/uploads/res/document/ven/ley_organica_sobre_sustancias_estupefacientes_y_psicotropica_spanish_html/Ley_organica_sobre_sustancias_estupefacientes_y_psicotropica.pdf).
+ Articles 49–55 already place consumers and immediate personal-dose holders
+ under security measures, including residential rehabilitation. The judge uses
+ forensic reports; there is no fixed gram limit here. Articles 31–33 provide
+ ten to twenty years for supply/growing and six to ten for the separate
+ possession offence. Articles 193 and 197 address treatment facilities and
+ repeal of the 6 August 1934 law. Legislative signature was 4 July; executive
+ signature/publication 17 July. No delayed start was found in the final clauses.
+- [1993 reform and explanatory memorandum supplied to the UN](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/214023/files/e-nl-1995-01-02-s.pdf),
+ E/NL.1995/1, Gazette 4.636 Extraordinary, 30 September 1993. Read the memorandum
+ on articles 36 and 75, statutory articles 34–36 and 75–77, and compared the
+ [Justia statutory copy](https://docs.venezuela.justia.com/federales/leyes-organicas/ley-organica-sobre-sustancias-estupefacientes-y-psicotropicas.pdf).
+ Both the separate possession offence and consumer route specify twenty grams
+ of cannabis. The memorandum expressly describes the sentence cut from six–ten
+ to four–six years, inconsistent judicial quantity assessments, and failure to
+ supply facilities/professional posts for the earlier treatment regime. It
+ reports criminalisation of consumers in practice. This was not the first
+ statutory personal-use treatment route.
+- [2005 law, corrected December reprint held by the OAS](https://www.oas.org/ext/Portals/33/Files/MLA/Ven_multla_leg_esp_13.doc.pdf).
+ The OAS PDF was read through the web reader (local requests returned 403),
+ including articles 31–34, 70–71 and publication/signature notices; compared
+ the [complete Justia text](https://docs.venezuela.justia.com/federales/leyes-organicas/ley-organica-contra-el-trafico-ilicito-y-el-consumo-de-sustancias-estupefacientes-y-psicotropicas.pdf).
+ Article 34 reduces the separate possession offence to one–two years; article
+ 33 sets growing at six–ten years and wage labour at three–five. Personal use
+ is individually assessed under article 70. Initial Gazette 38.287 was
+ 5 October; reprints followed on 26 October and 16 December. The event uses
+ October precision because the original commencement clause was not separately
+ established. It does not date the reform to its December reprint.
+- [Original 2010 law, Gazette 39.510, 15 September](https://www.unodc.org/cld/uploads/res/document/ven/ley-drogas_html/Venezuela_Ley_Organzia_De_Drogas_R-10-92.pdf),
+ read alongside the [November corrected gazette held by Refworld](https://www.refworld.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/14449.pdf)
+ and full copies at Caja Venezolana and Sovedagro. The Refworld PDF was read
+ through the web reader; local download returned 403. Relevant original and
+ corrected pages were compared, including articles 130–132, 141, 149, 151,
+ 153, 177–178. Final provision eight expressly starts the law on publication:
+ 15 September, not either corrected reprint date. Individual-dose treatment
+ under article 131 differs from criminal possession under article 153, which
+ can carry one–two years within its twenty-gram cannabis band. Lower growing
+ offences carry six–ten years; supply penalties rose relative to 2005.
+- [Constitutional Chamber judgment 387, 1 June 2017, full primary text reproduced by Pandectas Digital](https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2017/06/sentencia-n-383-de-fecha-1-de-junio-de_2.html).
+ Read the reproduced judgment, particularly sections I and III–IV. The URL
+ contains “383”, but the reproduced judgment is 387. A direct Gazette 41.181
+ PDF could not be retrieved; no claim is made to have read that PDF. Decision
+ date 1 June differs from Gazette publication 27 June. The court annuls article
+ 177(4)'s statutory-maximum-six-years condition prospectively. The case concerned
+ two men with four-year sentences over 27.7 grams of cannabis material and seeds.
+ The remaining general actual-sentence ceiling was five years. Suspension is
+ conditional and supervised, not automatic release or repeal of the offence.
