History
2020s
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.
2026148 entries2 score changes
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Missouri Hemp โ
Missouri lets cultivators bring in low-THC genetics
On 21 October the Division of Cannabis Regulation issued a variance, effective 12 November, so that a licensed cultivator may acquire plants, tissue culture, pollen and other genetic material of no more than 0.3 per cent total THC from outside the state's licensed cultivation system. Plants under two inches above the root are presumed to meet that limit; taller plants need a test. Marijuana sold in the state must still be grown in a Missouri-licensed facility. Seeds from a plant over 0.3 per cent total THC count as marijuana even if the seed itself is low in THC, and taking those seeds from an unlicensed source is unlawful. New material has to be entered in the tracking system on the day it arrives.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Nebraska Medical โ Article
Nebraska's medical cannabis growers face an unfinished route to patient sales
Nebraska Public Media reports that commissioners advised licensed growers to prepare for one to two years of storage while manufacturing, distribution and testing arrangements are developed. Manufacturers and dispensaries were still unlicensed. The discussion establishes an implementation bottleneck, not a newly enacted waiting period or a guaranteed sales date.
๐ช๐ธ Spain Medical โ Article
Spain's first cannabis extracts are lined up for fifty hospitals
On 17 October Curaleaf, the only company so far to register a cannabis extract with the medicines agency, said its two preparations would start going to about 50 hospitals and could be available by the end of the month. A hospital specialist may prescribe a standardised preparation only after authorised medicines have failed, and the hospital pharmacy makes it up. The formulary makes that preparation an oral solution for muscle stiffness from multiple sclerosis, severe epilepsy, nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, or chronic pain. One extract is richer in THC and the other in CBD. Ordinary pharmacies cannot dispense it.
๐ฆ๐ท Argentina Hemp โ
Argentina sets horticultural hemp licences at 1% THC
ARICCAME Resolution 69/2026, adopted on 2 September and published on 3 September, creates four licences for horticultural hemp: growing it, making derivatives, related services, and foreign trade. A crop at or below 1 per cent total THC on a dry-weight basis meets the limit; between 1 and 2.5 per cent is an administrative margin, not an automatic breach. Article 12 puts the resolution into force 30 administrative working days after publication. The agency's own page says applications open during October, so the publication day was not a day on which anyone could already apply.
๐ธ๐ฝ Sint Maarten Debate โ
Sint Maartenโs health minister seeks regional advice on cannabis reform
Health minister Claret Connor said he had sought help from the Pan American Health Organization to assess cannabis policy and comparable Caribbean experiences. He stressed mental health, treatment capacity and protection of vulnerable residents alongside possible economic benefits. He called for a comprehensive review of advantages and disadvantages before decisions on legislation.
๐ณ๐ฌ Nigeria Debate โ
Nigeriaโs president proposes replacing its two main drug laws
President Bola Tinubu sent the Senate a bill to replace the NDLEA Act and Indian Hemp Act with a consolidated drug-enforcement law. The Senate referred the proposal for legislative work; the existing laws continued to apply.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Kentucky Medical โ
Kentucky's medical dispensaries reach all eleven licensing regions
Sunnyside Dispensary opened in Prestonsburg on 12 October, becoming the first dispensary in the Mountain Region. The governor's 16 October announcement counted 26 operating dispensaries across all eleven licensing regions. This is a geographic rollout milestone within the existing medical programme, not a new adult-use law.
๐ฏ๐ช Jersey Debate โ
Jersey plans new oversight of medical cannabis prescribers
A written ministerial answer announced plans for legislation regulating doctors who prescribe medicinal cannabis, with commencement expected in early 2027. The Jersey Care Commission's remit would not be extended while it prepared for other new responsibilities. This was a statement of intended reform, not confirmation that new prescribing rules had taken effect.
๐ฌ๐น Guatemala Enforcement โ
Guatemala reports destroying 34,563 cannabis plants in two areas
Anti-narcotics police destroyed 19,420 cannabis plants near Momostenango, Totonicapรกn, and 15,143 in Ixmucanรฉ, Las Cruces, Petรฉn, the Interior Ministry reported after weekend operations. Prosecutors supported the searches and eradication work. The operations applied the existing cultivation prohibition, which carries five to twenty years in prison plus a fine for unauthorised growing.
