Enforcement
Raids and seizures, arrest and prosecution figures, single cases and sentences, police practice.
222 entries, 1884–2026 · 1 moved a score · back to the whole history
World average score and Enforcement 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.
202624 entries0 score changes
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan Enforcement ✓
Kyrgyzstan reports three arrests over cannabis teas and oils
Police reported detaining three suspects after investigating cannabis products prepared for a festival in Tuura-Suu and searching homes and a shop. The Interior Ministry said laboratory tests found marijuana in two sample packages; searches also recovered cannabis oil, marijuana, seeds and products marketed as teas and other goods. A supply investigation was continuing when the arrests were reported.
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe Enforcement ✓ Article
Zimbabwe reports a four-year prison term for 19.49 kg of cannabis
Prosecutors reported that Clever Makwarimba, a fifty-three-year-old man from Zvishavane, received an effective four-year prison sentence for unlawful possession of 19.49 kg of cannabis. Detectives acting on a tip searched his travelling bag and satchel on the Beitbridge–Masvingo Highway on 11 July and found eight large packages. The report came after separate medical-production and industrial-hemp licensing routes had been introduced.
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Enforcement ✓
Bangladesh counts 105 border points used by traffickers
A report in July 2026 counted at least 105 border points in 18 districts used to bring in narcotics of all kinds. Authorities seized 96,358 kg of cannabis in 2025, down from 114,345 kg in 2024.
🇹🇬 Togo Enforcement ✓
Togo reports over 50 tonnes of drugs seized, mainly cannabis
Togo reported that security forces had seized more than 50 tonnes of drugs in 2025, mainly cannabis, alongside 52 kg of cocaine and psychotropic drugs. Security minister Calixte Madjoulba pointed to the seizures as evidence of anti-trafficking work. The report described Togo’s port and position on the Abidjan–Lagos corridor as routes used by traffickers, following the January destruction of cannabis seized in 2024.
🇧🇾 Belarus Enforcement ✓
Belarus reports more drug sentences served under restriction of liberty
The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that restriction of liberty made up 48% of drug sentences in the previous year, with personal-use offences its most frequent application. Short custodial sentences rose from 0.14% to 3.4% of sentences. The figures covered drug offences generally and followed the 2025 expansion of sentencing options.
🇮🇳 India Enforcement ✓
India's narcotics bureau reports 634 tonnes of cannabis seized
The Narcotics Control Bureau's annual report for 2025 counted 633.59 tonnes of cannabis seized, about half of all drugs by weight, up from 540.8 tonnes in 2024 but below the 816.9 tonnes of 2021. The bureau pointed to a new trend of potent hydroponic ganja reaching the big cities from abroad: cases rose from 102 in 2021 to 687 in 2025 and seizures from 303 kg to 4,862 kg, nearly all of it caught at airports.
🇭🇹 Haiti Enforcement ✓
The US Coast Guard hands Haiti a boat carrying 1.5 tonnes of marijuana
The United States Coast Guard stopped a vessel about eight nautical miles off Môle- Saint-Nicolas carrying about 3,200 pounds of marijuana, valued at 3.8 million dollars, and detained one person. The cargo and the suspect were handed to the Haitian authorities for prosecution.
🇦🇱 Albania Enforcement ✓
Three years after Albania's cannabis law, no licence has been issued
A review at the end of April found that Albania had still not issued a licence under the law of July 2023 that permits growing for medical and industrial use and created a National Cannabis Control Agency. About a year after the law the government had approved the zones where cultivation would be allowed.
🇳🇿 New Zealand Enforcement ✓
New Zealand's cannabis possession charges reach an eight-year high
Ministry of Justice figures reported in March 2026 showed 3,438 people charged with possessing cannabis in 2025, up from 2,881 in 2024 and 2,287 in 2023, the highest number since a 2019 law change told police to consider a health-based response first. Of all convictions for cannabis offences, 82% came alongside charges unrelated to cannabis; 506 people were convicted of cannabis offences alone in 2025, against 387 in 2023.
🇲🇪 Montenegro Enforcement ✓
Montenegro police file complaints against two more Trnovo suspects
Police filed supplementary criminal complaints against two men from Zeta, aged 42 and 49, on suspicion of drug production and supply linked to the Trnovo cannabis plantation. Investigators cited forensic examinations, analysis of traces and other collected evidence; three earlier suspects had already been processed. The case began with the discovery of about 13,100 plants near Bar in August 2025.
🇸🇸 South Sudan Enforcement ✓
Juba's authorities raid drug-selling spots
Security forces of Central Equatoria State, led by the deputy governor with the Juba City Council, raided the Suk Sita and Hai Amarat areas of Juba and seized marijuana, known locally as bangi, with tramadol and codeine syrups. The council warned that anyone trafficking in illegal substances would face the full force of the law.
🇹🇯 Tajikistan Enforcement ✓
Tajikistan reports 2.7 tonnes of drugs seized on the Afghan border
The head of Tajikistan's Drug Control Agency said about 2,742 kg of narcotics were seized along the border with Afghanistan in 2025, and the authorities said trafficking from Afghanistan had risen by nearly half over 2024. In a case reported the same week, the security service seized 19 kg of hashish with 30 kg of opium and 9 kg of heroin in Shamsiddin Shohin district; the two men arrested face up to 20 years in prison.
🇸🇳 Senegal Enforcement ✓
Senegal reports more than five tonnes of cannabis seized in a year
Figures presented in Dakar in February 2026 put seizures of Indian hemp in 2025 at 5,238 kg, with 1,302 people arrested in anti-drug operations, most of them tied to distribution networks in the informal sector. In October 2025 the gendarmerie's spokesman had said cannabis was the largest drug seized by weight that year, while cocaine seizures had doubled compared with 2024.
🇿🇲 Zambia Enforcement ✓
Zambia's drug agency seizes over three tonnes of cannabis in one operation
The Drug Enforcement Commission said its Operation Kufeza had seized about 3.3 tonnes of cannabis: 1,751.6 kg of fresh plants and 4.8 kg of seeds in Central Province, 1,478 kg from cultivation in Nkeyema District in Western Province, and 68.42 kg of packed cannabis in Senanga District. Twelve suspects were arrested and were to appear in court.
