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+# Suriname: filling the 1921–1990 gap
+
+Research checked on 26 October 2026. Read the maintenance and writing guides, README,
+book-research rules, score rubric, schema, Suriname profile and all eight existing events.
+The previous bug-fix turn made verified progress; this continuation resumes the wider history goal.
+The dated history had a 69-year gap between the 1921 petition and 1990 treaty record.
+Seven additions reduce the largest gap to 33 years, between 1922 and 1955. Two articles
+explain the replacement drug laws. This is progress on coverage, not a claim that Suriname's
+legal or scoring history is now complete.
+
+## Sources actually read
+
+- **1955 Opium Act**, G.B. 1955 no. 91, government-communicated English translation in
+ UN E/NL.1958/72, all eight pages. The adopted and published date is **22 September 1955**.
+ Articles 1–4 distinguish plant tops/resin/preparations from extracts/tinctures, prohibit
+ cannabis cultivation and specified possession, use and border movement; articles 6–8
+ preserve professional, medical and scientific permissions. Article 12 has a **four-year
+ deliberate-offence maximum**, and six months or 3,000 florins for the other branch.
+ Article 17 delegates commencement and identifies the predecessor as the **10 June 1928**
+ ordinance, G.B. no. 51. The commencement order was not recovered. PDF p. 6 was rendered
+ and inspected for the penalty and confiscation clauses; pp. 1–5, 7–8 were read as text.
+- **1972 orders**, UN E/NL.1974/47–48, all four pages. Order **6575**, signed **9 December**,
+ lists THC as item 14, with salts/isomers/preparations, and withdraws Order 1038 of
+ 18 February 1972. It was published **20 December** and commenced the next day. PDF p. 4
+ was rendered and inspected. The withdrawn February text is not available here, so this
+ is an express designation, not an asserted first-ever THC ban. Companion Order 5976
+ mainly lists other drugs and is not given a separate cannabis event.
+- **1980 procedure amendment**, Decree C-31, S.B. 1980 no. 116. Read the opening,
+ Article IV item 71 (Opium Act), and Article V item 108 (commencement). The decree was
+ signed 11 November and took effect **15 November 1980**. Item 71 rewrites seizure and
+ confiscation, replaces article 12(3) with mandatory drug forfeiture and deletes 12(4)–(5).
+ Printed/PDF pp. **15 and 23** were rendered and inspected. The SRIS scan was downloaded
+ with a standard User-Agent after an initial request was rejected; no access barrier was bypassed.
+- **Criminal Code**, historical consolidation through S.B. 2004 no. 105, as reproduced by
+ WIPO Lex: article **49a** and annotation **42**. The annotation identifies insertion by
+ **S.B. 1980 no. 67**. The court may order government care after an Opium Act conviction
+ if in the convicted person's interest. No precise day, individual right to diversion,
+ replacement of prison, cannabis-only use rate or routine implementation is established.
+- **1998 Drugs Act**, original government-communicated text in UN E/NL.1999/55, all sixteen
+ PDF pages, especially articles 2–4, 6–8, 11–12, 17 and List II part B. The thirteen-year
+ possession/use/domestic-supply tier and life-or-twenty-year cultivation/import tier are
+ already in this original text; they must not be attributed to the 2002 amendment alone.
+ The Act was signed **12 February 1998** and published **17 May 1998**; neither date is
+ treated as commencement.
+- **National Assembly consolidation**, as amended in 2002: articles 11 and 17, with
+ footnote 3 on printed/PDF p. **8** identifying **20 January 1999**, S.B. 1999 no. 23,
+ as commencement. That page was rendered and inspected. Original and consolidated
+ penalty provisions agree; the later annotation is used only for the commencement date.
+- **Government explanatory memorandum to the 1998 Act**, reproduced on Suriname.nu's
+ customs-law pages: introduction, replacement-versus-amendment discussion, treaty and
+ regional-cooperation background, and the commentary on cannabis products, preparation,
+ conspiracy and increased penalties. Read the reproduced government account, not the
+ website's own legal advice. No unverifiable individual sentencing practice is inferred.
+- **National Anti-Drugs Council, National Drugs Master Plan 2006–2010**, December 2005:
+ section 2.2, printed p. 10. It explains the 1955 law's replacement and identifies its
+ last amendment as S.B. 1988 no. 37. The amendment's contents remain unrecovered.
