Ban
First national or colonial bans, and bans brought back after a legal period.
201 entries, 1266–1996 · 156 moved a score · back to the whole history
World average score and Ban entries per decade
13.2 today, from 99.1 in 1860
World average score, every country counted the same Entries that moved a score Context only
No entries for the chosen countries here.
19961 entry1 score change
19891 entry1 score change
19872 entries1 score change
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Ban ✓
Bangladesh bans growing cannabis
The Ershad government banned cultivation in 1987. Sales were prohibited two years later. At Naogaon, where ganja had been grown under licence since colonial times, the ban left about 50,000 people from 7,000 families without their living; many turned to rice, mustard and vegetables. The government sealed the growers' cooperative's warehouses, which still hold more than 226 maunds of ganja.
🇲🇭 Marshall Islands Ban ✓ Article
Marshall Islands prohibits cannabis under its national narcotics law
Following earlier territorial cannabis controls, the national narcotics law took effect on 20 March 1987 and prohibited possession, cultivation and distribution, with specified medical and professional exceptions. In an early prosecution under that law, a man received two years for marijuana possession; the Supreme Court later overturned the conviction because his right to a lawyer had been denied.
10011−89 points
19852 entries2 score changes
🇮🇳 India Ban ✓ Article
India bans ganja and charas nationwide
Until 1985 cannabis was regulated by state excise laws and sold in licensed shops in much of the country. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act made flower and resin illegal everywhere, with prison even for small amounts. Leaves were left out, which is why bhang is still legal.
4011−29 points
🇨🇳 China Ban ✓ Article
China classes cannabis as a narcotic
On joining the UN drug conventions, China listed marijuana as a dangerous narcotic. Hemp for fibre and seed had been grown across the country for thousands of years and still is.
10016−84 points
19831 entry1 score change
19801 entry0 score changes
19791 entry1 score change
19782 entries2 score changes
🇰🇲 Comoros Ban ✓ Article
The Comoros ban cannabis again
After President Ali Soilih was overthrown and killed, the new government reversed his decrees and prohibited cannabis.
729−63 points
🇧🇳 Brunei Ban ✓
Brunei's Misuse of Drugs Act takes effect
The Act made cannabis an illegal drug. It was reclassified as Class B in 2001.
1002−98 points
19771 entry1 score change
19762 entries2 score changes
🇳🇵 Nepal Ban ✓ Article
Nepal passes the Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act
Three years after closing the licensed shops, Nepal made growing, producing, selling and using cannabis criminal offences. Use at Shiva festivals has been tolerated all the same.
4312−31 points
🇰🇷 South Korea Ban ✓ Article
South Korea passes the Cannabis Control Act
Hemp had been grown for cloth for centuries and smoking it was not an offence. The Act banned possession and use, with prison terms, in the middle of a government campaign against youth culture.
1002−98 points
19741 entry1 score change
19733 entries2 score changes
🇳🇵 Nepal Ban ✓ Article
Nepal closes its legal cannabis shops
Under pressure from the United States and the United Nations, Nepal cancelled the licences of every cannabis shop, dealer and farmer, ending the legal trade that had made Kathmandu a stop on the hippie trail. Growing and using cannabis only became crimes with the Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act of 1976.
4943−6 points
🇩🇪 Germany Ban ✓ Article
East Germany passes a Narcotic Drugs Act
The East German Volkskammer passed a Narcotic Drugs Act that criminalised the production, trafficking and consumption of cannabis and other drugs. It replaced reliance on the 1929 opium law, which the Soviet occupation authority had reinstated in 1945. This regional event does not move the Germany-wide index series.
🇱🇺 Luxembourg Ban ✓
Luxembourg passes its drug law
The law on the sale of medicinal substances and the fight against drug addiction replaced the 1953 rules, under which holding cannabis without a licence was already an offence, and made using, holding and growing it crimes, with prison for personal use.
1811−7 points
19703 entries2 score changes
🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Ban ✓ Article
São Tomé and Príncipe comes under Portugal’s wider drug ban
Portugal published an order extending its drug law to the overseas provinces, including São Tomé and Príncipe, with local publication directed to follow. Cannabis possession and cultivation for personal use, and supply without profit, carried up to two years in prison plus a fine; the ordinary trafficking range was two to eight years plus a fine. Authorised industrial, scientific and therapeutic activities were exempt, with overseas prescription rules adapted by the extension order.
1007−93 points
🇸🇪 Sweden Ban ✓
Sweden bans growing hemp
Hemp cultivation was prohibited as the growing of a drug. The ban lasted until 2005, when industrial hemp with less than 0.2% THC was allowed again under European Union rules.
🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea Ban ?
Papua New Guinea closes the locally grown marijuana loophole
A prosecution had exposed that people could possess or smoke locally grown marijuana despite the territory's drug controls. The House of Assembly adopted the Dangerous Drugs (Possession) Act, bringing possession, conveyance and cannabis plants within an offence carrying three months to two years in prison.
