Death penalty
The death penalty for cannabis introduced, extended, carried out, limited or abolished.
64 entries, 1968–2026 · 18 moved a score · back to the whole history
World average score and Death penalty 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.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Death penalty ✓ Article
Saudi Arabia executes ten Ethiopians in hashish cases
Five Ethiopian migrants were executed for allegedly smuggling hashish, after five others on 23 June. Human Rights Watch reported that the latest group had no lawyers and only limited interpretation during extremely short court hearings.
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Death penalty ✓
Bangladesh adds a digital drug offence that can carry death
The Narcotics Control (Amendment) Act 2026, Act No. 101 of 2026, is dated 16 July 2026. Section 36A makes it an offence to use a website, social media, an app, another digital medium, or a digital payment, e-wallet, virtual asset or cryptocurrency to buy, sell, supply, offer, advertise, broker or communicate about a narcotic. Recovery of the drug is not required. The sentence is any term of imprisonment or death, and a fine of up to 2 million taka. An international or organised case under the next subsection is any term of imprisonment, a fine of up to 5 million taka, or both, and that subsection does not itself state the death penalty. This is not the penalty for ordinary possession. On 16 August 2026 the narcotics department filed its first case under the section, over THC and CBD products it said had been sold on Daraz.
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🇮🇷 Iran Death penalty ✓
Iran's executions more than double, nearly half for drug offences
The rights group HRANA counted at least 1,922 executions in Iran between 1 January and 20 December 2025, 106% more than in 2024. Drug offences accounted for 46.10% of them. The report does not break the figure down by drug.
🇲🇻 Maldives Death penalty ✓
The Maldives introduces the death penalty for drug smuggling
President Muizzu ratified amendments passed by 65 votes to none. Death can be imposed for importing or possessing more than 350 g of cannabis, and only on a unanimous Supreme Court verdict; otherwise the sentence is life imprisonment.
🇰🇼 Kuwait Death penalty ✓ Article
Kuwait combines its drug laws and keeps death for trafficking
Decree-Law No. 159 of 2025, a combined drug law, replaced the 1983 narcotics law and 1987 psychotropic-substances law, with commencement reported as 15 December. Ordinary personal consumption or possession carries up to five years and a fine up to KD5,000, while specified trafficking offences carry death or life imprisonment. The law also lets prosecutors send an eligible personal-use accused person to rehabilitation for up to three months instead of starting a prosecution. It was published in the gazette on 30 November after signature on 24 November.
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🇵🇰 Pakistan Death penalty ✓
Pakistan abolishes the death penalty for drug offences
The Control of Narcotic Substances (Amendment) Act 2023 removed death as a possible sentence under the federal drug law, leaving life imprisonment as the maximum punishment.
🇲🇾 Malaysia Death penalty ✓
Malaysia ends the mandatory death penalty
Judges gained discretion to impose 30 to 40 years in prison instead of death for drug trafficking. The presumption that 200 g of cannabis means trafficking was kept.
🇸🇬 Singapore Death penalty ✓
Singapore executes a man in a cannabis trafficking case
Tangaraju Suppiah was executed after being convicted of abetting the trafficking of 1,017.9 g of cannabis, more than twice the capital threshold. The case drew international attention to Singapore's continued use of capital punishment for cannabis offences.
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🏳️ Abkhazia Death penalty ✓
Abkhazia limits life and death sentences where drug cases have mitigation
A March 2020 amendment recast the highest drug-supply and import tiers with a fifteen-year prison term and a fine, reserving life imprisonment or death for cases without mitigating circumstances. The Supreme Court’s 2025 guidance expressly barred life or death where mitigation existed and explained further sentencing reductions for specified cooperation circumstances.
🏳️ Abkhazia Death penalty ✓ Article
Abkhazia allows life or death for the most serious drug dealing
Abkhazia’s highest drug-supply and import penalty tiers took effect on 1 March 2020, allowing life imprisonment or death for the most serious cases. Deputy Dmitry Dbar had promoted the legislation as a response to overdose deaths and drug couriers. An amendment later that March reserved life or death for cases without mitigating circumstances, a limit reinforced by the Supreme Court in 2025.
