History
1940s
World average score and 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.
194910 entries1 score change
🇮🇷 Iran Tightening ✓ Article
Iran raises the penalty for using bang or charas in public
From 28 June 1949, using bang or charas in public brought three to six months in prison, and opening a place for that use brought six months to three years. Tools and furniture for bang or charas found in a public place were to be seized and destroyed, and someone who worked in such a place or helped to set it up was treated as an accomplice. The 1926 penal law had punished the same public intoxication with eight days to three months, or a fine. Growing cannabis and private possession stayed outside this amendment.
🇩🇰 Denmark International ✓
Denmark carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Denmark became a party on 15 June 1949 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇺🇸 United States Culture & science ✓
Lila Leeds plays a showgirl ruined by marijuana after her own arrest
Made to cash in on the 1948 arrest of Robert Mitchum and Lila Leeds, She Shoulda Said No! starred Leeds herself as a chorus girl whose marijuana smoking drives her brother to suicide. It was directed by Sam Newfield under another name, and the showman Kroger Babb reissued it as The Devil's Weed and Wild Weed.
🇲🇦 Morocco Enforcement ✓
The French zone of Morocco seizes 7.6 tonnes of contraband kif
While kif was still sold legally by the Tobacco Monopoly, the monopoly's agents and the police pursued kif sold outside it, paying informers out of the fines. In 1949 they seized 7,651 kg of kif or whole plants and 4,139 plants from illicit plots; by 1952 the yearly figure was 18,803 kg. Most seizures were made near the Spanish zone, the main source of supply.
🇮🇳 India Tightening ✓
Indian states start banning bhang and ganja
The Bombay Prohibition Act banned making and possessing bhang without a licence. Assam's Ganja and Bhang Prohibition Act of 1958 banned sale, possession and consumption outright.
194810 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
🇮🇹 Italy International ✓
Italy carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Italy joined the 1946 protocol that handed the League of Nations' role in drug control to the new United Nations. This kept Italy bound by the 1925 Geneva Opium Convention, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇳🇱 Netherlands International ✓
The Netherlands carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
The Netherlands became a party on 10 March 1948 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇿🇦 South Africa International ✓
South Africa carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
South Africa became a party on 24 February 1948 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇮🇪 Ireland International ✓
Ireland carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Ireland became a party on 18 February 1948 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇫🇮 Finland International ✓
Finland carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Finland became a party on 3 February 1948 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
194713 entries0 score changes
🇲🇨 Monaco International ✓
Monaco carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Monaco became a party on 21 November 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇲🇽 Mexico Tightening ✓ Article
Mexico sets one to ten years for enervating-drug crimes
From 15 November 1947, trading, possessing, buying or giving away an enervating drug without the required authorisation carried one to ten years in prison and a fine of 100 to 10,000 pesos. Cultivating, or trafficking in, seeds or plants classed as enervating drugs was in the same range, and illegal import or export carried six to twelve years and a fine of 500 to 20,000 pesos. Those drugs are the ones set by the sanitary code, its regulations and the international conventions Mexico has joined, and the 1926 code already prohibited marijuana, including cannabis extract. People who grew, made or trafficked them could not receive a conditional sentence, even when the final prison term did not exceed two years.
🇹🇭 Thailand International ✓
Thailand carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Thailand became a party on 27 October 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇷🇺 Russia International ✓
Russia carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Russia became a party on 25 October 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇸🇪 Sweden International ✓
Sweden carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Sweden became a party on 17 October 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇫🇷 France International ✓
France carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
France became a party on 10 October 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇨🇭 Switzerland International ✓
Switzerland carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Switzerland became a party on 25 September 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein International ✓
Liechtenstein carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Liechtenstein became a party on 25 September 1947 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia International ✓
Ethiopia joins the 1925 Opium Convention
Ethiopia acceded to the International Opium Convention of 1925, as amended by the Protocol of 1946, on 9 September 1947. The convention, signed at Geneva, was the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇺🇸 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.
194621 entries1 score change
🇧🇷 Brazil International ✓
Brazil carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Brazil became a party on 17 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇧🇴 Bolivia International ✓
Bolivia carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Bolivia became a party on 14 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇱🇧 Lebanon International ✓
Lebanon carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Lebanon became a party on 13 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom International ✓
The United Kingdom carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
The United Kingdom became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇹🇷 Türkiye International ✓
Türkiye carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Türkiye became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇸🇾 Syria International ✓
Syria carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Syria became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇵🇱 Poland International ✓
Poland carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Poland became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇳🇿 New Zealand International ✓
New Zealand carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
New Zealand became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇮🇳 India International ✓
India carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
India became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇭🇳 Honduras International ✓
Honduras carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Honduras became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic International ✓
The Dominican Republic carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
The Dominican Republic became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇨🇴 Colombia International ✓
Colombia carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Colombia became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇨🇱 Chile International ✓
Chile carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Chile became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇨🇦 Canada International ✓
Canada carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Canada became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇧🇪 Belgium International ✓
Belgium carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Belgium became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇦🇷 Argentina International ✓
Argentina carries the 1925 Opium Convention over to the United Nations
Argentina became a party on 11 December 1946 to the Protocol of 11 December 1946, which transferred to the United Nations the League of Nations' functions under the earlier drug treaties. It thereby remained bound by the International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925, the first treaty to put Indian hemp under international control.