10011−89 points
19691 entry1 score change
19671 entry1 score change
19661 entry1 score change
19641 entry1 score change
19601 entry1 score change
19591 entry1 score change
19582 entries0 score changes
🇮🇳 India Ban ✓
Assam prohibits ganja and bhang
The Assam Ganja and Bhang Prohibition Act prohibited the sale, purchase, possession and consumption of ganja and bhang in the state, going further than national law, which then still allowed licensed sale and to this day leaves bhang alone. The ban has not ended use: thousands consume cannabis each year at the Ambubachi Mela, a festival held in Assam.
🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Ban ✓ Article
São Tomé and Príncipe targets medical cannabis with a colonial ban
Governor Manuel Marques de Abrantes Amaral issued an order targeting cannabis products used as medicine, following a recommendation by the UN Economic and Social Council. Its preamble called for ending medical use, and its operative wording prohibited import, consumption and sale for medical purposes; breaches brought fines of 1,000–5,000 escudos. Portugal later extended a much broader drug law to the colony in 1970.
19572 entries0 score changes
🇰🇷 South Korea Ban ✓
South Korea's Narcotics Act names Indian marijuana
The Act listed imported "Indian marijuana" as a forbidden narcotic. It left alone the hemp that Koreans had always grown for cloth, which was only banned in 1976.
🇦🇫 Afghanistan Ban ✓
Afghanistan adopts another nominal cannabis ban
A 1957 measure, reportedly adopted under American pressure, was not enforced, and hashish stayed openly available until the crackdown of 1973. It was not the country's first legal restriction: the 1924–1925 penal code had already forbidden domestic production and use.
19561 entry1 score change
19552 entries2 score changes
🇩🇰 Denmark Ban ✓ Article
Denmark passes the Euphoriant Substances Act
The Act is still the basis of Danish drug law. It prohibited possessing cannabis without authorisation.
10011−89 points
🇹🇼 Taiwan Ban ✓ Article
Taiwan makes possession of narcotics a crime
The Statute for the Suppression of Opium and Narcotics in the Period of Communist Rebellion was promulgated on 3 June 1955. It covered opium, morphine, cocaine and heroin and a category written 蔴煙, which it punished separately from the others: selling, transporting or making it carried death or life imprisonment (Article 5), using it one to three years (Article 9) and possessing it six months to two years (Article 10). The statute does not define 蔴煙; reading it as cannabis smoke is an inference. The law was renamed and rewritten in 1992 and 1998.
1002−98 points
19543 entries1 score change
🇲🇦 Morocco Ban ✓
The French protectorate bans all kif cultivation
France ended the licensed growing it had allowed for the kif and tobacco monopoly and prohibited all cultivation in its zone. In the Spanish zone a dahir of the same year still authorised it.
🇯🇪 Jersey Ban ✓
Jersey brings Indian hemp under its dangerous drugs law
The Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law, sanctioned by the King in Council on 13 April 1954, controlled the import, export, production and sale of raw opium, coca leaves and Indian hemp. It is the earliest Jersey law on cannabis found here; Britain had brought cannabis under control in 1928.
10016−84 points
🇻🇳 Vietnam Ban ✓
A Vietnamese order restricts Indian hemp and phases out authorised stocks
The Library of Congress's March 1970 legal survey identifies Order 260-PTT/TTK, dated 31 March 1954, prohibiting Indian-hemp import, export, manufacture, trade and use. It describes stock declaration, a temporary run-down of authorised pharmaceutical and business stocks until 31 December 1954, surrender and confiscation. The original order was not inspected; this entry uses its reported issue date. The survey discusses the instrument under South Vietnam but does not establish its original territorial reach or a separate commencement date.
19534 entries4 score changes
19521 entry1 score change
19511 entry0 score changes
19501 entry1 score change
19491 entry1 score change
19483 entries3 score changes
🇰🇮 Kiribati Ban ✓ Article
The Gilbert Islands ban cannabis growing, possession and gifts
The colonial drug ordinance that commenced on 20 October 1948 supplied Kiribati’s inherited cannabis controls. Its revised text prohibited growing Indian hemp for private use or otherwise, possessing it, selling it or giving it to another person, and importing or exporting cannabis seeds. It also regulated cannabis extracts and tinctures through a separate controlled-drug schedule.
1009−91 points
🇹🇻 Tuvalu Ban ✓ Article
The Ellice Islands' Dangerous Drugs Ordinance takes effect
The drug law inherited by Tuvalu dates to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands ordinance that commenced on 20 October 1948. Its later consolidated text controls Indian hemp alongside opium and coca leaf, including possession, supply and cultivation. Tuvalu later increased a general fine and introduced cannabis-specific minimum prison terms.
1009−91 points
🇯🇵 Japan Ban ✓ Article
Japan passes the Cannabis Control Act
Hemp had been an everyday crop in Japan for centuries. Under the American occupation, a new law banned possession and made growing subject to a licence, which was kept mainly for farmers supplying fibre for ropes and shrines. It did not punish use, which shielded farmers who might breathe in their crop. Japan had about 25,000 hemp farms in 1950 and 37 licensed ones in 2016.