51−4 points
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🇲🇾 Malaysia Death penalty ✓
Malaysia lets judges avoid the death sentence
An amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act gave courts limited discretion in sentencing for trafficking, where death had been the only penalty.
🇮🇷 Iran Death penalty ✓
Iran raises the threshold for drug executions
Parliament amended the Anti-Narcotics Law in August 2017 so that trafficking in natural drugs such as cannabis and opium reaches the capital threshold at 50 kg, up from 5 kg; for heroin, cocaine and amphetamines it rose from 30 grams to 2 kilograms. The change applied retroactively. On 9 January 2018 the head of the judiciary ordered judges to halt executions and review the cases of some 5,000 people under sentence of death, most of whom would have their sentences commuted to 25 to 30 years. Death remained for gang leaders, those who use minors and those who carry arms.
20162 entries0 score changes
🇶🇦 Qatar Death penalty ✓
A Qatari court gives death and two life terms for 120 kg found at sea
Five men were caught diving to recover three sealed barrels holding about 120 kilograms of hashish and opium near Qatari waters. The main trafficker was sentenced to death and a fine of 500,000 riyals, two others to life imprisonment, a fourth to seven years, and a fifth to one year and 10,000 riyals for using drugs. The newspaper called the verdict rare.
🇯🇴 Jordan Death penalty ✓ Article
Jordan retains death for international drug-gang trafficking
The new drug law retained mandatory death for aggravated trafficking involving international drug gangs or specified links to other international crimes. Ordinary personal use had a separate prison-and-fine offence with possible treatment. The earlier drug law already contained the international-gang death clause, which the 2016 replacement carried forward.
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🇶🇦 Qatar Death penalty ✓ Article
Qatar sentences a smuggler to death for a boatload of hashish and opium
The Criminal Court unanimously sentenced a man to death and a fine of 500,000 riyals for bringing about 600 kilograms of hashish and opium into Qatar by speedboat; the coast guard caught him unloading what looked like sacks of flour on an island. A second man, who may have acted under threat of a gun, got life imprisonment. Qatar had reported no execution in more than a decade, and at least 19 people were on death row at the end of 2011.
🇸🇬 Singapore Death penalty ✓
Singapore narrows the mandatory death penalty
Courts gained discretion to impose life imprisonment instead of death on a qualifying drug courier who substantially assists the authorities or whose mental responsibility was substantially impaired. The substantial-assistance route also requires at least 15 strokes of the cane; the impaired-responsibility route does not.
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🇮🇩 Indonesia Death penalty ✓
Indonesia's Constitutional Court upholds capital punishment under the narcotics law
In cases 2-3/PUU-V/2007, the Constitutional Court rejected Indonesian applicants' constitutional challenge to death-penalty provisions of the 1997 Narcotics Law. Foreign applicants' petitions were inadmissible for lack of standing. The judgment preserved existing capital sanctions within the broader drug-control framework; it did not introduce a new cannabis penalty or concern cannabis alone.
🇧🇭 Bahrain Death penalty ✓ Article
Bahrain keeps capital drug penalties and offers users a treatment route
Bahrain’s new drug law retained death or life imprisonment for trafficking and required death in specified aggravated cases, while personal possession and growing carried imprisonment and a fine up to 3,000 dinars. It allowed treatment instead of punishment for proven addiction and protected some people seeking treatment before being caught using or prosecuted. Taking effect on 17 August 2007, it replaced the 1973 decree and its later penalty amendments; unpaid provision for use had a separate offence carrying up to seven years.
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🇩🇿 Algeria Death penalty ✓ Article
Algeria repeals its drug-law death clause but keeps life sentences
Algeria’s replacement drug law repealed the 1985 drug provisions, including their capital clause, while setting life imprisonment for unlawful cannabis cultivation and certain supply offences. Illicit use or possession for personal use carried two months to two years in prison, a 5,000–50,000-dinar fine, or either penalty alone. Qualifying users who followed treatment or medical supervision could avoid prosecution.