๐น๐น Trinidad and Tobago Tightening โ Article
Trinidad and Tobago's Senate votes to raise the cannabis age to 25
The Senate passed the Miscellaneous Provisions (Alcohol, Cannabis, Dangerous Drugs, Gambling and Tobacco) Bill by 15 votes to 12, with three abstentions and only government senators in favour. It raises the age for cannabis use and gambling to 25 and for alcohol and tobacco to 21. It still needed the President's assent.
๐ฎ๐ช Ireland Debate โ
Ireland expects its medical-cannabis access review to take about a year
In a written parliamentary answer, the Health Minister said the review was expected to take roughly twelve months from its first meeting on 27 May 2026. It will examine the Medical Cannabis Access Programme, possible additional conditions where evidence supports them, and individual ministerial licences. The answer reports a review timetable, not an adopted expansion of access.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada ยท Manitoba Debate โ
Manitoba proposes visibility and staffing changes for cannabis stores
Bill 56 would remove the provincial requirement that outsiders cannot see inside age-restricted cannabis stores and authorise regulations setting minimum staffing levels, including during specified hours. It does not remove the separate federal restriction on displaying cannabis products to people outside. The bill reached second reading on 6 October and committee hearings on 8 October; the reviewed legislature catalogue listed no enacted version. No operative staffing number or new consumer possession limit was established.
๐ฉ๐ฟ Algeria Death penalty โ Article
An Algiers court hands down the first death sentences under the new drug law
The criminal court of Algiers sentenced nine people to death, six of them in their absence, for trafficking 113 kg of cocaine and 225,030 pregabalin tablets as an organised group. The justice minister had said on 22 September that the death penalty would be activated against traffickers. No cannabis case was involved.
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji Other law โ Article
Fiji signs a drug rewrite separating personal use from supply
Fiji signed a new drug law with a separate personal-use offence and diversion into support programmes. For cannabis plant material it sets a maximum FJ$500 fine or three months in prison, or both, with custody restricted to prior-conviction or exceptional cases; at 28 g a rebuttable presumption of supply begins. The law also creates a Counter Narcotics Bureau and replaces the older drug Acts, with commencement dependent on a ministerial Gazette notice.
๐ฐ๐พ Cayman Islands Debate โ
Cayman expects cannabis reform proposals in November or December
Premier Andrรฉ Ebanks told Parliament that the final cannabis-reform report and supporting legislation were expected to reach the Attorney General for government consideration in November or December 2026. The July consultation had asked about possession limits, home growing, administrative penalties and clearing old minor convictions, following the 2025 referendum. Adults remained subject to the existing criminal law while the review and preparation of legislation continued.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Other law โ
Canada brings cannabis-drug and test-kit regulatory amendments into force
SOR/2025-244, published in December 2025, came into force on 1 October 2026. It aligns cannabis-drug administration with the new Controlled Substances Regulations, including dispensing, destruction records and cannabis test-kit registration. These are sector-specific regulatory amendments; the entry does not record a change to adult recreational possession or home-growing limits.