1003−97 points
19431 entry1 score change
19403 entries3 score changes
🇱🇹 Lithuania Ban ?
Soviet drug law is imposed on Lithuania
Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. The Soviet Union had banned the unauthorised cultivation of cannabis in 1934, but the sources read do not confirm when or how Soviet drug law began to apply in Lithuania.
10017−83 points
🇱🇻 Latvia Ban ?
Soviet drug law is imposed on Latvia
Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. The Soviet Union had banned the unauthorised cultivation of cannabis in 1934, but the sources read do not confirm when or how Soviet drug law began to apply in Latvia.
10020−80 points
🇪🇪 Estonia Ban ?
Soviet drug law is imposed on Estonia
Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. The Soviet Union had banned the unauthorised cultivation of cannabis in 1934, but the sources read do not confirm when or how Soviet drug law began to apply in Estonia.
10011−89 points
19393 entries3 score changes
🇻🇺 Vanuatu Ban ✓
The New Hebrides' Dangerous Drugs regulation takes effect
Vanuatu's Dangerous Drugs Act began as Joint Regulation 12 of 1939 of the Anglo-French condominium and commenced on 1 December 1939. The consolidated Act prohibits listed substances and the cultivation of the cannabis plant; the 1939 wording itself was not read, so how it first treated cannabis is not confirmed.
10011−89 points
🇲🇹 Malta Ban ✓
Malta passes the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance
The colonial ordinance banned possessing and growing cannabis. Growing later carried a mandatory prison sentence, even for a single plant.
1009−91 points
🇨🇴 Colombia Ban ✓
Colombia restricts cannabis
The government prohibited growing and selling marijuana, and tightened the rules again in 1946.
10011−89 points
19383 entries3 score changes
🇱🇨 Saint Lucia Ban ✓
Saint Lucia passes its Dangerous Drugs Act
The Dangerous Drugs Act, 1938 is named in section 50 of the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, which continues regulations made under it. The source does not say what the 1938 Act covered, so its treatment of cannabis is not confirmed.
10011−89 points
🇸🇰 Slovakia Ban ✓ Article
Czechoslovakia's Opium Act covers Slovakia
The first Czechoslovak drug law carried out the Geneva conventions and brought Indian hemp under control. Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia.
10020−80 points
🇨🇿 Czechia Ban ✓ Article
Czechoslovakia passes its Opium Act
The first Czechoslovak drug law carried out the Geneva conventions and brought Indian hemp under control. Making, trading or holding it needed a permit, and pharmacies could supply it as medicine.
10020−80 points
19378 entries8 score changes
🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis Ban ✓
St Kitts and Nevis criminalises cannabis
The Dangerous Drugs Ordinance made the cultivation, trade and possession of cannabis crimes, following the lead of Britain and the United States.
10011−89 points
🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ban ✓
Saint Vincent passes its Dangerous Drugs Ordinance
The Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, 1937 (No. 21 of 1937) was the colony's narcotics law. A 1947 order under it added preparations made from extract or tincture of Indian hemp to the controlled drugs. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
10011−89 points
🇩🇲 Dominica Ban ✓
The Leeward Islands' Dangerous Drugs Act covers Dominica
Dominica's 1948 and 1951 Dangerous Drugs Orders were made under the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1937 (Leeward Islands No. 23 of 1937), passed while the island belonged to that federal colony. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
10011−89 points
🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands Ban ✓
The Leeward Islands' Dangerous Drugs Act covers the British Virgin Islands
The British Virgin Islands were part of the Leeward Islands federal colony, whose Dangerous Drugs Act of 1937 was still the law its government applied to new drugs in 1951, as in Antigua and St Kitts.
10011−89 points
🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda Ban ✓
The Leeward Islands' Dangerous Drugs Act covers Antigua
The Dangerous Drugs Act, 1937 (No. 23 of 1937) of the Leeward Islands federal colony, which included Antigua, was still the law its government applied to new drugs in 1951. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
10011−89 points
19363 entries3 score changes
🇲🇼 Malawi Ban ✓ Article
Nyasaland outlaws growing cannabis
The Noxious Weeds Act made cultivating cannabis illegal. Together with the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1956 it remained Malawi's cannabis law until 2020.
10011−89 points
🇨🇱 Chile Ban ✓ Article
Chile's Narcotics Regulation requires a prescription
The Reglamento de Estupefacientes formalised state control of the sale, import and manufacture of drugs such as coca, opium and Indian hemp, through pharmacy inspections by the health directorate and a prescription requirement.
10011−89 points
🇧🇧 Barbados Ban ✓
Barbados passes its Dangerous Drugs Act
The Dangerous Drugs Act, 1936 was the colony's narcotics law. A 1951 order under it added preparations made from extract or tincture of Indian hemp to the controlled drugs. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
10011−89 points
19355 entries5 score changes
🇹🇯 Tajikistan Ban ✓ Article
Tajikistan comes under Soviet restrictions on growing Indian hemp
A Soviet decree restricted Indian-hemp sowing from 1935, allowing crops intended exclusively for medical and scientific needs. Unauthorised sowing was to bring criminal responsibility and compulsory confiscation of the crop, and republics were directed to amend their criminal codes. The decree had been signed on 27 October 1934.