🇾🇪 Yemen Enforcement ✓
Yemen's government counts nearly three tonnes of hashish seized
The drug control administration of the interior ministry of Yemen's internationally recognised government reported 2,986 kg of hashish seized in 2025 in the governorates it controls, beside 1,530 kg of crystal methamphetamine, 169 kg of heroin and 482,596 Captagon pills. It counted 704 drug cases, 488 of them for use, and 1,260 suspects, of whom 827 were users.
🇧🇭 Bahrain Enforcement ✓ Article
Bahrain appeal court cuts a cannabis-seed sentence to ten years
An appeal court reduced a man’s sentence from fifteen years to ten and retained a 5,000-dinar fine and confiscation in a cannabis-seed and multiple-drug case, The Daily Tribune reported. Prosecutors said he held cannabis seeds for trafficking and hashish and pregabalin for personal use; investigators described a home-growing operation. Laboratory tests identified viable cannabis seeds and several drugs.
🇹🇬 Togo Enforcement ✓
Togo burns over five tonnes of cannabis seized in 2024
Togo reported burning more than 5,291 kg of cannabis seized across the country in 2024, within a total of 5,729.05 kg of drugs destroyed at Agoè in Lomé. The anti-drug office and national anti-drug committee supervised the operation. Security minister Calixte Batossie Madjoulba presented the destruction as part of the government’s effort to protect public health and young people.
🇬🇦 Gabon Enforcement ✓
Gabon's police say cannabis seizures more than doubled in 2025
The commander of the National Police Forces, General Serge Hervé Ngoma, reported that cannabis was the drug most often intercepted by the police: seizures rose from 433 kg in 2024 to 975 kg in 2025. The anti-drug office OCLAD took part in operations that seized nearly one tonne. He presented the rise as a sign of growing use and trafficking.
🇸🇻 El Salvador Enforcement ✓
El Salvador reports 395 kg of marijuana among 25 tonnes of drugs
Defence minister René Merino Monroy presented the security cabinet's figures for 2025: 25,011.05 kg of drugs seized, against 17,224.8 kg in 2024. Cocaine made up 24,612.59 kg of the total; marijuana accounted for 394.52 kg, valued at about 1.39 million dollars.
🇷🇸 Serbia Enforcement ✓
Serbia's police report 5.43 tonnes of marijuana seized in a year
The interior ministry said police seized more than 6.1 tonnes of drugs in 2025, of which 5.43 tonnes were marijuana, and found 130 drug-growing and production sites: 37 indoor, 92 outdoor and one synthetic drug laboratory.
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🇬🇮 Gibraltar Enforcement ✓
Gibraltar fines a man £800 for possessing 127 grams of cannabis resin
A 42-year-old man received an £800 fine after police found about 127 grams of cannabis resin during a foot patrol. He appeared in the Magistrates’ Court the morning after his arrest and was charged with possession of a Class B drug. The case came under the current criminal code, which allows fines or imprisonment for possession.
🏳️ Northern Cyprus Enforcement ✓
Police in northern Cyprus arrest ten people in two days of drug operations
In operations on 4 and 5 December 2025 in Kyrenia, Lefke, Metehan, Nicosia and at Ercan Airport, police reported seizing about 3.5 kg of drugs, most of it cannabis, including about 2 kg from a 22-year-old in Metehan and 600 g in Kyrenia, and arresting ten suspects. Two of them were held at the airport over four cannabis cigarettes after a detection dog alerted officers. Police said the operations against narcotics networks would continue.
🇹🇩 Chad Enforcement ✓
Chad's police burn seized cannabis under the 1995 drug law
The national police burned seized goods in the 7th district of N'Djamena, including 32 kg of cannabis herb, 34 balls of cannabis and 200 kg of psychotropic substances, beside 7.5 tonnes of adulterated alcohol. The deputy prosecutor present said the destruction complied with Law 22/PR/95 on drug control.
🇩🇲 Dominica Enforcement ✓
Dominica's police burn seized cocaine and cannabis
Police destroyed drugs valued at about 53 million East Caribbean dollars in November 2025. Cannabis accounted for about 1.2 million of that and cocaine for about 52 million.
🇧🇯 Benin Enforcement ✓
Police in Benin stop 130 kg of cannabis hidden as maize
Police in Bohicon arrested two motorcyclists coming from Azovè with 130 kg of cannabis in 237 slabs, packed in six sacks made to look like bags of maize. The men were handed to the central anti-drug office, Ocertid, for investigation.
🇲🇪 Montenegro Enforcement ✓
Montenegro police arrest a third suspect in the Trnovo cannabis case
Police arrested a 31-year-old man from Bar, identified as N.D., on suspicion of drug production and supply in the Trnovo investigation. The August operation had uncovered about 13,100 cannabis plants and led to two arrests. Investigators said they were continuing to identify people involved in cultivation and distribution; further complaints followed in March 2026.
🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire Enforcement ✓
Ivorian customs stop 74 kg of cannabis at the entrance to Abidjan
A mobile customs unit stopped a ride-hailing car coming from Aboisso on the Moossou bridge and found 78 balls and 40 slabs of cannabis, 74 kg in all. The driver and two passengers were detained.
🇲🇪 Montenegro Enforcement ✓ Article
Montenegro police find about 13,100 cannabis plants near Bar
Police reported finding eight connected cannabis plots with about 13,100 plants in Trnovo, in Bar municipality, and arresting two men aged 40 and 65 on suspicion of drug production and supply. The site had irrigation and security equipment, and officers collected evidence and cut down plants. Police described it as the country’s largest discovered marijuana plantation; the investigation brought a third arrest in October and complaints against two further suspects in March 2026.
🇬🇳 Guinea Enforcement ✓
Guinea's gendarmes seize 1,725 kg of cannabis in a minibus
The gendarmerie's research brigade in Kindia intercepted a minibus on the road from Bambaya carrying 1,725 kg of cannabis; the driver abandoned it and was arrested four days later. The operation was part of an anti-drug campaign launched by the prosecutor general at the Conakry court of appeal, and the Kindia prosecutor was informed.
🇰🇭 Cambodia Enforcement ✓
Cambodia reports nearly 15,000 drug arrests in seven months
A report by Cambodia's Anti-Drug Department counted 14,977 people arrested for drug offences between January and July 2025, 2.7% more than in the same period a year earlier; 537 of them were foreigners. Seizures included 505 kg of dried cannabis and 12,212 fresh cannabis plants, out of 1.91 tonnes of drugs in all.