🇮🇶 Iraq Death penalty ✓
Iraq restores death penalties for drug dealing that supports violent overthrow
Iraq's interim government restored capital punishment for specified drug-trafficking offences committed to finance or assist the violent overthrow of the government. The order made an exception to the occupation authority's 2003 suspension and covered the drug law's principal trafficking and aggravated-offence groups. It took effect when issued on 8 August, before publication in September, and commuted death sentences already final before its commencement to life imprisonment.
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🇮🇶 Iraq Death penalty ✓
Iraq extends death or life sentences across its drug-trafficking offences
Iraq replaced lifelong imprisonment and a fine for the drug law's principal trafficking offences with death or life imprisonment and confiscation of movable and immovable property. The offences included supplying drugs and growing cannabis for trade; the death penalty had already applied to specified aggravated cases since 1968. The government described the confiscation rule as a way to remove unlawful drug proceeds; the occupation authority suspended capital punishment in June 2003.
🇧🇳 Brunei Death penalty ✓
Brunei applies the death penalty to smaller quantities
After cannabis was made a Class B drug in 2001, the Sultan worked with the Narcotics Control Bureau on stricter rules, and the death penalty was applied to trafficking in smaller amounts.
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🇾🇪 Yemen Death penalty ✓ Article
Yemen's narcotics law provides for the death penalty
Law 3 of 1993 on illicit trafficking in and use of narcotics punishes import, export and production for trade with death, and trading or giving drugs to a user with death or 25 years. Holding or growing for personal use carries five years, with treatment possible instead.
52−3 points
🇸🇬 Singapore Death penalty ✓
Singapore creates a capital offence for cannabis mixtures
The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act 1993 (Act 40 of 1993) introduced the term "cannabis mixture" for cannabis broken up and mixed with other vegetable matter such as tobacco, and made trafficking, importing and exporting it offences. At the bill's second reading on 10 November 1993 the Minister for Home Affairs said a new capital offence would apply to more than 1,000 grammes of cannabis mixture, against more than 500 grammes of cannabis alone, with 20 to 30 years and 15 strokes for 660 to 1,000 grammes.
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🇻🇳 Vietnam Death penalty ✓ Article
Vietnam introduces the death penalty for drug crimes
The amendment adopted on 28 December 1989 added Article 96a to the 1985 Penal Code, combining unlawful manufacture, possession, sale and transport of drugs in one provision. Its basic penalty was two to seven years; particularly serious cases attracted twelve to twenty years, life imprisonment or death. This introduced a dedicated capital drug offence. The reproduced law's legislative metadata records commencement on 2 January 1990; the stable event ID retains the adoption year.
86−2 points
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Death penalty ✓ Article
Bangladesh sets prison terms for ganja and death for cannabis resin
From 2 January 1990, ganja or any herbal cannabis drew six months to three years in prison up to 5 kilograms, and three to fifteen years above that. A cannabis plant of any species drew six months to three years for up to 25 plants, and three to fifteen years above that. Cannabis resin, in the same band as opium, drew two to ten years up to 2 kilograms and death or life imprisonment above that, and tetrahydrocannabinol drew death or life above 10 grams. The act, dated 1 February 1990, also banned cultivating, trading, keeping and using a narcotic other than alcohol, and it repealed the excise and dangerous-drugs laws carried over from colonial rule.
🇸🇬 Singapore Death penalty ✓
Singapore adds capital thresholds for cannabis
Amendments introduced in 1990 brought in the mandatory death penalty for trafficking in cannabis and opium, according to a study published in the Home Team Journal. The capital threshold for cannabis was 500 g.
🇱🇾 Libya Death penalty ✓
Libya passes its narcotics law
Law 7 of 1990 on drugs and psychotropic substances, amended in 1996, is the basis of Libya's drug control and allows the death penalty for trafficking.
