French Polynesia
Oceania
11/100
Not ranked: Overseas collectivity
would rank #80 among countries
Cannabis, known locally as paka, is widely grown and banned. Cases go to the court in Papeete and usually end in fines. A 2023 medical cannabis law was repealed that November without ever being used. Its 2024 replacement allows low-THC hemp and cannabis medicines, and a pilot with nine growers is now under way.
Overseas collectivity. French Polynesia is an overseas collectivity of France with wide autonomy. Its Assembly passes "lois du pays" on health, including the rules on poisonous substances and medical cannabis, while criminal law, the police and the courts stay with the French State, which answers for it internationally. Any step towards recreational cannabis would need the State's agreement. See also 🇫🇷 France.
In short all countries →
- Can I carry it?NoIt is a crime
- Can I grow it?NoIt is a crime
- Can I buy it?NoThere is no legal source
- Can I use it in public?NoUse itself is an offence
- What if I'm caught?Fine or prisonUsually a fine; prison is possible
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 23,000
- 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%1/10adds 2.5 of 25 points
Possessing and using cannabis are offences. In June 2024 the court in Papeete convicted the Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté of possession and use and fined him 2 million francs. The prosecutor, who called production, consumption and use "formally prohibited", had also asked for a six-month suspended prison sentence. On a customs mission to Bora Bora in 2024, a passenger carrying 21.8 g of herb was fined 11,000 CFP francs. The sources consulted do not show whether police there issue France's fixed fine for drug use.[1][2]
Personal cultivation · 25%1/10adds 2.5 of 25 points
Growing cannabis is prohibited even for therapeutic use; only the low-THC hemp pilot under the 2024 law is licensed. Small grows usually end in fines. A lawyer said in 2024 that a client caught with 93 plants was fined 150,000 francs after pleading guilty. The same year a father who had grown about a hundred plants to make oil for his epileptic son was acquitted, after the prosecutor asked the court to waive punishment.[1][3]
Punishment & enforcement · 20%2/10adds 4.0 of 20 points
Drug offences are a priority for the State. In 2025 drug-law offences rose by 32.9%, made up nearly a quarter of all recorded offences, and ran at twice the national rate per inhabitant. Gendarmes destroyed 25,000 cannabis plants and seized more than 1.5 tonnes of herb. Users who reach court mostly receive fines, though prosecutors sometimes ask for suspended prison terms.[4][5][1]
Sharing & gifting · 10%1/10adds 1.0 of 10 points
Outside the activities the 2024 law licenses, cannabis remains prohibited, and passing it to someone else is not treated differently from supply. Recreational use was left out of the reform as a matter for a later debate.[6]
Consumption · 10%1/10adds 1.0 of 10 points
Legal access · 10%0/10adds 0.0 of 10 points
There is no lawful source for adults. The 2024 law provides for doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense cannabis-based medicines, with the products to be set by arrêté, but the sources consulted show no such medicine available yet. In February 2025 CBD oil still awaited further arrêtés.[6][8]
References
- TNTV News — Guy Laliberté condamné à deux millions d'amende pour détention et usage de cannabis (4 June 2024)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Paka et ice dans la ligne de mire des douaniers à Bora Bora (5 November 2024)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : le père de famille qui soignait son fils handicapé avec du cannabis a été relaxé (16 June 2024)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Délinquance en Polynésie : moins de vols, mais une explosion des trafics de drogues et des violences familiales en 2025 (27 February 2026)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Stupéfiants : les gendarmes multiplient les opérations et saisies de cannabis en Polynésie française (21 October 2025)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — La Polynésie ouvre la porte au cannabis thérapeutique et au CBD (29 December 2023)
- Santé publique France — Consommation de paka (cannabis) (2011, updated 2019)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : dix cultivateurs pionniers vont être autorisés à planter du cannabis thérapeutique (14 February 2025)
More context not part of the score