🇧🇫 Burkina Faso Enforcement ✓
Burkina Faso drug users face jail and scarce alternatives to prison
Drug users were jailed and treatment orders were rarely implemented, according to Mainline's country sheet based on research and civil-society interviews. It reported missing treatment protocols, infrastructure and clear responsibilities, despite the drug legislation allowing judges to order care in place of or alongside punishment.
🇱🇾 Libya Enforcement ✓
Libyan counter-terrorism forces arrest two men with hashish in Misrata
Libya's Counter-Terrorism Forces arrested two Nigerian nationals in Misrata on suspicion of drug trafficking, finding hashish, hallucinogenic pills and cash, according to a statement by the monitoring group Migrant Rescue Watch. The case was referred to the public prosecution.
🇻🇪 Venezuela Enforcement ✓
Venezuela seizes three tonnes of marijuana on a boat in Falcón
Diosdado Cabello, the vice-president for security, announced the seizure of 3,077 kg of marijuana at Pico de Zamuro in Falcón state. Eight Venezuelans travelling in a boat with five high-powered engines were arrested by the investigative police's anti-drug division.
🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Enforcement ✓ Article
São Tomé police arrest three in a park with cannabis and amphetamines
Judicial police arrested three men in Parque Popular with about 30 grams of liamba, or cannabis, and three doses of amphetamines. Two were São Toméan and one Portuguese; all were suspected of trafficking, and the judicial authorities imposed bail. RSTP’s August report quoted a police announcement and recalled the previous year’s raids on cannabis fields and sales points.
🏳️ Northern Cyprus Enforcement ✓
Nicosia court hears of 42 people benefiting from supervised release
At Nicosia’s judicial-year closing session, supervised-release board member Mustafa Hidayet reported 42 beneficiaries between 18 September 2023 and 30 June 2025, with programmes for 36 people continuing. The figures concerned drug cases generally and were presented at the Nicosia court session.
🇬🇲 Gambia Enforcement ✓
The Gambia's drug agency reports four tonnes of cannabis seized
The director general of the Drug Law Enforcement Agency reported 1,219 people arrested in 1,208 drug cases in 2024, 1,014 of them Gambians. The agency seized 1.9 tonnes of cannabis sativa and 2.2 tonnes from plantations; cannabis made up 54.7% of all seizures.
🇲🇲 Myanmar Enforcement ✓
Myanmar's junta burns a year's seized drugs
At ceremonies in Yangon, Mandalay and Taunggyi, the home affairs ministry destroyed drugs valued at about 1,072 billion kyats. Among them were over 597 kg of marijuana, beside 1,744 kg of heroin, over 1,334 kg of opium, over 8,573 kg of ketamine and 281 million methamphetamine tablets. The drugs had been seized between 1 June 2024 and 31 May 2025.
🇰🇲 Comoros Enforcement ✓
The Comoros report 585 kg of cannabis seized since 2023
At the national World Drug Day ceremony on Grande Comore, the interior minister, Mohamed Ahmed Assoumani, said the police, gendarmerie, coast guard and customs had seized 585 kg of cannabis between 2023 and 2025, along with 15.5 kg of heroin and other substances, and that 27 overdose deaths had been recorded in the same period. The government described its response as combining security, health and social action; the World Health Organization called for prevention and better access to care.
🇲🇹 Malta Enforcement ✓
Malta's cannabis authority starts handling odour complaints
After the May amendments took effect, the Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis opened a freephone line for complaints about cannabis smells from private homes. Complaints must be signed and say where the smell comes from; officers first advise, then enforce the €235 fine if the nuisance continues. In May the police commissioner, Angelo Gafà, had told MPs that the police were not odour experts and he could not tell cannabis from a cigar or a vape.
🇭🇳 Honduras Enforcement ✓
Honduras's army reports 180,000 marijuana plants seized in half a year
The Honduran armed forces said they had secured 13 illegal marijuana fields with about 180,000 plants so far in 2025, beside 37 coca plantations with more than 770,000 bushes. The latest marijuana field, at Tocoa in Colón, held about 36,000 plants on eight manzanas.
🇸🇾 Syria Enforcement ✓
Syria's new government says the drug factories are gone
Six months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the interior minister, Anas Khattab, said every Captagon laboratory in the country had been dismantled. In the weeks after the collapse the security forces had destroyed about 100 million pills and about 15 tonnes of hashish. He named treatment and rehabilitation of addicts as the next priority.
🇽🇰 Kosovo Enforcement ✓ Article
Kosovo police seize 25 kg of suspected marijuana in Pristina
Police searched four Pristina locations during operation Starti and seized 27 packages containing 25.2 kg of suspected marijuana, which they believed was intended for the local market, along with two rifles and two revolvers. Four men were arrested over suspected drug and weapons offences, interviewed with defence lawyers present and sent into detention for up to 48 hours by the prosecutor. Kosovo’s criminal code punishes unauthorised distribution and sale with a fine and two to twelve years in prison.
🇹🇴 Tonga Enforcement ✓
Tonga police arrest six people with small amounts of cannabis and methamphetamine
In two raids on a bush allotment at Hauloto on 2 and 6 January 2025, Tonga Police arrested six people. In the first they seized 21 packs of cannabis weighing 8.17 g and five packs of methamphetamine; in the second, two packs of cannabis weighing 1.54 g and 27 packs of methamphetamine. All were charged with possession of illicit drugs and drug utensils, and the couple arrested in the second raid were kept in custody.
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🇮🇶 Iraq Enforcement ✓
Iraq reports 14,438 drug arrests in a year
The interior ministry said that in 2024 it had seized more than six tonnes of drugs and arrested 14,438 people for trafficking, dealing and personal use, of whom 8,930 were convicted. More than 7,000 had been sentenced in 2023, some to life imprisonment or death.
🇧🇴 Bolivia Enforcement ✓
Bolivia reports 1,269 tonnes of marijuana seized in four years
Government minister Eduardo Del Castillo reported that the anti-narcotics force Felcn had seized about 1,269 tonnes of marijuana and 139 tonnes of cocaine between November 2020 and December 2024, and that 13,359 people had been arrested for drug trafficking in that time.
🇱🇦 Laos Enforcement ✓
Laos reports 3.6 tonnes of marijuana seized in eleven months
Authorities reported 5,168 arrests across 3,395 drug cases over eleven months, including 199 foreigners, in a report to parliament on 20 November. Seizures included 3,583 kilograms of marijuana alongside large quantities of methamphetamine and other drugs. Public Security Minister Vilay Lakhamphong also reported 5,132 people receiving support through drug-treatment and rehabilitation centres, of whom 2,513 had completed treatment and returned home.
