Cannabis Freedom Index

Changelog fb49f12

Fill Jersey's 1955-1998 history gap

6 history entries added4 history entries edited2 articles written2 files of code, design or docs +434 −13 lines

History changes.yaml

Added 6

Edited 4

Jersey lets Centeniers fine people for possessing cannabis

description

The Crime (Public Order) (Jersey) Law 2024 came into force on 18 October 2024.[@1] It inserted Article 28A into the Misuse of Drugs Law, allowing a Centenier at a Parish Hal … sessing a Class B or Class C drug if the person accepts it, without a criminal conviction.[@1,2]

checked

falsetrue

Jersey puts cannabis imports and exports under licence

date

19541955-0401-1301

title

Jersey brings Indian hempputs cannabis imports and exports under its dangerous drugs lawlicence

description

The Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, sanctioned by the King in Council on 13 April 1954, controlled theFrom 1 January 1955 nobody could import, or export, production and sale Indian hemp — the dried flowering tops of raw opiumcannabis — or its resin except under a licence from the Public Health Committee, coca leaves and Indian hempthen only through St Helier port or the airport.[@1,2] Making possession, growing or selling an offence was left to later orders: the law itself only gave the Committee power to control them.[@1] It isreplaced the earliest Jerseyisland's 1923 dangerous drugs law on cannabis found here; Britain, which had brought cannabis under controlbeen concerned with opium and cocaine.[@2,3] Breaking the law could bring a fine of up to £1,000, ten years in 1928prison, or both.[@1]

sources

Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1954, L.5/1954 Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1954 (Commencement) Act, 1954, R&O 3503 Cannevi — Cannabis Prohibition in Jersey Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law 1954

tags

trade

related

jersey-cultivation-ban-1965, jersey-possession-ban-1966

Articles and atlas entries 2

Code, design and documents 2 files

docs/DATA-MAINTENANCE.md +12 −0
@@ -1522,4 +1522,16 @@ at 2, with primary-law treatment, testing and deportation details in the profile
 Earlier cannabis coverage and the aggregate first-restriction estimate remain open.
 
+A [Jersey gap pass](research/history-jersey-gap-2026-10-26.md) on 26 October
+2026 fills the longest modern gap in the history (1954 to 2018). Six entries
+from the enacted Jersey laws add the 1965 cultivation ban, the 1966 possession
+and supply order, the 1971 cannabinol listing, the 1978 law as it took full
+effect in 1980, and the 1998 and 2015 Parish Hall caution guidance. The 1954
+entry is re-dated to its 1 January 1955 commencement and rewritten: it licensed
+imports and exports only, and possession waited until 1966. The score chain is
+rebuilt in stages (100→97→70→12→14→16→19) instead of one drop at 1954, the
+2019 medical order now carries its access step, and the unchecked 2024
+Centenier entry was verified against the law. Two articles cover the 1955
+border rule and the 1966 possession ban. Today's scores are unchanged.
+
 ### Mixed legal products and maximum penalties
 