42−2 points
19892 entries1 score change
🇸🇩 Sudan Death penalty ✓ Article
Sudan allows death sentences for hashish trafficking after the coup
Sudan's military rulers amended the existing hashish and opium law to allow death or ten to twenty years in prison for trafficking and the other listed supply offences. Smoking, ordinary possession and possessing smoking equipment carried three to seven years. The amendment followed the June coup, and special courts began imposing drug-related death sentences within months.
53−2 points
🇪🇬 Egypt Death penalty ✓
Egypt rewrites its drug penalties around the death sentence
Law 122 of 1989 amended the narcotics law of 1960 and gave it the penalties still in force. Article 33 sets death and a fine of 100,000 to 500,000 pounds for importing or exporting a narcotic without a licence, for producing one for trade, and for growing or trading in the listed plants or their seeds for trade. Article 34 sets death or life at hard labour for holding, buying or selling a drug with intent to trade, and death where an aggravating circumstance applies, such as supplying a person under 21 or acting near a school or place of worship. Offering a drug to someone without payment brings life at hard labour and a fine of 50,000 to 200,000 pounds under Article 35.
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🇶🇦 Qatar Death penalty ✓ Article
Qatar passes its narcotics law
A study of Qatar's drug policy calls this the country's first law on narcotic drugs, although it repealed a decree-law of 1966. Law 9 of 1987 punishes importing, producing or growing for trade with ten to twenty years in prison, and a repeat offender with death or life imprisonment. Possession for personal use and use itself bring prison and a fine. A court may send an addict to a clinic for three months to a year in place of the sentence, no case is brought against a user who comes forward for treatment, and a spouse or close relative may ask for a user to be committed.
1002−98 points
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Death penalty ✓
Saudi Arabia authorises death sentences for drug smuggling
A Council of Senior Scholars fatwa prescribed death for people who bring drugs into the kingdom or receive them from abroad, and for repeat drug dealers. Judges soon began applying the rule to trafficking cases, including hashish.
20−2 points
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🇧🇭 Bahrain Death penalty ✓ Article
Bahrain introduces death or life imprisonment for drug supply
Bahrain introduced death or life imprisonment, plus a fine of 5,000–50,000 dinars, for unauthorised drug import, export and supply, and growing drugs for trafficking. The rule covered providing drugs for payment or free of charge; the previous amendment had set life imprisonment or at least five years. Published on 12 July 1984, it retained at least six months’ imprisonment for personal possession.
20−2 points
🇳🇬 Nigeria Death penalty ✓
Nigeria's second military government adds death for drug trafficking
During Nigeria's second military government the rulers issued Decree 20, which made the death penalty available for drug trafficking, and amended the Indian Hemp Decree to increase penalties and jail terms. The death penalty was used sparingly, was aimed at cocaine, and was removed in 1985. Cannabis use became popular among young Nigerians between 1980 and 1990.
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🇸🇬 Singapore Death penalty ✓
Singapore introduces mandatory death sentences for drug trafficking
An amendment made death mandatory for trafficking, importing or exporting more than 30 g of morphine or 15 g of diamorphine. Cannabis was not yet covered by a capital threshold; that change came in 1990.
🇳🇬 Nigeria Death penalty ✓ Article
Nigeria removes the death penalty for growing cannabis
Nigeria’s military government removed the death penalty for cultivating and importing or selling cannabis, replacing it with imprisonment of at least ten years. Smoking or possession became punishable by a 200-naira fine, imprisonment of at least six months, or both. In 1984 the government raised the cultivation prison term to at least 21 years.
🇩🇿 Algeria Death penalty ✓ Article
Algeria allows capital punishment under a sweeping drug ordinance
Illicit drug use carried two months to one year in prison, a 500–5,000-dinar fine, or either penalty alone. A broad clause allowed capital punishment for offences under the ordinance when their character threatened the Algerian people’s moral health. Courts could order detoxification, and the law applied to acts after 1 October 1974 that had not received final judgment by publication.
51−4 points