🇨🇬 Congo Enforcement ✓
Congo gendarmes link a cannabis seizure to an agriculture official
An official report described the arrest in Owando of a young adult carrying 52 wrapped cannabis portions, followed by a search of an agriculture official's home where more cannabis and an elephant tusk were found. The suspects were presented to the prosecutor. The report, dated 20 November, still cited the colonial-era 1916 poisonous-substances law as a basis for cannabis enforcement.
🇨🇫 Central African Republic Enforcement ✓
Bangui police destroy cannabis seized along the river and in markets
The anti-drug office destroyed seized cannabis and other products after operations along the Oubangui river, in Boy-Rabe and at Combattant market. Radio Ndeke Luka reported that the seizures took place from 14 to 20 October, before the destruction on 5 November.
🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Enforcement ✓
São Tomé police raid cannabis fields and sales points, arresting nine
Police’s Operation 971 targeted cannabis fields and sales points across São Tomé and Príncipe in July 2024, according to a later account of the operation. Seven men and two women, all São Toméan, were detained and brought for an initial judicial hearing. The operation involved the prison and social reintegration service and the state leaders’ protection unit alongside the judicial police.
🇲🇬 Madagascar Enforcement ✓
Malagasy gendarmes uproot ten hectares of cannabis in a protected area
In an operation from 4 to 15 July in the protected zone of Mount Tsaratanàna, in Ambanja district, twenty gendarmes and four agents of Madagascar National Parks uprooted about 600,000 cannabis plants on ten hectares and burned 950 kg of dried cannabis. The growers fled as the patrols arrived and no one was arrested. In December 2025 the gendarmerie in the Sofia region burned 1,440 kg seized over six months around Antsohihy, where ten people had been arrested.
🇰🇷 South Korea Enforcement ✓
South Korea counts more than 20,000 drug offenders for the first time
The prosecution service's yearly report recorded 27,611 people caught for drug offences in 2023, half as many again as the 18,395 of 2022. Teenagers numbered 1,477, three times the year before, and people in their twenties 8,368. The report as published did not break the figures down by drug.
🇵🇫 French Polynesia 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.
🇵🇫 French Polynesia 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.
🇳🇷 Nauru Enforcement ✓ Article
Nauru fines two adults after a one-gram cannabis case
Two adults received fines of A$1,500 each, community service and one year’s probation after pleading guilty in a one-gram cannabis case. A teenager received a A$200 fine and one month’s community service, with no conviction recorded. The magistrate considered imprisonment disproportionate for the adults, months before parliament introduced mandatory custody for possession.
🇫🇯 Fiji Enforcement ✓ Article
Fiji’s appeal court cuts two cannabis growers’ prison terms by four years
Waisake Kaloulia’s nineteen-year cannabis cultivation sentence was reduced to fifteen years, and Kaminieli Naqeleca’s eighteen years to fourteen. The Court of Appeal applied its newer plant-count and role guidelines to the men’s older case, involving a remote plantation with at least 208 whole plants confirmed in the analyst’s report. Both convictions stood, while the periods before parole eligibility also fell.
🇻🇺 Vanuatu Enforcement ✓ Article
Vanuatu suspends a five-plant sentence after months already spent in custody
A first offender who grew five cannabis plants weighing 15.5 grams received a suspended sentence, sixty hours of community work and six months’ supervision. Brightly Kaiding had already spent three months and two days in custody before bail, which the court deducted from a nine-month term, leaving five months and twenty-eight days suspended for two years. The court treated the grow under the least serious category of the 2013 cultivation guidance.
🇲🇿 Mozambique Enforcement ✓ Article
Mozambique's top court cuts a cannabis seller's sentence to six years
The Supreme Court reduced Raiva Rafael Meponda's seventeen-year sentence to six years and a 30,000-metical fine after police found 590 grams of cannabis in 232 portions at his Maputo home. The judges rejected his personal-use argument but treated his simple, direct sales without an organisation as small-scale trafficking. His role as a police officer counted against him when the court chose the sentence.
🇵🇹 Portugal Enforcement ✓
Portugal records 12,109 cannabis offences in a year
The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 12,109 cannabis-related drug law offences in Portugal in 2024, against 16,304 in 2023. Of the 2024 total, 6,637 were for use or possession for use. Countries count these differently, so the figure is not comparable across borders.
🇱🇹 Lithuania Enforcement ✓
Lithuania records 764 cannabis offences in a year
The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 764 cannabis-related drug law offences in Lithuania in 2024, against 783 in 2023. Of the 2024 total, 682 were for use or possession for use. Countries count these differently, so the figure is not comparable across borders.
🇨🇾 Cyprus Enforcement ✓
Cyprus records 770 cannabis offences in a year
The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 770 cannabis-related drug law offences in Cyprus in 2024, against 846 in 2023. Of the 2024 total, 602 were for use or possession for use. Countries count these differently, so the figure is not comparable across borders.
🇭🇷 Croatia Enforcement ✓
Croatia records 6,837 cannabis offences in a year
The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 6,837 cannabis-related drug law offences in Croatia in 2024, against 6,701 in 2023. Of the 2024 total, 5,874 were for use or possession for use. Countries count these differently, so the figure is not comparable across borders.
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🇳🇦 Namibia Enforcement ✓
The leader of Namibia's cannabis challenge is jailed for possession
Brian Jaftha, who had brought the constitutional case against the cannabis ban, was sentenced to two years in prison for possession, about five years after his arrest. He said the plant material was never tested and that the investigating officer had died and could not be cross-examined. His lawyer in the constitutional case said the sentence did not end that challenge.
🇮🇶 Iraq Enforcement ✓
A fifth of Iraqi Kurdistan's prisoners are held for drugs
The regional government reported that 1,097 of its 5,283 prisoners were serving sentences for narcotics, 617 of them for use and 480 for trafficking, in prisons holding about three times their capacity. Arrests had risen from 142 in 2014 to 2,017 in 2022.
🏳️ Somaliland Enforcement ✓ Article
Somaliland police report a cannabis-cultivation arrest
Somaliland police reported arresting a man accused of growing cannabis in the yard of a house he owned in Hargeisa’s Ga’an Libaah district. The published account said traffic police worked with the district station; it reported an arrest and allegation, with no conviction or sentence.