+- **Koloniaal Verslag 1923, II Suriname**, reporting 1922: printed/PDF p. **8**,
+ “Opiumverordening”, read in text and visually. Fourteen **combined opium/ganja**
+ possession convictions: twelve fines of f10–500 and two six-month sentences. No
+ detected cannabis-growing offences. The OCR's prison duration was checked against
+ the scan: six months. These are not cannabis-only statistics or a general sentencing rate.
+- **Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch West-Indië (1914–1917)**, online DBNL edition:
+ “Ganja”, p. **306**, and “Opium”, p. **539**. Read both entries and the edition's
+ bibliographic/accountability page, which reproduces the title page and identifies the
+ Leiden library copy. They date the 1908 ordinance to **17 February**, the import
+ deadline to **1 March 1918**, and report 689 kg of ganja imported in 1913. Opium-only
+ retail licence conditions are not copied over as cannabis conditions. These are selected
+ online reference entries, not a newly imported or fully read local-library book.
+
+UN Digital Library pages failed through the browser fetcher, but their PDF links downloaded
+successfully and the actual documents were read. Delpher links to the 1904 pharmacy story
+and 1923 prohibition story were inaccessible; neither newspaper is cited as read.
+Wikipedia was used to locate these leads and check the earlier narrative, not as a new
+source for the added laws.
+
+## Edits and article scope
+
+Added the 1918 deferred import prohibition, 1922 enforcement figures, 1955 replacement Act,
+1972 express THC designation, 1980 post-conviction care power, 1980 confiscation rewrite,
+and 1999 commencement. The existing 1908 entry now distinguishes the future import
+cutoff; the existing 1998 entry distinguishes signature from commencement and links forward.
+No other country's records are part of the commit.
+
+- `articles/suriname-opium-order-1955.md`: **368 words**, four sections; earlier trade and
+ enforcement, offences and exceptions, later care power and replacement.
+- `articles/suriname-drugs-act-commencement-1999.md`: **407 words**, four sections;
+ government purpose, conduct-specific penalties, preparation/conspiracy and commencement.
+
+Every article source is cited inline; internal history links were checked. No illustration
+was added: the legal documents support the story without a decorative image.
+
+## Score decisions and remaining gaps
+
+The current six scores and profile are unchanged. New procedural, care and product entries
+lack evidence for a whole-segment change. The 1955 event is explicitly adoption/publication
+with delegated commencement; the 1998 and 1999 records now separate the two stages.
+Higher maximum sentences in a replacement prohibition do not alone prove a different
+custodial-user band or sentencing frequency.
+
+The existing **1908 100→9 aggregate step remains provisional**. The newly read sources
+contradict its former suggestion of an immediate blanket end to imports, and the public
+text has been corrected. A defensible six-segment split between the 1908 ordinance and
+its 1918 deadline needs the **full 1908/1915 texts and earlier pharmacy/tax rules**. The
+1896 pharmacy-only claim still rests on a secondary lead; the 1904 newspaper's underlying
+1896 rule needs recovery. This pass therefore does not invent a precise earlier vector
+or an extra drop for the already aggregated regime. A zero-flag chain report establishes
+mathematical consistency only; it does not validate that old allocation.
+
+Other priorities: the full 1928 law, commencement of the 1955 law, the withdrawn February
+1972 order, original S.B. 1980 no. 67 and its commencement, and the 1988 amendment.
+The 2018 medical-study committee remains a separate existing triage item to verify against
+its appointment source. The goal of complete coverage remains active.
+
+## Validation
+
+Candidate-history comparison isolates exactly **seven additions and two revisions**, all
+Suriname, and preserves every other HEAD record. Both articles meet the length, heading,
+source-use and link requirements. `history:test` and `answers:test`, the production build,
+rendered history/article pages, country History tab and history exports are checked for
+this batch; final results are recorded below. Temporary research files remain in the ignored
+`tmp/history-suriname-gap-2026-10-26/` folder. Source-archive staging and concurrent work
+are excluded from this commit.
+
+Final results: `npm run history:test` **39/39 passed**; `npm run answers:test`
+**27/27 passed**. Production build completed with **4,233 pages**. All seven new
+entries occur in the built history CSV and have detail pages. A background browser
+check confirmed the country History tab has 15 entries and renders all seven additions;
+both new articles render their headings, inline citations and references, including
+the 20 January 1999 commencement date. Candidate assertions confirmed seven additions,
+two revisions, article lengths of 368 and 407 words, four headings each, all sources
+cited, valid internal links, and a largest remaining dated gap of 33 years.
+`git diff --check` passed. The repository's open bug-labelled issue search was also
+rechecked and returned no issues; the earlier bug-fix commit remains `7d22787`.