docs/research/history-jersey-gap-2026-10-26.md +149 −0
@@ -0,0 +1,149 @@
+# Jersey, 1955 to 1998: filling the 64-year gap
+
+Research checked on 26 October 2026. Read `DATA-MAINTENANCE.md` and
+`WRITING.md`, the Jersey profile and its eight history entries before editing.
+No book was used. Jersey had the longest modern gap in the history: no entry
+between the 1954 dangerous drugs law and the 2018 medical-prescribing vote.
+This pass adds six entries, gives the 2019 medical order the score step it was
+missing, verifies the one unchecked Jersey entry (the 2024 Centenier fines),
+re-dates and rewrites the 1954 entry, and writes two articles. Cameroon was
+left to another agent; nothing outside Jersey was touched.
+
+## Sources actually read
+
+Jersey Law refuses plain fetches (it returns a block page), so the enacted
+PDFs were read through Wayback copies of the same `jerseylaw.je` addresses,
+then extracted with `pdftotext`. What was read in full:
+
+- Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1954 (L.5/1954): arrangement, Articles 1–4
+  (Part I: raw opium, coca leaves, Indian hemp and resin preparations;
+  import/export only under licence, through St Helier or the airport),
+  Article 3 (Committee power to control production, possession, sale and
+  distribution by order), Article 10 (extracts and tinctures of Indian hemp
+  in Part III), Article 14(2) (fine up to £1,000, ten years, or both, plus
+  forfeiture), Article 21 (repeal of the Loi passed 1 October 1923 and
+  confirmed 19 December 1923) and Article 22 (commencement by appointed day).
+- Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1954 (Commencement) Act, 1954 (R&O 3503):
+  the law came into force on 1 January 1955; repeal of four named provisions
+  of the 1923 Loi waited until 1 January 1957.
+- Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) (Jersey) Law, 1965 (L.17/1965): Article 2
+  (Indian hemp becomes cannabis and cannabis resin), Article 7 (occupier
+  permitting premises for smoking or dealing) and Article 8 (knowing
+  cultivation except under licence). Sanctioned 18 September 1965,
+  registered 5 November 1965; the law has no separate commencement article,
+  so the entry is dated by year only.
+- Dangerous Drugs (General Provisions) (Jersey) Order, 1966 (R&O 4779):
+  Articles 1–4 (supply, procuring, advertising and possession of cannabis
+  other than extracts and tinctures, except as authorised or licensed;
+  general authority for practitioners, veterinary surgeons, authorised
+  sellers of poisons and hospital pharmacists), Article 12 (authorised
+  sellers may still make and dispense extracts and tinctures), and
+  Article 32 (made 18 April 1966, in force 1 May 1966).
+- Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1978 (L.10/1978): Second Schedule Part II
+  (cannabis and cannabis resin, Class B), cannabinol in Class A, Fourth
+  Schedule penalties (Class B possession five years, supply and intent
+  fourteen) and Fifth Schedule repeals (1954, 1965, 1964 and 1972 laws).
+- Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1978 (Appointed Day) (No. 2) Act, 1980
+  (R&O 6797): everything not already in force came into force on
+  1 May 1980. The endnotes of the consolidated law record the first
+  appointed day (Articles 2 and 30 and Schedule 1, 1 January 1979,
+  R&O 6603); only the 1980 date is used in the entry.
+- Crime (Public Order) (Jersey) Law 2024 (L.9/2024): Article 13(3) inserting
+  Article 28A into the 1978 law (Centenier level 1 fine for Class B/C
+  possession accepted by the person charged); adopted 7 February 2024,
+  registered 11 October, in force 18 October 2024.
+- Attorney General's Directive 1/2015 letter and Centenier Written Caution
+  Guidelines (gov.je, read through Wayback): the 2015 directive replaces
+  the 1998 guidance; the guidelines set cannabis at up to 15 g, Class B,
+  for a written caution.
+- Cannevi, *Cannabis Prohibition in Jersey* (read in full as text): the
+  1923 Loi's opium-and-cocaine focus, the Home Office letter of
+  30 January 1939 calling it "much out of date", the 1971 modification
+  order's schedule text, and the 1980 designation order. Cross-checked
+  against End Cannabis Prohibition Jersey, *Legal Status of Cannabis in
+  Jersey* v1.4 (11 December 2025, read in full), whose timeline agrees on
+  1954/55, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1978/80, 1998 and 2015.