🇦🇴 Angola Enforcement ✓ Article
Angola's top court upholds a cannabis sentence and applies a pardon
The Supreme Court upheld a five-year trafficking sentence for a man whose home in Uíge yielded 52 kilograms of cannabis, while granting a pardon of one quarter of the sentence under the 2022 amnesty law. Judges rejected his claim that the cannabis was for personal use, but accepted family responsibilities and partial confession as reasons for a sentence below the ordinary eight-year minimum. The conviction arose from searches in November 2020.
🇶🇦 Qatar Enforcement ✓
Qatar's customs find 87 kg of hashish in bales of animal feed
Customs officers at Hamad Port announced that they had found about 87.5 kilograms of hashish packed among stacks of hay in a container declared as animal feed.
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🇮🇳 India Enforcement ✓
An Indian court asks police to prove rats ate 581 kg of seized ganja
Asked by a special NDPS court in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, to produce marijuana seized by two police stations, police said rats had eaten more than 500 kg of it. The prosecutor told the court that "being small in size, the rats have no fear of the police". In an order of 18 November 2022 the court told the district's senior police superintendent to deal with the rats and to bring proof that they had eaten 581 kg, and issued directions for auctioning or disposing of drugs stored in police warehouses.
🇶🇦 Qatar Enforcement ✓
World Cup visitors are warned that Qatar arrests for the smallest amounts
Ahead of the football World Cup, a news agency's guide for fans described Qatar as one of the most restrictive countries in the world on drugs: cannabis is prohibited, as are some common medicines; bags and passengers are scanned at Hamad International Airport, and travellers carrying even very small quantities have been arrested. Smuggling charges can carry the death penalty.
🇹🇱 Timor-Leste Enforcement ✓
Timor-Leste arrests nine in a Dili drug operation involving cannabis
Police and intelligence officers arrested nine suspects in Dili on 11–12 August; TATOLI reported seizures including suspected cannabis and methamphetamine. The district court imposed identity-and-residence declarations and periodic reporting, a decision later challenged publicly by a student movement. Justice Minister Tiago Amaral Sarmento also called for stronger penalties and criticised the prosecution’s handling of the case.
🇷🇺 Russia Enforcement ✓ Article
Russia jails an American athlete for cannabis oil
The basketball player Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years for smuggling 0.7 grams of cannabis oil. She was released in a prisoner exchange that December.
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🇹🇳 Tunisia Enforcement ✓ Article
A Tunisian court gives three men 30 years for smoking cannabis
A judge at the El Kef Court of First Instance sentenced three young men to 30 years in prison for using cannabis in a public place. The prosecutor said the maximum applied under Article 11 of Law 52 because the act took place in a sports stadium, which lets a judge add 20 years to five for consumption and five for possession. The men had spent a year and a half in pretrial detention. Hundreds joined protests in Tunis against Law 52 in the following weeks, and on 13 February the Prime Minister, Hichem Mechichi, met civil society groups and spoke of breaking with the deterrent penal approach.
🇶🇦 Qatar Enforcement ✓
Five years for a suitcase of hashish at Doha airport
A man whose suitcase was picked out by a scanner at Hamad International Airport was sentenced to five years in prison, a fine of 300,000 riyals and deportation. He said a friend at home, who had promised him a job in Qatar and paid for his ticket, had given him the case to deliver.
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🇸🇸 South Sudan Enforcement ✓
Torit police report two arrests over four sacks of cannabis
Torit police said they arrested a man and a woman over four sacks of bangi, each reported as 100 kg, transported from Ketire into the town. The spokesperson said the suspects were in custody during the investigation and would be sent to court.
🇲🇲 Myanmar Enforcement ✓
Myanmar police raid an American's hemp plantation
Police raided a 20-acre plantation on an industrial estate in Ngunzun township, Mandalay region, and arrested the American entrepreneur John Frederic Todoroki and two Myanmar employees. Six days later the region's chief minister said his government had allowed the firm to grow fibre plants for one year. Todoroki was released on medical bail in July 2019 and reportedly left the country. On 10 March 2020 the Myingyan District Court sentenced Shein Latt, a supervisor who had installed the irrigation, to 20 years for growing prohibited cannabis plants; the case against the translator was dismissed.
🇷🇸 Serbia Enforcement ✓ Article
Serbia’s top court keeps three years for preparing cannabis to sell
Marko Luković’s three-year prison sentence stood after the top court found that drying cannabis flowers and packaging them for sale amounted to drug production. He had collected flowers near the Morava and later carried the prepared cannabis to Kraljevo for sale. The court distinguished this processing from growing a plant, which then had a separate six-month-to-five-year penalty.
🇧🇭 Bahrain Enforcement ✓ Article
Bahrain jails a home cannabis grower and acquits him of selling
A 56-year-old former flight attendant received three years in prison and a 1,000-dinar fine after convictions involving growing cannabis at home and unlawful possession of a weapon and ammunition, The Daily Tribune reported. Police had raided his home after a tip-off; he said he grew for himself and learned online. The court acquitted him of selling because the evidence was insufficient.
🇬🇳 Guinea Enforcement ✓
Guinea defence challenges cannabis charges against eleven young men
Eleven young men appeared in Dixinn after cannabis arrests in Ratoma; prosecutors sought prison for some and acquittal for four. Their lawyer challenged the possession evidence and the requested fines, arguing that the law linked fines to the value of drugs seized.
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🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Enforcement ✓ Article
São Tomé port police seize over a kilogram of cannabis on a Lagos ship
Police detained a Nigerian crew member and a São Toméan alleged accomplice after intercepting more than a kilogram of liamba, or cannabis, at São Tomé’s port. Criminal investigation police director Suleimany Tenjua said the seizure involved a ship on the Lagos–São Tomé route; the two detainees were to be brought before the judicial authorities. State news agency STP-PRESS reported the operation the following day.
🇸🇩 Sudan Enforcement ✓
Sudanese police destroy 500 cannabis farms in a month
A force of 366 men with 29 vehicles, a helicopter and drones spent the harvest month in El Radoom, destroyed about 500 farms and seized more than 30,000 packages of cannabis and 54,000 pieces of hashish. An armed group ambushed them and two officers were wounded. The interior minister announced agreements with South Sudan and the Central African Republic against cross-border trafficking, and said the district needed development, since traders exploited its people.
