Northern Mariana Islands
Oceania
55/100
Not ranked: Unincorporated territory
would rank #1 among countries
The Northern Mariana Islands legalised adult and medical use in September 2018. Adults 21 and over may carry an ounce, keep eight at home and grow their own. Licensed shops and lounges opened in 2021; the commission reported retailer-delivery rules in 2025.
Unincorporated territory. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is a US territory in political union with the United States, with its own legislature and laws. Federal drug law applies there, and carrying cannabis between islands is barred while it does. See also 🇺🇸 United States.
In short all countries →
- Can I carry it?YesLegal up to a limit
- Can I grow it?YesA few plants at home are legal
- Can I buy it?YesIn licensed shops
- Can I use it in public?NoIn private only
- What if I'm caught?NothingIf you stay within the limits
A rough guide read from the scores below, not legal advice. The details and the exceptions are in each segment: select an answer to jump to it.
- Cannabis users
- about 3,400
- Share aged 15–64
- about 11.5%
This site's figure: there is no national survey, so the median rate of surveyed countries in Oceania is applied to people aged 15–64.
Source A median computed on this site from surveyed countries in Oceania, using UNODC World Drug Report 2026 figures. Population from the World Bank, aged 15–64. The whole dataset →Score breakdown ▏world average
Select a segment to show or hide the exact rules and sources. How the scores are made →
Possession · 25%6/10adds 15.0 of 25 points
Adults 21 and over may possess up to 1 oz in a public place and up to 8 oz of usable cannabis at home, plus up to 16 oz of solid and 72 oz of liquid cannabis products and 5 g of extracts. Possession is barred in cannabis-free zones such as government buildings, schools, federal buildings and businesses licensed to serve alcohol.[1]
Personal cultivation · 25%5/10adds 12.5 of 25 points
Adults may grow up to six mature and twelve immature plants per household or cultivation site, out of public view and secured against unauthorised access and access by people under 21. A homegrown-registry card is required, with a statutory annual fee of $75. The 2019 amendment protected compliant growing while registry rules were unfinished, subject to obtaining a card when available. Homegrown cannabis may not be sold.[2][3]
Punishment & enforcement · 20%6/10adds 12.0 of 20 points
Inside the limits nothing is punished. Using cannabis while driving brings fines of up to $500 and suspension of the licence for up to six months for a first offence, and up to $1,000 and a year for a repeat.[1]
Sharing & gifting · 10%5/10adds 5.0 of 10 points
Adults 21 and over may give another adult up to one ounce of usable cannabis, 16 ounces of solid products, 72 ounces of liquid products, five grams of extracts or six immature plants for noncommercial purposes. The recipient must accept the gift. Homegrown cannabis and plants may not be sold for consideration.[2]
Consumption · 10%4/10adds 4.0 of 10 points
Legal access · 10%6/10adds 6.0 of 10 points
The commission licenses producers, processors, retailers, wholesalers, lounges and testing. Saipan Select held a soft opening on 14 July 2021 and its grand opening on 16 July. Seven retailers renewed licences in 2025; the commission’s 2025 report also records amended retailer-delivery rules and a compliance advisory for delivery from licensed premises.[5][4]
References
- Pacific Island Times — CNMI Cannabis Commission urges responsible use of pot (21 April 2020)
- CNMI Law Revision Commission — Commonwealth Code section 53006Current posted text; household cultivation, medical allowance, gifts and conditions. Source note identifies PL20-66 section 106.
- CNMI Law Revision Commission — Commonwealth Code section 53012Current posted text; registry, $75 annual fee and transition protection; amended by PL21-5 section 2(D).