The only licensed growing is a pilot under the law of 23 August 2024. Arrêtés published in February 2025 allow at most ten approved growers on 1.5 hectares in all: 0.15 hectares each, two per archipelago, and only for people resident for more than ten years. Plants must stay at or below 0.3% THC, and sites must be screened from view and kept away from schools and roads. In August 2026 nine growers were chosen for a one-year pilot, with first harvests expected in April 2027. Illegal outdoor growing is widespread across the islands.[1][2][3]
The 2025 arrêtés list seeds, food, dried leaves, infusions and food supplements among the permitted hemp products; CBD oil needs further arrêtés from the health and economy ministries. Before the 2024 law, CBD vape liquids, oils, monoï and creams were sold in a legal grey area.[1][4]
The Assembly first adopted a law on poisonous substances in November 2022, promulgated on 5 January 2023. It would have allowed cannabis medicines and licensed growing, but needed about fifteen implementing decisions. The new government had it repealed on 20 November 2023 as too complicated, which restored rules dating from 1978. A narrower law, adopted on 9 July 2024 by 41 votes with 16 abstentions, covers non-intoxicating cannabis and medicines containing cannabis or cannabinoids.[5][6][7]
No cannabis clubs are known. Supplying cannabis is an offence, and the 2024 reform left recreational use out.[4]
There is no legal supply for anyone. A prescription from home does not help: in the Laliberté case the prosecutor argued that he could not rely on Canadian law, and the court convicted him.[8]
The father acquitted in June 2024 had been prosecuted for two years, and the ruling did not allow him to keep growing for his son. A defence lawyer in the Laliberté case called his client one of the last to be convicted of an offence that would soon disappear.[9][8]
Taking cannabis into or out of French Polynesia 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.
A prescription or medical card from another country is generally not recognised. Travellers who need a cannabis-based medicine should ask French Polynesia's embassy before travelling.[10]
General guidance that applies to almost every country, not a check of French Polynesia's customs rules.
References
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : dix cultivateurs pionniers vont être autorisés à planter du cannabis thérapeutique (14 February 2025)
- Le Cannabiste — Polynésie : neuf producteurs lancent le cannabis thérapeutique (4 August 2026)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Stupéfiants : les gendarmes multiplient les opérations et saisies de cannabis en Polynésie française (21 October 2025)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — La Polynésie ouvre la porte au cannabis thérapeutique et au CBD (29 December 2023)
- Principes actifs — Tahiti, cannabis thérapeutique, circulez c'est voté (19 November 2022)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Cannabis, la Polynésie recule pour mieux sauter (22 November 2023)
- TNTV News — L'Assemblée de Polynésie donne son feu vert à la légalisation du cannabis thérapeutique (9 July 2024)
- TNTV News — Guy Laliberté condamné à deux millions d'amende pour détention et usage de cannabis (4 June 2024)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : le père de famille qui soignait son fils handicapé avec du cannabis a été relaxé (16 June 2024)
- International Narcotics Control Board — Travellers carrying medicines containing controlled substances
History 7 of 8 checked against a source
Entries per decade
Entries that moved the score Context only
Medical ✓
Nine growers are chosen for French Polynesia's cannabis pilot
Nine producers were selected for a one-year pilot under the 2024 law, with plants below 0.3% THC and first harvests expected in April 2027. A last arrêté designating the plots was still due.
Medical ✓
French Polynesia publishes the first rules for its hemp pilot
Six implementing arrêtés of the 2024 law appeared in the Journal officiel. They allow at most ten growers on 1.5 hectares, with plants at or below 0.3% THC, and permit products such as seeds, food, dried leaves and infusions; CBD oil still needed further arrêtés.
Medical ✓
French Polynesia passes a law on hemp and cannabis medicines
Adopted on 9 July 2024 by 41 votes with 16 abstentions and promulgated on 23 August as loi du pays no. 2024-19, the law regulates growing cannabis without intoxicating properties and medicines containing cannabis or cannabinoids, starting with a small pilot. Recreational use was left out.
Enforcement ✓
A Tahiti father who grew cannabis for his epileptic son is acquitted
The court in Papeete acquitted a father prosecuted for two years over about a hundred plants grown in Taravao to make oil for his son; the prosecutor had asked it to waive punishment. Growing for therapy remained prohibited.