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🇱🇹 Lithuania Enforcement ✓
Lithuanian prosecutors move against a cannabis gathering at parliament
The Prosecutor General's Office acted over a 20 April event that activists planned outside the Seimas, on the grounds that it might violate the public interest.
🇯🇲 Jamaica Enforcement ✓
Jamaica's courts see far fewer cannabis cases after decriminalisation
According to Harm Reduction International, court cases for possessing or smoking cannabis fell by more than 90 per cent after the reform of April 2015, and criminal cases referred to the courts in 2016 were 25 per cent fewer than in 2014. In 2016 the government nearly doubled its budget for the national HIV response, from 2.83 to 5.17 million US dollars.
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🇰🇮 Kiribati Enforcement ✓
Kiribati jails a sailor and confiscates his yacht in a cannabis case
Lyderic Morlier received nine months in prison and total fines of A$4,400 after admitting drug cultivation, prohibited import and immigration offences. The prison terms ran together, with credit for time already spent in custody. The court also confiscated his yacht, two engines, vessel-monitoring equipment and radios under the drug law.
🇷🇺 Russia Enforcement ✓ Article
Russia blocks Wikipedia over an article about hashish
A court in Chyorny Yar, a village of about 8,000 people in the Astrakhan region, had ruled that summer that the Russian Wikipedia entry on charas, a form of cannabis resin, contained banned information. Because a site on the register is blocked as a whole, the media regulator's order cut off the entire Russian-language encyclopedia overnight. The entry was edited, the drug control service found it lawful, and the block was lifted the next day.
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan Enforcement ✓
Uzbekistan records 1,301 illegal cultivation cases in a year
Uzbekistan's report to the United Nations on 2015 counted 6,648 drug crimes, 1,301 of them illegal cultivation, and seizures of 1,025 kilograms of marijuana and 250 kilograms of hashish, both up on 2014. The yearly Operation Black Poppy accounted for 437 kilograms of the marijuana. A programme of measures for 2011 to 2015 was followed by one for 2016 to 2020.
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🇷🇼 Rwanda Enforcement ✓
Rwanda reports 1,910 people jailed for smoking cannabis in 2011
Rwanda told the UN Human Rights Committee that 1,910 people had been incarcerated in 2011 for smoking cannabis. The government also reported 2,402 arrests connected with banned substances across 2011–2012 and described prevention campaigns aimed at young people. Its report, received by the UN on 11 July 2014, cited a 2012 police report for the figures.
🇸🇾 Syria Enforcement ✓
Syria's courts report a jump in drug cases
A judicial source told a government newspaper that 620 drug cases had come before the courts in four months, 115 of them in Damascus, against fewer than 500 in the whole of 2013. He recalled that trafficking carries ten years to death under the 1993 law, that whoever plants cannabis is treated as a trader, and that the law regards addicts as the victims of dealers.
🇺🇸 United States · Alabama Enforcement ✓
An Alabama veteran gets life without parole for a marijuana garden
Police looking for stolen property in 2011 found a few dozen marijuana plants at the house Lee Carroll Brooker, a disabled veteran with chronic pain, shared with his son in Alabama. Weighed with stalks and leaves, the plants came to about 2.8 pounds, over the 2.2-pound trafficking threshold. Because of prior felonies, including armed robberies decades earlier, the Habitual Felony Offender Act left the judge no choice but life without parole. Chief Justice Roy Moore upheld it while calling the sentence "excessive and unjustified", and the US Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.
🇳🇬 Nigeria Enforcement ✓
Nigeria's drug agency reports 205 tonnes of cannabis seized in a year
The annual report of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for 2014 recorded 3,271 suspected drug traffickers arrested, 3,062 men and 209 women, and 205,373 kilograms of cannabis seized. In 2011 the agency had begun night patrols on the main roads of Osun State to intercept the trucks used to carry cannabis.
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🇱🇧 Lebanon Enforcement ✓
Bekaa clans fight the army to save their cannabis fields
Three Shia clans of the Bekaa, the Jaafar, Shammas and Sharif, fought gun battles with soldiers and police to stop the annual destruction of their fields, and residents of Yammouneh blocked the road with burning tyres. The interior minister visited the village and promised compensation.
🇮🇩 Indonesia Enforcement ✓
Nearly 38,000 people are imprisoned in Indonesia for using cannabis in four years
Between 2009 and 2012, 37,923 people were imprisoned for using cannabis, according to figures cited by the Transnational Institute, even though the 2009 narcotics law and a Supreme Court circular were meant to send users to rehabilitation.
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🇺🇸 United States · Texas Enforcement ✓
Willie Nelson is arrested after a Texas checkpoint stop
A Border Patrol stop of Nelson’s tour bus near Sierra Blanca leads to a cannabis-possession arrest. His subsequent Teapot Party proposal calls for legalisation, regulation and taxation; it is advocacy rather than an enacted reform.
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates Enforcement ✓
A Briton gets four years in Dubai for a speck of cannabis on his shoe
Keith Brown, a youth worker from the English Midlands, was stopped in transit at Dubai airport in September 2009. Customs found 0.003 grams of cannabis, invisible to the eye, in the tread of his shoe. He was sentenced to four years, then the minimum for possession. Another traveller was reported jailed over three poppy seeds from a bread roll.
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🇸🇴 Somalia Enforcement ✓
Al-Shabaab flogs men for hashish in Kismayo
After Al-Shabaab seized the port city of Kismayo, three local men were arrested for possession of hashish. Their supply was burned and they were publicly flogged by the militants.
🇯🇵 Japan Enforcement ✓
Four sumo wrestlers are expelled over cannabis
A cannabis scandal in professional sumo ended with the expulsion of four wrestlers. Cases involving athletes and entertainers followed: a rugby player suspended in 2009, and actors and singers given suspended sentences in 2017, 2019 and 2020.
🇧🇷 Brazil Enforcement ✓
Police break up Brazil's marijuana marches
Marches for legalisation called in ten state capitals by Growroom, the largest Portuguese- language cannabis forum, and other growers' groups were met with police violence. The neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro writes that the repression strengthened the movement, which spread across the country in the following years.
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🇨🇦 Canada Enforcement ✓
Canadian police arrest the seed seller Marc Emery for the United States
Acting on a request from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Canadian police raided the BC Marijuana Party bookstore in Vancouver and arrested Marc Emery in Nova Scotia for extradition. From 1998 until then he had paid nearly 600,000 dollars in taxes as a declared marijuana seed vendor. Canada's justice minister signed the surrender order on 10 May 2010.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia Enforcement ✓
The United States warns American Rastafari about Ethiopia's drug law
The American authorities warned Rastafari travelling from the United States that cannabis is illegal in Ethiopia and that possession could bring up to six months in prison.