1003−97 points
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan Ban ✓
Kyrgyzstan comes under the Soviet ban on growing Indian hemp
A Soviet decree began restricting Indian-hemp sowing in 1935, allowing only crops intended exclusively for medical and scientific needs. Unauthorised sowing was to bring criminal responsibility and compulsory confiscation of the crop, with republics directed to amend their criminal codes. The decree had been signed in October 1934; a later decision specifically targeted southern Chuy hemp from 1965.
10018−82 points
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan Ban ✓
Kazakhstan comes under the Soviet ban on growing Indian hemp
From 1935 the Soviet Union prohibited sowing Indian hemp except for crops devoted exclusively to medical and scientific needs. The decree required criminal liability and compulsory confiscation of unauthorised crops, and instructed the union republics to amend their criminal codes. Signed on 27 October 1934, it expressly took effect the following year.
10013−87 points
🇬🇭 Ghana Ban ✓ Article
The Gold Coast replaces its Dangerous Drugs Ordinance
The colonial annual report identifies Dangerous Drugs Ordinance No. 29 of 1935 as implementing the 1931 international convention, replacing existing drug laws and applying across the Gold Coast. Later scholarship associates the 1935 measure with cannabis-possession prohibition. The original ordinance has not been inspected here, so this is not presented as proof of the territory's first cannabis restriction or of an exact commencement day.
1009−91 points
193412 entries12 score changes
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Uzbekistan
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Uzbekistan was a Soviet republic.
1006−94 points
🇺🇦 Ukraine Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Ukraine
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Ukraine was a Soviet republic.
10011−89 points
🇹🇲 Turkmenistan Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Turkmenistan
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Turkmenistan was a Soviet republic.
1002−98 points
🏳️ Transnistria Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Transnistria
The Soviet Union prohibited growing Indian hemp and the opium poppy without permission. The land east of the Dniester was then part of the Moldavian autonomous republic inside Soviet Ukraine.
1008−92 points
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Ban ✓ Article
Saudi Arabia enacts its first anti-drug law
King Abdulaziz issued the Prevention of Narcotic Drug Trafficking and Use Law, the kingdom's first national prohibition statute. The 2005 law eventually repealed and replaced it.
1002−98 points
🇷🇺 Russia Ban ✓ Article
The Soviet Union bans growing cannabis
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy.
10019−81 points
🇲🇩 Moldova Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Moldova
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Moldova was a Soviet republic from 1940.
10011−89 points
🇬🇪 Georgia Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Georgia
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Georgia was a Soviet republic.
1009−91 points
🇧🇾 Belarus Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Belarus
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Belarus was a Soviet republic.
10019−81 points
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Azerbaijan
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Azerbaijan was a Soviet republic.
1009−91 points
🇦🇲 Armenia Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Armenia
The Soviet Union prohibited the unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy. Armenia was a Soviet republic.
10020−80 points
🏳️ Abkhazia Ban ✓
The Soviet ban on growing cannabis covers Abkhazia
The Soviet Union prohibited growing Indian hemp and the opium poppy without permission. Abkhazia was then an autonomous republic inside Soviet Georgia.
10010−90 points
19332 entries2 score changes
🇹🇷 Türkiye Ban ✓ Article
Turkey passes its narcotics control law
Law 2313 put cannabis under state control: growing it needs a permit and is allowed only in designated provinces, and possession for use is a crime.
1009−91 points
🇮🇶 Iraq Ban ✓
Iraq bans cannabis growing and orders crops uprooted
Iraq prohibited growing cannabis and required authorities to uproot plants under agricultural supervision, charging the grower for the work. A first offence carried a fine of up to ten dinars; repeat offences could bring up to three months in prison, a fine of up to twenty dinars, or both, and people who knew of crops had to report them. The ban took effect on publication, and a new drug law replaced it in 1965 with an exception for licensed fibre-and-seed crops.
1000−100 points
19323 entries3 score changes
🇬🇹 Guatemala Ban ✓
Guatemala restricts Indian hemp and marihuana
Decree 1331 added Indian hemp and marihuana to the plants it classed as lethal and restricted.
1009−91 points
🇵🇷 Puerto Rico Ban ✓
Puerto Rico approves a law banning cannabis growing and trade
Puerto Rico adopted a law to punish cannabis planting, importation, purchase and sale. The Supreme Court later identified it as the original cannabis statute and explained that a separate law in May 1934 re-enacted it. Cannabis remained criminalised through the harsher narcotics law introduced in 1959.
10011−89 points
🇧🇷 Brazil Ban ✓ Article
Brazil bans cannabis nationwide
A federal decree added cannabis to the list of prohibited substances. Local bans went back as far as an 1830 Rio de Janeiro ordinance aimed at enslaved Africans, who had brought the plant with them. Decree 20.930, issued at the League of Nations' request, listed Cannabis indica as the twelfth narcotic; holding it above the therapeutic dose without a prescription, or contributing to its use, carried three to nine months in prison and a fine.