Enforcement ✓
A Papeete court fines Guy Laliberté for cannabis possession and use
The Cirque du Soleil founder, investigated since 2019 over cannabis plants on his atoll, was convicted of possession and use and fined 2 million francs, and cleared of most other charges. The prosecutor had also asked for a six-month suspended sentence and rejected his reliance on a Canadian prescription.
Medical ✓
French Polynesia repeals its unused medical cannabis law
The Assembly repealed the law of 5 January 2023 by 41 votes to 16. The new government called it too complicated to implement; repeal restored rules dating from 1978, and a narrower text on hemp and cannabis medicines was promised.
Medical ✓
French Polynesia promulgates a law opening the way to medical cannabis
The Assembly adopted a law on poisonous substances on 17 November 2022 by 33 votes with 20 abstentions, and it was promulgated on 5 January 2023. It would have allowed cannabis as a medicine and licensed growing, with hemp below 0.3% THC reserved for fibre, but it needed about fifteen implementing decisions that were never made.
Ban ≈
French Polynesia first restricts cannabis
No first law is recorded here for French Polynesia. Criminal drug law there is French law, and a 2023 report says the territory's own rules on poisonous substances date from 1978, but the first instrument applying cannabis controls to the islands, then the French Establishments in Oceania, has not been found. The date of the first restriction is unknown.
10011−89 points
Datasets not part of the score
What other organisations publish about French Polynesia, 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 countriesHighest23,000 people · median of surveyed countries in the region, computed here
Society
OpenAlex · 2021
Research on cannabis
3.6papers per million people
3.6 · 20033.6 · 202120032021 LowestHigher than 79% of 176 countriesHighest1 papers in 2021
CEPII
Former colonial rulers
Once ruled by France
Pew Research Center · 2020
Most common religion
Christians
Christians · 2010Christians · 202020102020 the largest group · 2020
World Bank · 2017
Development indicators
72.7%use the internet
0% · 19900.1% · 19960.2% · 19971.3% · 19983.5% · 19996.4% · 20006.3% · 20018.2% · 200214.1% · 200317.9% · 200421.5% · 200525.1% · 200628.6% · 200733.9% · 200844.6% · 200949% · 201049% · 201152.9% · 201256.8% · 201360.7% · 201464.6% · 201568.4% · 201672.7% · 201719902017 LowestHigher than 40% of 195 countriesHighest61.8% live in towns · 7.9% aged 65+ · life expectancy 82.8 · 2017 · 6.4% in 2000 · 49% in 2010
Context
GBIF · 2010
Records of the cannabis plant
2dated records
LowestHigher than 12% of 128 countriesHighest6 more without a date · 2 in 2010
Our World in Data, World Bank · 2022
Population
278,786people in 2022
LowestHigher than 10% of 196 countriesHighest
All sources 12 cited in this profile
- TNTV News — Guy Laliberté condamné à deux millions d'amende pour détention et usage de cannabis (4 June 2024)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Paka et ice dans la ligne de mire des douaniers à Bora Bora (5 November 2024)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : le père de famille qui soignait son fils handicapé avec du cannabis a été relaxé (16 June 2024)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Délinquance en Polynésie : moins de vols, mais une explosion des trafics de drogues et des violences familiales en 2025 (27 February 2026)
- Polynésie la 1ère — Stupéfiants : les gendarmes multiplient les opérations et saisies de cannabis en Polynésie française (21 October 2025)
- Santé publique France — Consommation de paka (cannabis) (2011, updated 2019)
- Principes actifs — Tahiti, cannabis thérapeutique, circulez c'est voté (19 November 2022)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Cannabis, la Polynésie recule pour mieux sauter (22 November 2023)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — La Polynésie ouvre la porte au cannabis thérapeutique et au CBD (29 December 2023)
- TNTV News — L'Assemblée de Polynésie donne son feu vert à la légalisation du cannabis thérapeutique (9 July 2024)
- Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes — Polynésie : dix cultivateurs pionniers vont être autorisés à planter du cannabis thérapeutique (14 February 2025)
- Le Cannabiste — Polynésie : neuf producteurs lancent le cannabis thérapeutique (4 August 2026)
Last updated: · 12 sources · history: 7 of 8 entries checked