+
+Search snippets were leads only. The 1971 order's own PDF (R&O 5492) is not
+in the Wayback Machine, so the 1971 entry rests on the two read secondary
+accounts that reproduce its schedule; it is a context entry.
+
+## What changed
+
+- `jersey-dangerous-drugs-law-1954` keeps its id but is now dated
+  1955-01-01, the commencement the old entry skipped in favour of the
+  sanction date (13 April 1954). Its old description claimed the law
+  "controlled the import, export, production and sale" of Indian hemp;
+  the text controls import and export directly and only empowers orders
+  for the rest. Rewritten, with the repeal of the 1923 Loi stated.
+- New scored steps: 1965 cultivation and premises offences, the
+  1 May 1966 possession and supply ban (the large drop), the 1998
+  Attorney General caution directive, and the 2019 medical order, which
+  previously had no `before` although it is the step behind today's
+  access score.
+- New context entries: the 1971 cannabinol listing, the 1978 law as it
+  took full effect on 1 May 1980 (mixed: possession maximum fell from ten
+  years to five while supply rose to fourteen, so `other` with an
+  `unscored` reason), and the 2015 caution guidelines (wider amount, same
+  handling, so `unscored`).
+- `jersey-centenier-drug-fines-2024` was the last unchecked Jersey entry.
+  The 2024 law was read; the entry is now `checked: true` with the
+  commencement date and a locator.
+- `jersey-local-medical-prescribing-2020` got an `unscored` reason (first
+  local clinic, not the legal step), clearing Jersey's score triage.
+
+## Score handling
+
+The old chain dropped 100 to 16 in one step at 1954 and credited the 1955
+position with today's access score. The rebuilt chain is:
+
+1955 100→97 (border licensing only) · 1965 97→70 (growing and smoking
+premises) · 1966 70→12 (possession and supply) · 1998 12→14 (Parish Hall
+caution) · 2019 14→16 (medical access 1→3) · 2024 16→19 (today).
+
+Access is 1, not 0, after 1966 because authorised sellers of poisons could
+still make and dispense cannabis extracts and tinctures. Today's profile
+scores did not change, so the profile file was not edited. `data-status
+chain je` reports no flagged step; `scores:triage je` reports no open
+entry. Silent decades fall from six (1960s–2000s except the 2010s) to
+none between the 1950s and the 2020s.
+
+## Articles
+
+- `articles/jersey-possession-ban-1966.md` (the 58-point drop).
+- `articles/jersey-dangerous-drugs-law-1954.md` (the first restriction).
+
+Both follow `WRITING.md`: 350–500 words, plain headings, per-source
+citations, links to the neighbouring entries and `/country/je/`. No
+picture: no openly licensed image shows the subject itself.
+
+## Still open
+
+- The 1923 Loi's text is not online (a government FOI answer says the same),
+  so its lack of a cannabis offence rests on Cannevi's research and the
+  1954 law's structure, not on the Loi itself.
+- The 1965 law's exact commencement day: the entry uses the year.
+- Parish Hall practice before 1998 (police annual reports quoted by
+  Cannevi were not opened) and the 2019 second-offence extension and 2022
+  consolidated guidance, which would extend the caution story.
+- Guernsey's first loi is dated 1931 by Cannevi and 1934 by the legal-status
+  paper; that disagreement was noted and not used anywhere.
+
+## Validation
+
+- Parsed-history comparison against the pre-edit snapshot
+  (`/tmp/je-base/changes-before.yaml`): exactly six entries added and four
+  Jersey entries changed (1954 rewrite, 2019 `before`, 2024
+  checked/citations, 2020 `unscored`); no other country's entries changed,
+  none removed. Total history 3,159 → 3,165 entries.
+- `node scripts/data-status.cjs chain je`: no flagged steps;
+  `npm run scores:triage -- je`: 0 open entries.
+- `npm run history:test`: 38 passed. `npm run answers:test`: 16 passed.
+- Production build passed (4,160 pages). The two new article pages and
+  `/country/je/` were spot-checked in `dist/`: titles, dates, score steps
+  and reference lists render.
+- Articles checked at 361 and 353 words, three headings each, every
+  citation mark naming a listed source.
+- The other agent's Cameroon commit (`dd17a4e`) landed during this pass;
+  its remaining uncommitted `source-archive.json` work was left untouched
+  and is not part of this commit.

    ↑↓ to move, ↵ to open.