๐บ๐ธ United States Debate โ Article
A DEA judge pauses the broader cannabis-rescheduling case
The chief administrative law judge stayed the post-hearing proceedings while the federal government answers a request to add a new Government Accountability Office report to the record. The pause delays his non-binding recommendation on moving cannabis generally from Schedule I to Schedule III; the April order covering state-licensed medical cannabis and FDA-approved products remains in force.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Debate โ
Canada proposes simpler cannabis tracking reports
Health Canada opened consultation on a proposed order that would remove capacity and book-value reporting, consolidate inventory categories, and repeal federal tracking-report obligations for provincially or territorially authorised distributors, retailers and public bodies. Provincial and territorial oversight would continue. Comments close on 10 November 2026; the proposal is not an operative reporting exemption.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Other law โ
US Virgin Islands report their first approved commercial cannabis grow
Regulator Joanne Moorehead reported a certificate to operate for a Tier 1 commercial cannabis grower on St. Croix, saying official cultivation had begun. She also said the testing laboratory was operational and awaiting plants, a change from the laboratory bottleneck described in August. An October market update still reported no dispensary open for sales.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia ยท New South Wales Easing โ
NSW assents to a registered-patient cannabis-driving reform
Act 33 of 2026 received assent after passing Parliament on 17 September. The announced scheme would require a prescription, registration and education, and would be limited to unrestricted non-commercial drivers. A positive roadside test would still bring a 24-hour driving ban; laboratory THC below 50 ng/ml would bring no further action, while the first two detections at or above that threshold within two years would bring warnings. Implementation was expected in late 2026 or early 2027, and commencement was not established in this review.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Tightening โ Article
Thailand's cabinet approves a medical-only cannabis bill
The draft Cannabis and Hemp Act would write the 2025 prescription rule into law, make growers register their plantations and raise penalties. It still has to pass parliament.
๐ง๐ฆ Bosnia and Herzegovina Medical โ Article
Bosnia's medical-cannabis prescribing rules slip into 2027
At a second follow-up meeting, the Federation health ministry said it had drafted the changes needed for cannabis-based prescriptions but would not adopt them during 2026. It instead plans a new prescribing and dispensing rulebook in the first quarter of 2027. Republika Srpska said its corresponding amendments were in their final stage, so patients still had no country-wide route to treatment.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia ยท Queensland Tightening โ
Queensland assents to driving-penalty changes scheduled for December
Act 23/2026 received assent on 21 September. Part 10 Division 3 commences on 1 December 2026 and adds a 7.5-penalty-unit minimum for the relevant-drug presence offence when the court chooses a fine-only sentence, subject to section 78E exceptions. It also creates a combined drug-presence/alcohol-limit offence. Other testing and immediate-suspension amendments in Division 4 still awaited proclamation in the reviewed legislative history; assent alone did not activate the whole package.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Virginia Debate โ
Virginia releases its initial retail cannabis regulation draft
The Cannabis Control Authority's implementation timeline records release of an initial regulation draft in September. It schedules final rules for December, their effectiveness for January 2027, and retail sales for 1 July 2027. The draft and timetable do not establish that adult-use shops were already operating.
๐ฏ๐ด Jordan Enforcement โ
Jordan's drug cases fall by a third
The annual report of Jordan's National Centre for Human Rights counted 25,776 drug cases in 2025, down from 38,782 in 2024. Cases of possession and use fell by about 39% and trafficking offences by about 22%.
๐ฏ๐ฒ Jamaica Other law โ
Jamaica widens fee-free routes for traditional growers
Jamaica expanded its programmes for bringing traditional ganja growers into the regulated industry. The programmes carry no government application or authorisation fees, give individual farmers a two-year transition period to meet full licensing requirements, and let registered community groups cultivate up to ten acres collectively.
๐ฒ๐บ Mauritius Debate โ
Mauritius receives a national cannabis-policy reform report
The National Agency for Drug Control presented its cannabis-policy reform report to the Prime Minister after consultation involving around 1,800 contributors, including patients and people affected by drug use. The official announcement confirms delivery of recommendations; it does not establish adoption, a new possession allowance or legal recreational sales.
๐ด๐ฒ Oman Tightening โ Article
Oman replaces its drug law
Royal Decree 67/2026, signed on 3 September and published on 6 September, repealed the 1999 law. Possessing, buying or growing a drug plant for personal use, or using, carries one to three years in prison and a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 rials, and a court may send a dependent user to treatment instead. Importing, exporting, producing or manufacturing a scheduled drug for trafficking, or growing a listed plant for trafficking, can bring death or life imprisonment. Smuggling those things for trafficking is punished by death. Supplying a drug to a user without payment carries seven to fifteen years. Viable cannabis seeds are banned along with the plant.