🇨🇦 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.
19452 entries1 score change
🇩🇪 Germany Other law ✓
The Soviet occupation authority reinstates the 1929 Opium Law in East Germany
At the end of the Second World War the Soviet occupation authority reinstated the 1929 Opium Law. It remained the only law on drugs in the German Democratic Republic until 1973.
🇱🇸 Lesotho Tightening ✓
Basutoland's chiefs are ordered to destroy cannabis
A Paramount Chief's order told all chiefs to destroy cannabis in their areas. Rule 27 of the Paramount Chief's rules, made under a 1938 proclamation, said no person shall grow, possess or use dagga, on pain of a fine of up to 25 pounds or six months in prison.
1613−3 points
19441 entry0 score changes
19432 entries1 score change
🇺🇸 United States · California Enforcement ✓
The drummer Gene Krupa is jailed on a falsified marijuana charge
Gene Krupa, the most famous drummer of the swing era, was arrested in San Francisco and sentenced to one to six years at San Quentin for using a minor, his teenage valet, to carry marijuana; he served six months. The charge is now described as falsified, and the case broke up his orchestra.
🇸🇾 Syria Ban ✓
Syria bans growing cannabis
President Shukri al-Quwatli's government prohibited cannabis cultivation. Enforcement was weak for decades, especially in the Druze regions.
1008−92 points
19424 entries0 score changes
🇺🇸 United States Medical ✓
Cannabis is dropped from the US Pharmacopeia
Cannabis extracts had been listed as a medicine since 1850 and were sold in pharmacies. Five years after the Marihuana Tax Act made prescribing them impractical, the listing was removed.
🇺🇸 United States Hemp ✓ Article
The US government asks farmers to grow hemp for the war
After Japan took the Philippines and cut off the supply of fibre, the Department of Agriculture and the army urged farmers to grow hemp and released the film Hemp for Victory. Tax stamps were issued and about 400,000 acres were grown between 1942 and 1945, without any change to the Marihuana Tax Act.
🇺🇸 United States Culture & science ✓
Devil's Harvest calls marijuana a fifth column
In this wartime exploitation film from Continental Pictures, gangsters sell marijuana to students from a hot-dog stand near a school. Its posters called the drug "the smoke of hell" and "a fifth column sowing destruction in the youth of America".
19415 entries1 score change
🇯🇲 Jamaica Tightening ✓
Colonial police raid Pinnacle and arrest residents
Government forces raid the early Rastafari community and arrest followers of Leonard Howell. The raid is distinct from the same year’s national ganja-penalty amendment; no separate change to statutory penalties is recorded here.
🇯🇲 Jamaica Tightening ✓
Jamaica makes prison mandatory for ganja
Amid the economic distress and mass demonstrations of 1938, the rise of Rastafari and American anti-marijuana publicity, Jamaica made prison compulsory for a first conviction for possessing, selling or growing ganja: up to one year, with no option of a fine, and up to two years for a second. Any amount, however small, was taken to imply possible intent to sell. A 1972 amendment removed mandatory imprisonment.
139−4 points
19409 entries3 score changes
🇺🇸 United States · New York Enforcement ✓
Mezz Mezzrow, jazz's best-known marijuana seller, is jailed in New York
The clarinettist Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow was so well known for selling marijuana to musicians that "mezz" became slang for the drug. In 1940 he was arrested with sixty joints at the entrance to a jazz club at the New York World's Fair and jailed for intent to sell. Inside, he told the guards he was Black and was moved to the prison's segregated Black section.
🇱🇹 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
🇯🇲 Jamaica Culture & science ✓
Howell establishes the Pinnacle Rastafari community
Leonard Howell establishes a farming and religious community near Sligoville in St Catherine. Food production and ganja as a cash crop support its communal life; founding the settlement does not change Jamaica’s cannabis prohibition.
🇪🇪 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
🇧🇷 Brazil Tightening ✓
Brazil's Penal Code sets one to five years for narcotics
Article 281 of the Penal Code of 1940 punished dealing in narcotics, cannabis among them since the decrees of 1932 and 1938, with one to five years of reclusion and a fine of two to ten contos de réis. Critics in the 1940s complained that it did not clearly punish the user. Amendments of 1964 and 1968 raised the fine to ten to fifty times the highest minimum wage.