Verify Papua New Guinea's 1970 and 2022 drug-law entries

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+# Papua New Guinea: closing the 1970 possession gap, 26 October 2026
+
+The 1970 and 2022 Papua New Guinea entries were added in an earlier pass but left unchecked. This pass read the
+UN trusteeship report, the 1952 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, the consolidated old Act, the 1973
+*Henderson* judgment, the short-lived 2021 amendment, the 2022 Controlled Substance Act and the
+commencement gazette. It checked the 1970 and 2022 entries, added the 2021 amendment as an
+unscored context entry, corrected the 1970 locator from Chapter 9 to Chapter 8, added the 1952
+ordinance as a source, and replaced the profile's dead Parliament link with an archived copy. No
+scores moved.
+
+## The documents
+
+### The 1970 trusteeship report
+
+**United Nations, T/1733, 23 May 1972.** The report of the Commonwealth of Australia on the
+administration of Papua New Guinea covers 1 July 1970 to 30 June 1971. The drug passage is in
+Chapter 8, "Narcotic Drugs", printed p. 182, PDF p. 211. Chapter 9, "Drugs", begins on printed
+p. 183 and is a short general chapter; it does not contain the possession passage. The entry and
+article use the Chapter 8 locator.
+
+The report says:
+
+> Narcotic drugs are neither manufactured or produced in, nor exported from Papua New Guinea.
+> Importation is controlled by the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance 1952-1970.
+
+It then describes the gap:
+
+> It was indicated that, as the result of a recent prosecution, a loophole had been discovered in
+> the Papua New Guinea legislation which enabled persons to possess or smoke locally grown
+> marihuana. This anomaly was corrected when the Dangerous Drugs (Possession) Bill was adopted by
+> the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly in 1970. This Bill amended the principal Ordinance.
+
+The report also records an officer's evidence to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Drug
+Trafficking and Drug Abuse: "isolated instances of trafficking in narcotic drugs and a very small
+incidence of drug abuse." The prosecution, the person prosecuted and the exact date are not given.
+
+### The 1952 ordinance
+
+**United Nations, E/NL.1956/73–75, 6 September 1956.** The document communicates the Dangerous
+Drugs Ordinance 1952 (No. 21 of 1953) under the 1931 Narcotics Convention. The ordinance was
+reserved on 4 November 1952 and the Governor-General's assent was notified on 23 April 1953. The
+PacLII index gives its commencement as 25 August 1955. It is on pp. 1–3 of the UN document;
+the regulations follow on pp. 4–5.
+
+The definition of "dangerous drugs" includes, at paragraph (f):
+
+> galenical preparations (such as extract and tincture) of Indian Hemp and all preparations made
+> from such galenical preparations.
+
+"Indian hemp" is defined as the dried flowering or fruiting tops of *Cannabis sativa* from which
+the resin has not been extracted. The definition therefore covered hemp extracts and tinctures, not
+the raw plant material that people smoked.
+
+Section 9 allowed imports only for medicinal purposes, under licence. Section 12(1) created
+possession offences only for a "prohibited import": possession on board a ship, importation, or
+possession of a prohibited import brought in contrary to the ordinance or a licence. Its penalty
+was three months to two years. Section 12(2) applied the section to raw opium, prepared opium and
+all dangerous drugs whose importation was prohibited. Section 14 punished exporting or making a
+dangerous drug with a fine of £50 or three months. Raw, locally grown cannabis was not a listed
+dangerous drug, and local possession fell outside section 12. That is the loophole the 1970 Act
+closed.
+
+### The consolidated old Act
+
+**Dangerous Drugs Act (Chapter 228), consolidated to No 23 of 1990.** The vLex text is in vigour
+from 25 August 1955. Section 3(1) provides:
+
+> A person who knowingly—
+> (a) cultivates a plant from which a dangerous drug can be made; or
+> (b) makes a dangerous drug; or
+> (c) exports a dangerous drug; or
+> (d) is in possession of or conveys a dangerous drug or a plant or part of a plant from which a
+> dangerous drug can be made,
+> is guilty of an offence unless he is authorized to do so by or under some other Act.
+> Penalty: Imprisonment for a term of not less than three months and not exceeding two years.
+
+The consolidation note says section 3(1) was amended by the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1990
+(No. 23 of 1990) and that "it is unclear whether this Act has commenced." The text shows both the
+amended opening ("A person who knowingly—") and the original ("A person who—"). The 1990 amendment
+was to add "knowingly" to all four paragraphs. The consolidation is the fullest statement of the
+old regime; the 1970 Act's own text was not recovered.