๐บ๐ธ United States Easing โ
Congress delays part of the federal hemp-product ban
On 2 September Congress passed a continuing resolution, Public Law 119-103, that moves part of the new hemp definition from 12 November to 11 December 2026. The exclusion of cannabinoids that a cannabis plant cannot produce naturally stays on 12 November, and from that day those products are marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. The rest of the definition, including the total-THC cap and the 0.4 milligram limit on a finished product, waits until 11 December. The 2025 law that wrote the definition is unchanged apart from those dates.
๐น๐ฟ Tanzania Debate โ Article
Tanzania moves to make holding cannabis seeds a crime
The Attorney General presented a bill amending the Drugs Control and Enforcement Act. It would make it an offence to hold or distribute seeds of prohibited plants, cannabis among them, whatever they are meant for, and would extend the law to drugs in liquid form. The report gave no penalties and no vote.
๐ฆ๐ฉ Andorra Debate โ Article
Andorra prepares a licence for growing medicinal cannabis
The government presented a reform of the Agriculture and Livestock Farming Act that it called the most important step towards allowing cannabis to be grown for medicinal purposes, creating the legal structure for a single cultivation licence.
๐ฐ๐ผ Kuwait Other law โ Article
Kuwait sets seed records and secure sites for licensed research growers
Newly published Health Ministry rules limited controlled-plant cultivation permits to eligible government and research or educational institutions for medical or scientific purposes, Al-Jarida reported. They required a responsible pharmacist, seed and crop records, secure premises and official supervision of destruction when the licensed purpose ended. The rules implemented the institutional cultivation route in the 2025 drug law.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Tightening โ
Thailand lets foreigners be deported without a conviction
An Office of the Prime Minister regulation on deportation took effect, allowing foreigners to be deported for conduct considered contrary to public order, good morals or the wellbeing of the public, without a criminal conviction, and introducing the possibility of re-entry bans. The regulation is not specific to drugs.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Other law โ Article
Abkhazia sets a ten-plant threshold for serious cannabis-growing cases
The cabinet announced a ten-plant threshold for the large-scale cultivation offence, expressly including plants of the Cannabis genus, in an amendment to the 2013 quantity rules. The decision was to take effect upon official publication. Ordinary unauthorised cultivation remained a separate offence carrying six to eight years in prison, while the large-scale tier carried ten to twelve years.
๐ธ๐ฝ Sint Maarten Debate โ
Sint Maartenโs prime minister warns against rushing cannabis sales
Prime minister Luc Mercelina told parliament that cannabis legislation should follow a settled policy choice and the capacity to supervise it, rather than a deadline within his governmentโs term. He distinguished legalisation from a commercial market and called for health services, youth safeguards, legal and treaty review, and coordination across the islandโs French border. He left options ranging from continued prohibition to medical or broader regulated models open.
๐ซ๐ท France Tightening โ
France raises the on-the-spot drug-use fine to โฌ500
From 20 August 2026 the fixed fine for illicit use of a scheduled drug is โฌ500, or โฌ400 if paid within 15 days and โฌ1,000 if the fine is increased. A court that convicts someone of that offence, or of the offence in article L3421-6, may also suspend a driving licence or a powered-boat licence for up to three years. The one-year prison sentence and the โฌ3,750 fine remain available. Law 2026-798 was published on 19 August 2026, and the code article is in force from the next day.
๐ฒ๐ด Macau Tightening โ
Macau adds HHC to its controlled drugs
HHC, or hexahydrocannabinol, entered Macauโs controlled-drug Table II-B on 18 August 2026. The amendment also added other substances and replaced the daily-reference annex used in drug cases. Cannabis, resin and oil remained controlled under the existing law.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Virginia Tightening โ
Virginia ends its CBD-ratio exception to the hemp THC cap
According to the Cannabis Control Authority's implementation notice, products containing more than two milligrams of total THC per package could no longer be produced or sold as hemp products from 15 August. The change removed the exception based on a CBD-to-THC ratio of 25 to one. It concerns the hemp-product market, not a new adult-use flower possession limit.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Medical โ
Nine growers are chosen for French Polynesia's cannabis pilot
Nine producers were selected for a one-year pilot under the 2024 law, with plants below 0.3% THC and first harvests expected in April 2027. A last arrรชtรฉ designating the plots was still due.