- CNMI Cannabis Commission — Citizen-Centric Report FY2025 (3 September 2025)
- Marianas Variety — First cannabis store opens doors to Saipan community, 20 July 2021
More context not part of the score
Licensed producers grow under canopy classes; the commission counted eight producer licensees in 2025, and licensees employed about sixty people. There is no certified testing laboratory in the Commonwealth.[1]
Flower, extracts, edibles and other products from licensed processors. In 2025 the commission was working on potency limits for concentrates, edibles, tinctures and topicals.[1]
The 2018 law covers medical as well as adult use. A patient or caregiver may grow up to twelve mature and twenty-four immature plants when a physician considers it necessary and practical for treatment, with a registry card and physician statement. The 2019 law allows licensed sales to patients aged eighteen to twenty-one with a valid doctor’s recommendation, including qualifying recommendations from a nonresident patient’s country of origin.[2][3]
No cannabis clubs are known. Licensed lounges, where adults consume on site, take the place clubs fill elsewhere.[1]
Cannabis excise and surtax brought in $686,979 in fiscal 2024 but only $113,880 by July 2025. In 2025 the commission cut licence fees by 25% and adopted rules for a seed-to-sale tracking system.[1]
Taking cannabis into or out of Northern Mariana Islands is a separate offence from possessing it, normally charged as smuggling or trafficking, with far heavier penalties. That holds almost everywhere, including between two places where cannabis is legal.
The rules that allow or tolerate small amounts inside Northern Mariana Islands do not cover the border, an airport or the post.
A prescription or medical card from another country is generally not recognised. Travellers who need a cannabis-based medicine should ask Northern Mariana Islands's embassy before travelling.[4]
General guidance that applies to almost every country, not a check of Northern Mariana Islands's customs rules.
References
- CNMI Cannabis Commission — Citizen-Centric Report FY2025 (3 September 2025)
- CNMI Law Revision Commission — Commonwealth Code section 53006Current posted text; household cultivation, medical allowance, gifts and conditions. Source note identifies PL20-66 section 106.
- CNMI — Cannabis amendment, Public Law 21-5, 21 August 2019Sections 2(D), 2(F), 2(H) and 3–5; registry, patient sales, business fees and taxes.
- International Narcotics Control Board — Travellers carrying medicines containing controlled substances
History 11 of 12 checked against a source
Score and entries per decade
55 today, from 11 before its first recorded change
This country's score Entries that moved the score Context only
Legalisation ✓
Northern Mariana Islands’ first lounge gives adults a place to use cannabis
Adults aged 21 and over could use cannabis on site at Common Wealth Cannabis in Garapan, reported open on 16 August after receiving a lounge licence in July. Customers could bring their own cannabis or buy it at the adjoining shop, while staff checked identification at the entrance. The venue extended the 2018 legalisation beyond home use after the first retail shop opened that summer.
5455+1 point
Legalisation ✓ Article
Northern Mariana Islands’ first cannabis shop opens in Saipan
Saipan Select began selling cannabis to adults in Tanapag with a soft opening on 14 July, followed by its grand opening on 16 July. Nearly three years after legalisation, customers could buy flower from a licensed shop supplied by its adjoining indoor farm. The commission had granted its first retail licence in May; a separate cannabis lounge followed later that summer.
4854+6 points
Other law ✓
Northern Mariana Islands grant their first cannabis retail licence
Saipan Select received the first retail licence alongside a Class III production licence allowing up to 5,000 square feet of growing canopy. The commission reported that many other applicants still needed premises inspections while construction continued. The licensed shop opened to customers in July.
Other law ✓
Northern Mariana Islands license their first commercial cannabis grower
T-Marianas, operated by Slider Marianas, received the territory’s first commercial cannabis licence, a Class I production licence. It followed the commission’s emergency rules and the opening of business applications in 2020. Retail licensing and the first shop opening followed that spring and summer.
Hemp ✓
Northern Mariana Islands move hemp oversight to agriculture officials
A new hemp law put production under the Division of Agriculture and removed hemp from the cannabis commission’s remit. It used a 0.3% THC ceiling and required licensing rules consistent with the federal hemp framework, following the US farm law passed in 2018. Negligent breaches generally led to a correction plan; wilful violations could bring up to a year in prison, a $2,500 fine, or both.
Other law ✓
Northern Mariana Islands adopt rules to start licensing cannabis businesses
The cannabis commission approved emergency rules for producers, retailers, processors, wholesalers and lounges, preparing the industry for business applications. Its chair linked the accelerated timetable to the COVID-19 revenue shortfall and economic diversification. The commission reserved medical, laboratory and edible-processing rules for later work; it began accepting applications that August.
Other law ✓ Article
Northern Mariana Islands protect home growers while filling licensing gaps
Adults could continue growing within the legal limits while homegrown-registry regulations were unfinished, provided they obtained a card once it became available. The amendment set a $75 annual registry fee and business licence fees after the governor vetoed the original fee proposals. It also imposed a 15% cannabis excise tax and retailer surtaxes of 15%, or 7.5% on medical cannabis revenue, as the territory prepared to license businesses.