10011−89 points
19308 entries8 score changes
🇸🇮 Slovenia Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Slovenia
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Slovenia was part of the kingdom.
10024−76 points
🇷🇸 Serbia Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Serbia
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Serbia was part of the kingdom.
10014−86 points
🇲🇰 North Macedonia Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers North Macedonia
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. North Macedonia was part of the kingdom.
10014−86 points
🇲🇪 Montenegro Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Montenegro
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Montenegro was part of the kingdom.
10021−79 points
🇽🇰 Kosovo Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Kosovo
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Kosovo was part of the kingdom.
10014−86 points
🇭🇷 Croatia Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Croatia
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Croatia was part of the kingdom.
10022−78 points
🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina Ban ✓
Yugoslavia's criminal code covers Bosnia and Herzegovina
The criminal code of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took effect and set prison sentences for drug offences. Yugoslavia had ratified the Geneva convention the year before. Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of the kingdom.
10014−86 points
19292 entries2 score changes
🇩🇪 Germany Ban ✓ Article
Germany adds cannabis to its Opium Law
The Law on the Trade in Narcotics (Opiumgesetz) of 10 December 1929, in force on 1 January 1930, carried out the 1925 Geneva convention and replaced the Opium Law of 1920. It listed Indian hemp, its extract and its tincture among the controlled drugs: importing, growing, making, trading, acquiring or supplying them needed a permit, except for pharmacies dispensing on prescription and patients buying from them. Hashish and other cannabis resin were banned outright. Breaches were punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine, and foreigners convicted could be expelled.
10024−76 points
🇧🇸 Bahamas Ban ✓
The Bahamas pass the Dangerous Drugs Act
The colonial Act prohibited Indian hemp along with other dangerous drugs.
10011−89 points
192810 entries9 score changes
🇷🇴 Romania Ban ✓
Romania passes a narcotics law
The law covered hashish and its preparations along with other narcotics.
1009−91 points
🇳🇴 Norway Ban ✓ Article
Norway's Opium Act reaches beyond opium
The Storting replaced the 1913 law, which was limited to opium, opiates and cocaine and carried no penalties, with one covering other narcotics named by royal decree, and added fines or up to six months in prison. Norway had taken on control of cannabis through the 1925 Geneva convention, though the drug was almost unknown there until the 1960s.
10012−88 points
🇨🇴 Colombia Ban ✓
Colombia's first law against marijuana
Colombian historians cited by the anthropologist William Partridge date the country's first marijuana law to 1928, a year after Costa Rica's. They link the spread of smoking to the Caribbean coast and the Magdalena valley, through ports such as Santa Marta, Barranquilla and Cartagena, and to the movement of workers around the Caribbean after the building of the Panama Canal. Only around 1945 did the press begin reporting clandestine plantations on the Atlantic coast and in the Cauca valley.
🇧🇿 Belize Ban ✓
British Honduras passes its Dangerous Drugs Ordinance
The Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, 1928 (No. 22 of 1928) was the colony's narcotics law. A 1947 order under it added preparations made from extract or tincture of Indian hemp to the controlled drugs. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
10011−89 points
🇦🇹 Austria Ban ✓
Austria brings the Geneva Opium Convention into its law
Austria published the 1925 Geneva convention, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under control, as Federal Law Gazette No. 244/1928. The 1946 Narcotics Act names it as one of the treaties that define which substances Austrian law restricts. The domestic rules made in 1928 were not read, so the size of this first step is uncertain.
10011−89 points
19275 entries2 score changes
🇺🇸 United States · New York Ban ✓
New York State adds marijuana to its narcotics law
The legislature listed marijuana among the habit-forming drugs in a comprehensive narcotics bill drafted by an American Medical Association committee. Bonnie and Whitebread found only four brief references to marijuana in the New York Times between 1914 and 1927, and none in the comment after the act passed.
🇳🇬 Nigeria Ban ✓ Article
Nigeria's first Dangerous Drugs Ordinance restricts cannabis
The colonial ordinance restricted cannabis use and trade to medical and scientific purposes under the chief medical officer's supervision, criminalising other unlicensed use and trade. It implemented the 1925 Geneva Convention rather than responding to a perceived Nigerian drug problem.
10011−89 points
🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea Ban ✓
The Territory of New Guinea restricts cannabis extracts
A Dangerous Drugs Ordinance 1927 for the Territory of New Guinea, published in the Commonwealth Gazette of 11 August 1927, listed galenical preparations (extract and tincture) of Indian hemp among the dangerous drugs. Imports were licensed for medicinal purposes only. The ordinance was to commence on a date fixed by the Administrator. The restriction covered the former Territory of New Guinea, not yet the whole of present-day Papua New Guinea, and did not create a general offence for locally grown marijuana.
🇮🇩 Indonesia Ban ✓ Article
The Dutch East Indies ban cannabis
A colonial narcotics ordinance prohibited growing cannabis and tightly restricted its possession, use and distribution across the archipelago. Medical and scientific activity required prior authorisation; other offences brought fines or up to six months in prison.