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🇲🇵 Northern Mariana Islands 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.
🇺🇸 United States Enforcement ✓
Tommy Chong receives nine months for a paraphernalia conspiracy
Following a guilty plea in a case involving Nice Dreams Enterprises, Tommy Chong receives a nine-month federal prison sentence. The offence concerns drug-paraphernalia sales, rather than personal cannabis possession or his comedy performances.
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🇭🇰 Hong Kong Enforcement ✓
Hong Kong cuts a repeat offender’s cannabis-possession sentence to two months
Phung Hai’s six-month prison sentence for possessing 1.18 g of cannabis was reduced to two months on appeal. The original magistrate had relied on two earlier drug convictions to reject a fine, but the appeal judge accepted that the sentence was excessive in light of the sentencing authorities; the prosecution did not defend it.
🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea Enforcement ✓
Cannabis is smoked openly in Equatorial Guinea despite the ban
A news agency report from Malabo described cannabis, grown locally between cassava and banana plants, as smoked openly by street children, civil servants and ministers alike. A joint cost about 100 CFA francs. Smoking and dealing were illegal, but no one had been arrested for either in living memory.
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🇧🇷 Brazil Enforcement ✓
Brazilian police jail the band Planet Hemp for its songs
The members of the band were arrested at a concert in Brasília on suspicion of apologia, the offence of advocating drug use. They spent five days in jail before habeas corpus was granted. Fans, musicians, politicians and the press protested, and the band's records sold out.
🇲🇹 Malta Enforcement ✓
A Swiss teenager is jailed in Malta for a little hashish
Gisela Feuz, a 16-year-old Swiss student, was convicted of importing hashish with intent to traffic after admitting she carried a small amount, by her account to share with her boyfriend, and received a mandatory six months in prison. Accounts give the amount as under 8 g or under 1 g. The case was long cited in Malta as an example of the harshness of its drug laws.
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🇲🇭 Marshall Islands Enforcement ✓ Article
Marshall Islands overturns a cannabis conviction after denial of a lawyer
George Sakaio’s marijuana conviction and two-year prison sentence were reversed after he pleaded guilty without a lawyer and was refused permission to withdraw the plea. The Supreme Court held that police and courts had failed to protect his right to counsel and ensure he understood the plea. It returned the case to the High Court for further proceedings.
🇧🇹 Bhutan Enforcement ✓ Article
Bhutan records its first cannabis arrest
The first drug-abuse arrest in Bhutan, for cannabis, took place in Gelephu.
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🇬🇧 United Kingdom Enforcement ✓
The cannabis smuggler Howard Marks is arrested
An agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration arrested the Welsh smuggler Howard Marks, who claimed to have moved consignments of cannabis as large as 30 tons, and he was extradited to the United States. He was sentenced to 25 years, served seven in the federal prison at Terre Haute and was released in April 1995. His autobiography Mr Nice, published in 1996, became a best-seller, and he campaigned for changes in drug law.
🇵🇦 Panama Enforcement ✓
The United States indicts Panama's ruler over a million pounds of marijuana
American grand juries charged General Manuel Noriega with conspiring to move more than a million pounds of marijuana, along with cocaine, through Panama. Smuggling and money-laundering schemes linked to him had run from 1983.
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🇺🇸 United States · California Enforcement ✓
Brownie Mary is arrested for selling cannabis brownies
San Francisco authorities arrest Mary Jane Rathbun after an undercover investigation of her cannabis-brownie sales. A guilty plea leads to probation and community service. Rathbun later becomes a hospital volunteer and gives cannabis brownies to people with AIDS, linking her public campaigning to patient care. This criminal case did not itself change cannabis law.
🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea Enforcement ✓
An Equatorial Guinean ambassador's wife is held in Spain over cannabis
The wife of the ambassador to Spain and the country's police chief were detained at the Getafe air base near Madrid for trafficking cannabis, as reported by El País on 18 June 1981. Under the previous ruler, Francisco Macías Nguema, cannabis growing had been encouraged over food crops, according to one author.
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🇵🇦 Panama Enforcement ✓
A Panamanian freighter is seized with 82 tons of marijuana
At Panama's request the United States Coast Guard seized the Panamanian-flagged freighter Don Emilio, which was carrying about 82 tons of marijuana.
🇧🇷 Brazil Enforcement ✓ Article
Gilberto Gil is arrested for cannabis in Florianópolis
Police detained the singer and his drummer in a Florianópolis hotel during the Doces Bárbaros tour and found about thirty cannabis cigarettes among Gil's belongings. Nine days later he was sentenced to a year of reclusion, converted into treatment in a psychiatric clinic, and a fine of fifty minimum wages. Rita Lee received a similar sentence in August, converted into house arrest. The cases drew criticism from artists and showed a growing public tolerance: the city's mayor guessed that most residents disapproved of the arrest.
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🇩🇪 Germany Enforcement ✓ Article
East Germany finds itself a transit route for hashish
In 1968 a single person was caught bringing hashish into East Germany. In 1970 there were 328 seizures totalling 142 kg of drugs, 141 kg of it hashish, almost all bound for West Berlin. The traffic, and the opening of transit roads to West Berlin in 1971 and 1972, preceded the Narcotic Drugs Act of 1973. Cannabis remained exceptionally hard to obtain for East Germans themselves until the border opened in 1989.
🇦🇫 Afghanistan Enforcement ✓ Article
Afghanistan arrests thirteen foreigners in a Kabul hotel drug raid
A raid on Kabul's Shak-Foladi Hotel led to the arrest of thirteen foreign nationals and the seizure of 200 grams of hashish and 100 grams of opium. Their involvement sharpened American concern that travellers were buying Afghan drugs for export. A US narcotics agent was stationed in Kabul later that year, as the hashish trade became more closely connected to Western markets.
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🇺🇸 United States · Texas Enforcement ✓
Texas gives an activist 30 years for one joint
Lee Otis Johnson, a Houston civil-rights organiser, handed a single marijuana cigarette to an undercover police officer. Texas law counted the handover as a sale, and a Houston jury gave him 30 years in prison. "Free Lee Otis" became a rallying cry on campuses across the state. He was freed in 1972, after a federal judge ruled that he should not have been tried in Houston, where feeling about the case ran high.