+
+### Henderson v Blackwell
+
+**[1973] PNGLR 223, 5 April 1973, Frost SPJ.** Henderson was convicted in the District Court at
+Boroka (as the judgment spells it) under section 7(1)(d) of the Dangerous Drugs (Possession) Act
+1970 and sentenced to three months, the minimum. The judgment quotes the provision:
+
+> By s7(1)(d) of the Dangerous Drugs (Possession) Act 1970, inter alia a person shall not knowingly
+> be in possession of a dangerous drug and shall be liable to a penalty of "Imprisonment for not
+> less than three months or more than two years."
+
+The Supreme Court held that the minimum did not exclude section 138(1)(b) of the District Courts
+Act (conditional release) or section 206(2) (a fine in lieu of imprisonment). It allowed the appeal
+and remitted the case for further hearing. This is the only source found that gives the 1970 Act's
+own section number and quoted penalty.
+
+### The 2021 amendment
+
+**Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 2021, No. 20 of 2021.** The three-page scan is an archived copy
+of the Parliament PDF. The Act is "MADE by the National Parliament to come into operation upon
+certification by the Speaker." Its arrangement of sections lists only the repeal and replacement
+of section 3 of the principal Act. The replacement repeats the four paragraphs of the old section
+3(1), with "knowingly," and sets a penalty of a fine not exceeding K1,000,000 or imprisonment for
+a term not exceeding 40 years, or both; offences are punishable on summary conviction. The
+certifying officers record that the Act was made on 25 November 2021 and certified on 13 January
+2022.
+
+This was a genuine but very short-lived change. The Controlled Substance Act commenced on 31 March
+2022, eleven weeks later, and replaced the old Act. The 2021 entry is therefore `unscored`: scoring
+it would show a flat 40-year maximum for simple possession and then a 2022 "easing" when the new
+tiers are in fact a tightening against the long-standing three-month-to-two-year regime.
+
+### The 2022 Act and the commencement gazette
+
+**Controlled Substance Act 2021, No. 26 of 2021.** The archived Parliament scan and OCR were read.
+Schedule I lists Cannabis, Cannabis resin, Cannabis Oil and Cannabis Sativa Plants. Section 34
+declares a Schedule I controlled plant strictly prohibited and not to be cultivated. Section 58
+makes Schedule I substances strictly prohibited. Section 59 creates the cultivation offence.
+Section 63 creates the possession offence, section 64 deals with implements, section 65 with
+facilitating use, and section 68 with trafficking.
+
+Schedule VII, Part A, sets the quantity and penalty table for Schedule I and Schedule II
+substances:
+
+| Quantity | Penalty |
+| --- | --- |
+| 10 g or less | Up to 2 years, a K15,000 fine, or both |
+| More than 10 g and less than 2 kg | Up to 15 years, a K25,000 fine, or both |
+| More than 2 kg | 16 years to life, a K26,000–K2,000,000 fine, or both |
+
+For plants, the table gives fewer than five plants up to two years; more than five but fewer than
+20 plants up to 15 years; and more than 20 plants 16 years to life. The table leaves the exact
+five- and twenty-plant cases unclear.
+
+**National Gazette No. G198, 22 March 2022.** The Governor-General's notice, dated 21 March 2022,
+fixes 31 March 2022 as the date the Controlled Substance Act 2021 and the Lawyers (Amendment) Act
+2021 come into operation. The notice is on PDF p. 55, printed pp. 197–198. This is the primary
+source for the 2022 entry's date; the Parliament PDF itself does not give a commencement date.
+
+### The index
+
+**PacLII, Index to the Laws of Papua New Guinea, April 2019**, archived copy. The relevant entries
+are:
+
+- Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, 21/1953, commenced 25.08.1955, Chapter 228.
+- Dangerous Drugs Act 1960, 58/1960, 19.01.1961, Chapter 228.
+- Dangerous Drugs Act 1962, 19/1962, 24.05.1962, Chapter 228.
+- Dangerous Drugs (Extension of Definition) Act 1968, 39/1968, 12.09.1968, Chapter 228.
+- Dangerous Drugs (Possession) Act 1970, 82/1970, no chapter number or commencement date.
+- Dangerous Drugs (Amendment of Section 9) Act 1973, 34/1973, Chapter 228.
+- Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1990, 23/1990, "NIF" (not in force).
+- Dangerous Drugs Regulations 1955, 23/1955, 25.08.1955, Chapter 228.
+
+The 1970 Act's year-only date in the index is why the entry keeps `date: "1970"` and the article
+says "in 1970" rather than giving a day.
+
+## Database changes
+
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