10012−88 points
192612 entries10 score changes
🇷🇴 Romania Ban ✓
Romania prohibits growing cannabis for resin
Romania was one of the Eastern European countries where traffickers tried to establish cannabis growing for hashish after Greece's 1920 ban. It prohibited the crop in 1926, according to the UN's 1951 survey of cannabis.
🇵🇹 Portugal Ban ✓
Portugal passes its first drug law
A decree carried out the international opium conventions and restricted the import and sale of narcotics, cannabis included.
10017−83 points
🇿🇲 Zambia Ban ✓ Article
Northern Rhodesia passes its Dangerous Drugs Ordinance
The ordinance did not use the word cannabis; it named dagga, wild dagga, red dagga and klip dagga. A 1938 supplement added extracts and tinctures of Indian hemp to the list of habit-forming drugs.
1003−97 points
🇱🇧 Lebanon Ban ✓ Article
Lebanon prohibits hashish
The French mandate authorities banned hashish. Growing in the Bekaa valley continued anyway and still does.
10014−86 points
🇬🇦 Gabon Ban ✓
France bans cannabis in French Equatorial Africa
The Conversation lists French Equatorial Africa in 1926 among the places where French authorities adopted a ban or repressive regulation of cannabis. The federation included what is now Gabon. The article does not describe the measure itself.
1009−91 points
🇨🇬 Congo Ban ✓
France bans cannabis in French Equatorial Africa
The Conversation lists French Equatorial Africa in 1926 among the places where French authorities adopted a ban or repressive regulation of cannabis. The federation included what is now Congo. The article does not describe the measure itself.
1009−91 points
🇹🇩 Chad Ban ✓
France bans cannabis in French Equatorial Africa
The Conversation lists French Equatorial Africa in 1926 among the places where French authorities adopted a ban or repressive regulation of cannabis. The federation included what is now Chad. The article does not describe the measure itself.
1009−91 points
🇨🇫 Central African Republic Ban ✓
France bans cannabis in French Equatorial Africa
The Conversation lists French Equatorial Africa in 1926 among the places where French authorities adopted a ban or repressive regulation of cannabis. The federation included what is now the Central African Republic. The article does not describe the measure itself.
1009−91 points
🇦🇺 Australia Ban ✓ Article
Australia limits cannabis imports to medicine and research
Australia restricted cannabis imports to licensed doctors and drug businesses supplying medical or scientific needs, with separate approval for each shipment. The government extended existing drug controls after the 1925 Geneva convention brought cannabis into international restrictions. Exporters also needed permission, while state laws later prohibited unauthorised cannabis use.
10011−89 points
19256 entries4 score changes
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago Ban ✓ Article
Trinidad and Tobago bans ganja
The colonial legislature prohibited cannabis, which Indian indentured workers had brought to the islands.
496−43 points
🇵🇸 Palestine Ban ✓
British Palestine's Dangerous Drugs Ordinance covers Indian hemp
The Mandatory government promulgated the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1925, modelled on Britain's Dangerous Drugs Acts. It outlawed the manufacture, import, export and possession of certain dangerous drugs, among them Indian hemp, and was amended in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Hashish kept flowing through Palestine from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt. It formalised a ban on hashish that the military government had announced in 1919.
🏳️ Northern Cyprus Ban ✓
British Cyprus's Dangerous Drugs Law covers the north of the island
Cyprus, then a British colony, passed its Dangerous Drugs Law in 1925, and Indian hemp was among the drugs it controlled. It applied to the whole island, the north included, long before the island was divided in 1974.
1003−97 points
🇮🇱 Israel Ban ✓
British Palestine's Dangerous Drugs Ordinance covers Indian hemp
The Mandatory government promulgated the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1925, modelled on Britain's Dangerous Drugs Acts. It outlawed the manufacture, import, export and possession of certain dangerous drugs, among them Indian hemp, and was amended in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Hashish kept flowing through Palestine from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt. It formalised a ban on hashish that the military government had announced in 1919.
🇨🇾 Cyprus Ban ✓
Cyprus passes its Dangerous Drugs Law
A 1947 order made under the Dangerous Drugs Laws, 1925 to 1932 extends them to new drugs with effects like those produced by Indian hemp, morphine or cocaine, which shows Indian hemp was among the drugs the law controlled. The filing does not reproduce the law itself, so its exact treatment of cannabis is not confirmed here.
1005−95 points
🇧🇬 Bulgaria Ban ✓
Bulgaria prohibits growing cannabis for resin
After Greece banned cultivation in 1920, hashish traffickers brought cannabis growing for resin to Bulgaria in 1919 and 1920, and Bulgarian farmers, like Romanian and Yugoslav ones, worked to meet the demand of Egypt, which Greece had supplied until then. Bulgaria prohibited the crop in 1925, according to the UN's 1951 survey of cannabis, which gives the year but not the text of the law; a historian of the hashish trade dates the Balkan bans to the late 1920s.