Legalisation ✓ Article
Northern Mariana Islands legalise adult use, home growing and gifts
Adults aged 21 and over gained legal possession, home cultivation and capped gifts under a law signed by Governor Ralph Torres. Households could keep six mature and twelve immature plants and up to eight ounces of usable cannabis, with a larger plant allowance for medical patients on a doctor’s recommendation. Torres backed a regulated market for health, jobs and revenue but vetoed proposed fees and tax terms, which lawmakers revisited in 2019.
1148+37 points
Enforcement ✓
Northern Mariana Islands’ crop raids shift cannabis supply toward imports
A federal drug assessment linked the decline of local cannabis growing in 2000–2001 to eradication campaigns and a greater reliance on supplies from the Philippines and Palau. It reported a sharp rise in retail prices and said local cultivation was largely confined to small amounts for personal use. Officers were focusing on undercover purchases and border interception; adult use remained prohibited until 2018.
Enforcement ✓ Article
Northern Mariana Islands’ court upholds a pest inspection that found cannabis
Cannabis found during a warrantless agricultural inspection could be used against Daniel Atalig, the appellate court ruled. An inspector found five pounds with deer meat after his flight from Rota to Saipan in September 1981, during a fruit-fly quarantine. Atalig received a year in prison, suspended except for thirty days, and a $1,000 fine; the court held that this quarantine search required neither a warrant nor consent.
Easing ✓ Article
Northern Mariana Islands’ court throws out marijuana possession and sale charges
Mariano Bermudes had marijuana possession and sale charges dismissed after the territorial High Court struck down the drug-control law used against him. The court found that lawmakers had given health officials insufficient guidance to decide which drugs to prohibit, and criticised a penalty scheme that could punish marijuana offences more severely than opium or heroin offences. A later territorial code expressly listed marijuana and capped the fine for possessing or giving away up to one ounce at $50.
Ban ≈
The Northern Mariana Islands first restricts cannabis
No first law is recorded here for the Northern Mariana Islands. Its first restrictions on cannabis are assumed to date from between the 1925 Geneva convention, which put Indian hemp under international control, and the 1961 Single Convention, which required a ban on non-medical use.
10011−89 points
Datasets not part of the score
What other organisations publish about Northern Mariana Islands, and where it stands among the countries each one covers. Every file is published in full on the sources page.
Use
UNODC
Cannabis use
11.5%of adults
LowestHigher than 90% of 196 countriesHighest3,400 people · median of surveyed countries in the region, computed here
Society
CEPII
Former colonial rulers
Once ruled by Spain; Germany; United States of America; Japan
World Bank · 1990
Development indicators
0%use the internet
LowestHigher than 0% of 195 countriesHighest89.7% live in towns · 1.8% aged 65+ · life expectancy 70 · 1990
Context
Our World in Data, World Bank · 2020
Population
47,329people in 2020
LowestHigher than 4% of 196 countriesHighest
All sources 8 cited in this profile
- Pacific Island Times — CNMI Cannabis Commission urges responsible use of pot (21 April 2020)
- CNMI Cannabis Commission — Citizen-Centric Report FY2025 (3 September 2025)
- Wikipedia — Cannabis in the Northern Mariana Islands
- CNMI — Cannabis Act 2018, Public Law 20-66, with governor’s item vetoesSections 106, 112, 170 and commencement; signed 21 September 2018. Vetoed fees and excise terms excluded.
- CNMI — Cannabis amendment, Public Law 21-5, 21 August 2019Sections 2(D), 2(F), 2(H) and 3–5; registry, patient sales, business fees and taxes.
- CNMI Law Revision Commission — Commonwealth Code section 53006Current posted text; household cultivation, medical allowance, gifts and conditions. Source note identifies PL20-66 section 106.
- CNMI Law Revision Commission — Commonwealth Code section 53012Current posted text; registry, $75 annual fee and transition protection; amended by PL21-5 section 2(D).
- Marianas Variety — First cannabis store opens doors to Saipan community, 20 July 2021
Last updated: · 8 sources · history: 11 of 12 entries checked