+ The 2014 entry is reconstructed from this later court's account of binding
+ judgment 1859 of 18 December 2014; the original 2014 judgment was not read.
+
+Local PDFs were text-extracted; rendered gazette pages were also inspected to
+check the treatment and penalty provisions against column-layout extraction.
+Search snippets served as leads, not as verification. No new book was used.
+
+## Data and scoring decisions
+
+The current cultivation and sharing scores each fall from 1 to 0 under the
+existing scoring rules: even the lesser growing band carries six–ten years, and
+article 149 supply includes uncompensated distribution with lengthy prison terms.
+The resulting exact and displayed country score is 10, formerly 13.5. This is a
+correction of the assessment of existing law, not a new 2026 legal restriction.
+Other current dimension scores remain unchanged. The profile distinguishes the
+individual consumer procedure from the twenty-gram criminal-possession band,
+corrects foreign expulsion to the criminal accessory rule after serving a sentence,
+and incorporates the 2017 suspension ruling.
+
+Historical snapshots now put the personal-use change at 17 July 1984: aggregate
+score 3 to 10, with possession 0 to 2 and enforcement 1 to 2. This enforcement step
+represents the formal change from a prison offence to treatment measures; it is
+not evidence of a measured fall in arrests or imprisonment in 1984. The 1993
+memorandum explicitly reports implementation failure, retained in both articles.
+There is insufficient representative evidence here to assign a different current
+enforcement frequency score. The 1993 change becomes context, since the personal
+route already existed; the separate criminal sentence cuts do not cross the
+personal-use scoring boundary. The 1964, 2005 and conditional 2014/2017 court
+steps have explicit unscored reasons. The 2010 event is classified as tightening
+because supply and growing ranges rose, while its personal-use score remains 10.
+
+The pre-1984 restrictive snapshot and the 1925–1950 first-restriction estimate remain
+provisional aggregates. The 1984 law confirms repeal of the 1934 law, but its
+original cannabis scope and commencement were not verified. The 1964 entry is
+not presented as Venezuela's first cannabis ban. Original 1914/1930/1934 texts,
+the earliest cannabis coverage, and the transition into the 1964 penalties remain
+priority gaps. No claim of an exhaustive late-2026 case-law audit is made.
+
+## Validation
+
+All 37 history tests and six answer/profile tests passed. The production build
+passed with 4,121 pages. A parsed comparison confirms exactly four new events and
+only three revised existing events, with unrelated profile context preserved.
+All four articles have 350–500 words, four headings, cited source lists and valid
+history links. Rendered checks validated 89 citation targets, internal history
+links, citation-free JSON/CSV exports and the 1984 score transition (3 to 10).
+The Venezuela score-chain audit reports no flagged steps. Desktop checks of the 1984 and 2010 pages and mobile checks of the 2017
+article and country profile found no horizontal overflow. The 1984 desktop and
+2017 mobile screenshots were visually inspected: headings, article text, score
+panels and references render correctly. The existing staged and
+unstaged source archive changes are excluded from this content commit.
scripts/history-scope.test.cjs +13 −0
@@ -933,2 +933,15 @@ test("Vietnam sale brackets, South Sudan's cannabis exclusion, and Bangladesh se
assert.ok(digital.unscored);
});
+
+test("Venezuela separates personal use from the criminal quantity band and dates treatment to 1984", () => {
+ const ve = y.load(fs.readFileSync("countries/ve.yaml", "utf8"));
+ assert.match(ve.segments.possession.text, /Article 131/);
+ assert.match(ve.segments.possession.text, /Article 153/);
+ assert.match(ve.segments.possession.text, /one to two years/);
+ assert.equal(ve.scores.cultivation, 0);
+ assert.equal(ve.scores.sharing, 0);
+ assert.equal(byId["venezuela-drug-law-1984"].category, "easing");
+ assert.ok(byId["venezuela-drug-law-1984"].before);
+ assert.equal(byId["venezuela-personal-dose-1993"].before, undefined);
+ assert.ok(byId["venezuela-drug-law-1984"].sources.some(s => s.url.includes("e-nl-1985-93-s.pdf")));
+});