10012−88 points
19241 entry1 score change
19236 entries4 score changes
🇺🇸 United States Ban ✓
Five more American states pass marijuana laws in one year
Iowa, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Arkansas all passed laws regulating marijuana in 1923, joining Massachusetts (1911), Maine (1914), Wyoming (1915) and Texas (1919). Nebraska and Louisiana followed in 1927 and Colorado in 1929. Outright prohibitions spread through the 1920s, the decade of national alcohol Prohibition, during which cannabis was seen as a cheaper alternative to drink.
🇵🇦 Panama Ban ✓
Panama bans cannabis
A law prohibited growing and using cannabis.
10011−89 points
🇲🇦 Morocco Ban ✓
The Republic of the Rif prohibits kif
During the short-lived Republic of the Rif of 1923 to 1926, Mohammed ben Abdelkrim, who had united the Berber tribes against Spanish occupation, prohibited the growing and use of kif, which he held to be contrary to Islam. How effective the ban was is unclear. After his defeat the Spanish and French authorities allowed cultivation again, and the French set up a zone of toleration north of Fez, close to the Rif.
19224 entries4 score changes
🇸🇿 Eswatini Ban ✓ Article
Swaziland's Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Act takes effect
The colonial law banned importing, cultivating, producing or possessing habit-forming drugs without a permit. A 1955 United Nations survey confirms that it applied to the cannabis plant, cannabis and its resin. Courts in Eswatini still prosecute dagga possession and cultivation under this 1922 Act.
10011−89 points
🇿🇦 South Africa Ban ✓ Article
South Africa bans dagga nationwide
Provinces had restricted dagga since the nineteenth century, at first only for Indian labourers. A national law now prohibited growing, selling and possessing it. South Africa then asked the League of Nations to put cannabis under international control.
10011−89 points
🇧🇼 Botswana Ban ✓ Article
Bechuanaland restricts habit-forming drugs
The Habit-Forming Drug Proclamation restricted the import, export, production and use of habit-forming drugs in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, in the year South Africa prohibited dagga. A 1955 United Nations survey confirms that it applied to the cannabis plant, with possession and use limited to medical purposes.
10011−89 points
🇱🇸 Lesotho Ban ✓ Article
Basutoland brings cannabis under its habit-forming drugs law
The Basutoland Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Regulation Proclamation, 1922 applied to the cannabis plant, cannabis and its resin. By the 1950s a narcotics offence under it carried a fine of up to 500 pounds or up to three years in prison.
10016−84 points
19211 entry1 score change
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🇺🇸 United States · Texas Ban ✓
Texas adds marijuana to its narcotics law
Modelled on the federal Harrison Act, the law banned transferring marijuana except for medical purposes but did not ban possessing it, because constitutional doctrine of the time discouraged reaching private conduct. In 1923 the legislature banned possession with intent to sell, and only in 1931, after alcohol prohibition had removed the old objection, possession itself.
🇵🇸 Palestine Ban ✓
British military rule in Palestine bans hashish
Early in British rule, the military government warned the public that it would henceforth be an offence to cultivate, export, introduce, buy, sell, offer for sale or possess hashish. It is the first known anti-hashish rule in Palestine; the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1925 put it into a full drugs law.
1009−91 points
🇮🇱 Israel Ban ✓ Article
British military rule in Palestine bans hashish
Early in British rule, the military government warned the public that it would henceforth be an offence to cultivate, export, introduce, buy, sell, offer for sale or possess hashish. It is the first known anti-hashish rule in Palestine; the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1925 put it into a full drugs law.
10012−88 points
19172 entries1 score change
🇺🇸 United States · Colorado Ban ✓ Article
Colorado bans growing and selling marijuana
At the time the drug was said to be used almost only by Mexican workers in the beet fields. In 1927 the legislature banned possession and tightened the rules on distribution. In April 1929, days after the Denver Post linked a child's murder to her Mexican stepfather's marijuana use, the governor signed higher penalties for second offences.
🇩🇿 Algeria Ban ✓ Article
France extends its narcotics controls to colonial Algeria
A decree of 9 February 1917 extended the French narcotics rules to Algeria, according to the French government’s account to the League of Nations. Those rules controlled import, export, trade, possession and use; a further decree in January 1932 applied the updated French system and expressly named cannabis, resin, preparations, extracts and tinctures. Colonial councils had discussed restricting kif before the national controls.
1005−95 points
19169 entries9 score changes
🇸🇳 Senegal Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Senegal. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1009−91 points
🇳🇪 Niger Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Niger. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1009−91 points
🇲🇷 Mauritania Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Mauritania. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1003−97 points
🇲🇱 Mali Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Mali. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
10014−86 points
🇬🇳 Guinea Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Guinea. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1007−93 points
🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Côte d'Ivoire. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1009−91 points
🇧🇯 Benin Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Benin. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1009−91 points
🇧🇫 Burkina Faso Ban ✓ Article
France extends its poisonous substances law to French West Africa
A decree extended France's Act of 12 July 1916 on the importation, trade in, possession and use of poisonous substances to French West Africa, which included what is now Burkina Faso. The regulations made under that Act in France list Indian hemp, its resin and their preparations among the narcotics of Schedule B. The filings read do not reproduce the colonial text itself.
