Cuba cuts the maximum prison term for simple drug possession to two years

Cuba cut the maximum prison term for simple drug possession from three years to two when its new Penal Code took effect on 30 April 1988. The minimum stayed at six months. Cannabis growers still faced three to eight years and could lose their land or their right to use it.^[1][2]

A shorter sentence for personal holdings

The 1979 code had punished simple possession of drugs without the required authorisation or medical prescription with six months to three years in prison. That offence was separate from holding drugs with the purpose of trafficking them.^[1]

The replacement kept that distinction. Someone holding cannabis without the required authorisation remained liable to imprisonment, but the upper limit fell by one year. The possession offence’s original wording listed the prison sentence alone; the express fine option came in a later amendment.^[2][3]

Growers could still lose their land

Growing the plant the law called Cannabis Indica, known as marihuana, carried three to eight years. A grower who owned the land could have it confiscated. Someone farming through a right to use or occupy the land could lose that right instead.^[2]

Producing, transporting, trafficking or supplying drugs, and possessing them for trafficking, had the same ordinary prison range. Relatively large volumes raised the sentence to seven to fifteen years. These growing and supply ranges carried over from the 1979 code.^[1][2]

The consequences could therefore reach both a person’s liberty and the land on which they grew cannabis. The code expressly attached the land penalty to cultivation.^[2]

Using a child brought a higher range

Both codes increased punishment when the offence used a person under sixteen. For ordinary growing or supply, the 1979 range of six to ten years became four to ten years. For the relatively large-volume cases, ten to twenty years became eight to twenty.^[1][2]

The new code lowered the minimum in each of those enhanced bands while retaining their maximum sentences. The child-related rules sat alongside the separate six-month-to-two-year offence for simple possession.^[2]

Fines came six years later

In June 1994, an amendment gave cannabis possession its own penalty band: six months to two years, a fine of 200–500 quotas, or both. That gave judges an express financial alternative within the possession offence.^[3]

The 2022 replacement code retained those cannabis-possession options. They remain part of the Cuba profile, alongside the separate and much higher penalties for cultivation and aggravated drug supply.^[4]