🇯🇵 Japan Enforcement ✓
A UN report finds most of Japan's cannabis offenders are foreigners
The report said those who broke the cannabis law were mainly foreign sailors and soldiers on leave from the Vietnam war. In 1972 there were 853 violations; by 2006 there were 2,423, and in 2019 4,570 after six years of increases.
🇯🇲 Jamaica Enforcement ✓
Bob Marley is jailed for ganja
The singer Bob Marley, who had recently taken up the Rastafari faith and its use of ganja as a sacrament, was arrested for possession. According to the historian Martin Booth he spent a month in jail, under a law that since 1941 had made prison compulsory for any ganja conviction, and used the time to learn more about Rastafari.
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🇺🇸 United States · California Enforcement ✓
The singer Anita O'Day serves 90 days for marijuana
Police searched the North Hollywood home of the jazz singer Anita O'Day and her husband Carl Hoff and found marijuana and rolling papers. Both were convicted of possession, lost their appeals and served 90 days in jail. She was arrested for marijuana again in 1952 and found not guilty.
🇳🇱 Netherlands Enforcement ✓
Amsterdam's police create a narcotics section
Amsterdam was already regarded as a centre of the illegal narcotics trade. The section consisted of only two detectives until 1966. After Parliament made possession and use of cannabis illegal in 1953, police raids and eight-month prison sentences for minimal amounts, as little as one marijuana cigarette, became the norm.
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🇨🇦 Canada Enforcement ✓
Twenty-five cannabis arrests in sixteen years
For the whole period from 1930 to 1946 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recorded only 25 cannabis arrests, and between 1946 and 1961 cannabis accounted for 2 per cent of all drug arrests in Canada. Cases rose to 2,300 in 1968 and 12,000 in 1972.
🇲🇲 Myanmar Enforcement ?
Burma records no government ganja sales and 216 drug prosecutions
Burma's government made no ganja sales in 1946 and issued no cultivation licences to supply its trade. The 1939 rules permitting sales to Indians only remained in force. Excise staff brought 216 hemp-drug prosecutions that year, of which 208 succeeded, while illicit cultivation in the Pegu Yoma hills supplied Indian users.
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🇺🇸 United States Enforcement ✓
Anslinger tells agents to stop filling courts with petty marijuana cases
In the first three months of the Marihuana Tax Act federal agents made 369 seizures totalling 229 kilograms. A confidential memo from Anslinger urged them to pursue sources of supply rather than congest court calendars. Even so, in about half the cases of the next few years the person held less than an ounce and no sale was alleged.
🇺🇸 United States Enforcement ✓
A Denver court hands down the first Marihuana Tax Act sentences
Samuel Caldwell, a labourer in his late fifties, was arrested at a Denver hotel on 2 October, the day after the Act took effect, while selling cannabis to Moses Baca. Three days later Judge Foster Symes gave Caldwell four years in Leavenworth and a $1,000 fine, and Baca eighteen months for possession.
🇨🇦 Canada Enforcement ✓
Canadian police make their first cannabis seizure
Cannabis had been on Canada's schedule of prohibited drugs since 1923, but police made their first seizure of it only in 1937, and cultivation was banned the following year. The drug was almost unheard of in the country until the 1930s.
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🇲🇰 North Macedonia Enforcement ✓
A Skopje hashish seller walks free because use is not punishable
Police raided the flat of Ja'far Ismailović in Skopje and found him and several young people smoking nefes, a cannabis powder, in a pipe. He had sold hashish and nefes for decades. Because enjoyment of the drug was not punishable under the laws of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the court gave him a symbolic suspended sentence and costs, which he had already served in custody. A history of the period records Indian hemp grown in walled gardens of the old town, hashish brought from Thessaloniki, and sales moving into private houses as police raids became more frequent.
🇯🇲 Jamaica Enforcement ✓
Leonard Howell is imprisoned for sedition
Leonard Howell receives a two-year sentence for sedition arising from his early Rastafari preaching. This concerns colonial suppression of religious and anti-colonial speech, rather than a cannabis-possession conviction.
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🇧🇷 Brazil Enforcement ✓
Police raid a septuagenarian's cannabis garden in Alagoas
Acting on a tip-off, officials in Igreja Nova, in the interior of Alagoas, went with the mayor to the house of a man in his seventies who said he had smoked diamba since boyhood, and seized a small plantation in his garden and dried cannabis in bags. França cites the case to show how common small backyard plots were before national prohibition.
🇪🇬 Egypt Enforcement ✓
A British report maps how hashish is smuggled into Egypt
After British officials across the empire had tracked a large consignment of Indian cannabis bound for Egypt, the interior ministry in Cairo investigated the whole traffic, and Lord Allenby sent the report to London in April 1924. It found hashish coming from India, Turkey, Greece and Syria: dropped from steamers in rubber bags marked by a float, landed on the coast and carried inland by camel, or hidden in cotton goods, hollow bedsteads and the soles of boots. It blamed long borders, corrupt officials, light penalties, and consular courts that rarely convicted foreigners. Mills argues that this report was the likely source of Egypt's case at Geneva later that year.
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🇿🇦 South Africa Enforcement ✓ Article
South Africa tells police to go easy on dagga in remote African areas
Native affairs officials had lobbied against the new prohibition, saying that in parts of Zululand and the eastern Cape an older man's morning pipe was a custom almost amounting to a religious rite. A month after the law was gazetted, the health secretary wrote that police were expected to use judgement and avoid drastic attempts to enforce the letter of the law in remote localities where moderate smoking mattered little for public order.
🌐 International Enforcement ✓
Ten tons of Indian cannabis vanish on the way to Abyssinia
A French adventurer, Henri de Monfreid, bought ten tons of cannabis in Bombay, probably charas, and had it licensed for export to Abyssinia as an insecticide, in 240 bags. The governor of the Seychelles held the cargo for almost four months before finding no ground to stop it. At Harar half the bags were found to hold fertiliser; the rest, sent on to Hamburg, turned out to be fertiliser too. British officials had watched the shipment from 1922 to 1924 and lost it. Their consulate in Abyssinia reported that his profits from the hashish trade in 1923 had bought him a controlling interest in a flour mill and an electricity works. He later admitted that the cargo was meant for Egypt, and that he had been dealing in hashish bound for that country since 1915.