1003−97 points
19154 entries2 score changes
🇺🇸 United States · Utah Ban ✓
Utah bans marijuana, down to the pipes
Utah's prohibition extended even to owning pipes for smoking the drug. Bonnie and Whitebread found no record of local concern and suggested that Mormons who had lived in Mexico and returned around 1912 may have brought knowledge of marijuana back with them. They date California's first marijuana prohibition to the same year, when the drug was added to an existing antinarcotics law.
🇺🇸 United States · Texas Ban ✓
El Paso bans marijuana
The Texas border city's ordinance was the first American measure to draw on Mexican beliefs that marijuana caused madness and violence. Between 1915 and 1930 practically every state west of the Mississippi passed an anti-marijuana law. Bonnie and Whitebread date the ordinance, which banned sale and possession, to 1914, and say a fight involving a user was said to have set it off.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago Ban ✓ Article
Trinidad puts ganja under licence
The Ganja Ordinance created a licensed system for selling cannabis, which Indian indentured workers had brought to the islands. Ten years later it was banned outright.
9849−49 points
19142 entries2 score changes
🇲🇿 Mozambique Ban ✓ Article
Portuguese Mozambique brings cannabis under control
Portaria No. 2,054, published in the colony's Boletim Oficial, is the order Portugal later cited to the United Nations as its control on cannabis, known locally as suruma, in Mozambique. A 1957 UN survey says the order prohibits cultivating the cannabis plant and prohibits importing and selling it.
10011−89 points
🇰🇪 Kenya Ban ✓ Article
The East Africa Protectorate bans cannabis
The Opium Ordinance of the British protectorate that became Kenya took effect and prohibited cannabis, which had been widely used there.
1001−99 points
19134 entries4 score changes
🇺🇸 United States Ban ✓
American states begin banning cannabis
California prohibited cannabis in 1913, after Massachusetts in 1911. By 1933 most states had restricted it, many by adopting the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. This entry stands for the whole process.
10022−78 points
🇯🇲 Jamaica Ban ✓ Article
Jamaica passes the Ganja Law
Ganja had come to Jamaica with Indian indentured workers. Pressed by the churches and a Daily Gleaner editorial blaming ganja for crime among "coolie" labourers, the Legislative Council added cannabis to its ratification of the Hague Opium Convention, banning growing and importing it on pain of a fine of up to £100 or twelve months in prison. Possession and use were not yet offences. In the debate one member said Indian labourers were as entitled to their smoke as members to their cigars.
10037−63 points
🇬🇾 Guyana Ban ✓
British Guiana passes the Indian Hemp Ordinance
The ordinance moved from licensing to prohibition, banning the growing and possession of cannabis. The historian James Mills, citing a 1924 Home Office file, describes it differently: imported cannabis had to be stored in a colonial bonded warehouse and released only to traders who had paid for a licence, the model Trinidad copied in 1915.
499−40 points
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🇿🇦 South Africa Ban ✓ Article
The Orange River Colony bans giving and receiving dagga
Giving cannabis to another person, selling or exchanging it, and obtaining it from someone else became offences in the Orange River Colony. The ordinance followed the prosecution and fining of Africans under a military proclamation left over from the South African War. Neighbouring Transvaal officials also sought restrictions, but later inquiries among mine managers and local officers found substantial opposition to a ban.
🇨🇩 DR Congo Ban ✓ Article
The Congo Free State bans growing and holding cannabis for smoking
The Congo Free State prohibited growing, selling, transporting and holding cannabis for smoking, with penalties of 100 to 1,000 francs, fifteen days to a year of imprisonment, or either penalty alone. Growers could declare their crops within fifteen days for compensation after destruction, while village chiefs faced liability for fines unless they reported offences. The prohibition disrupted local supply networks; an amendment explicitly covering consumption and smoking equipment followed in 1917.
1009−91 points
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18823 entries1 score change
🇸🇨 Seychelles Ban ✓
Seychelles bans cannabis
The prohibition was copied word for word from the law of Mauritius, of which Seychelles was then a dependency.
10011−89 points
🇲🇽 Mexico Ban ✓
Oaxaca, under Porfirio Díaz, bans selling marijuana
During his brief term as governor of Oaxaca, Porfirio Díaz prohibited the sale of "Rosa María, known by the common name mariguana", using articles of the state penal code on harmful substances.
🇦🇹 Austria Ban ✓ Article
Austria bans imports of Grimault hemp cigarettes
An imperial ministerial regulation dated 25 April 1882, made in agreement with the Royal Hungarian Government, prohibits imports of the Paris firm Grimault & Co.’s products marketed as hemp cigarettes or Indian cigarettes. The text declares immediate effect; the date records the regulation rather than an independently established publication date. It names a manufacturer and product, not all cannabis or all medicinal cannabis cigarettes. No nationwide possession or cultivation prohibition is established by this instrument.