๐ฉ๐ฏ Djibouti Enforcement โ
Djibouti gendarmes seize 12 kg of cannabis in Balbala
The Einguella gendarmerie brigade broke up what it called a cannabis distribution network in the Balbala district of Djibouti City, finding 88 packages weighing 12 kg at a storage site, with an estimated street value of 1.76 million Djiboutian francs. Several people were arrested, held in police custody before presentation to the justice authorities.
๐ต๐ฌ Papua New Guinea Tightening โ Article
A court sets a K30,000 fine or 20 years for marijuana
The Tari District Court convicted a man after police and soldiers found about 4.7 kg in 60 rolls. It ordered him to pay K30,000 or serve 20 years, illustrating the severe sentences courts continued to impose under the 2021 regime.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Debate โ Article
US Virgin Islands say cannabis sales must wait for a testing laboratory
Cannabis regulator Joanne Moorehead told lawmakers that commercial sales needed a working product-testing laboratory, with stakeholders targeting October readiness. Her office had conditionally approved growers, manufacturers and dispensaries, and hoped at least two dispensaries could open before year-end. By September, she reported that the laboratory was operational and the first St. Croix commercial grow had a certificate to operate.
๐ง๐ท Brazil Medical โ Article
Brazil's first legal cannabis cultivation rules take effect
Companies may grow low-THC cannabis for medicines and research under special authorisation, and patient associations may grow for their members in a supervised trial scheme.
๐ณ๐ต Nepal Medical โ Article
Gandaki authenticates a cannabis cultivation law
On 3 August 2026 the province chief authenticated Gandaki's Medicinal and Industrial Cannabis Cultivation Act, after first sending the bill back over a conflict with federal law. The gazetted text, section 1(2), starts the Act on a date fixed by a further gazette notice. A review on 13 October had not found that notice. No licence can be issued until the province makes rules under section 31. Licensed growing would be for medicinal and industrial use in designated zones, with THC capped at 0.3%, and growing without a licence stays a crime under the national narcotics law.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Hemp โ
Ghana issues its first two low-THC cultivation licences
On 31 July the Narcotics Control Commission presented the first cannabis cultivation licences to MG Adom Limited and Juliopta Limited. Director-General Maxwell Obuba Mantey said the licences are only for cannabis of no more than 0.3 per cent THC, for industrial, medicinal and research purposes that the licence allows. He told the companies to keep to those conditions, and said that growing without a licence, or above that THC limit, would be dealt with under the law. Recreational cannabis remains illegal.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท District of Columbia Medical โ
Washington, DC temporarily changes medical-cannabis licensing and enforcement
Emergency Act 26-391 took effect on 30 July. It extends conditional medical-cannabis licences to up to three years and permits a zoning certificate instead of a certificate of occupancy in a permanent-licence application. A conditional licence still does not authorise cannabis trading or production. The Act also extends specified enforcement and summary-closure powers, with notice and hearing procedures. The regulatorโs 31 August announcement says the emergency measure lasts until 28 October 2026; continued operation beyond that date requires a successor measure.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Medical โ Article
German health insurers stop paying for cannabis flower
From 30 July 2026 statutory health insurance no longer pays for dried cannabis flower. The health ministry's FAQ dates the same statute's entry into force as 29 July. Extracts in standardised quality, and medicines containing dronabinol or nabilone, can still be covered. A first insured prescription starts with a six-month trial of an authorised cannabis finished medicine. A patient already on an extract or a compounded preparation before 30 July can continue without that trial. A doctor can still prescribe flower as a private prescription.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia Debate โ
A Victorian bill asks for a vote on legalising cannabis
David Ettershank of Legalise Cannabis Victoria moved the second reading of the Cannabis Legalisation Plebiscite Bill 2026 in the state's Legislative Council. It would require a non-binding plebiscite, held within two years, on legalising cannabis for personal use. Debate was adjourned for two weeks without a vote.
๐ธ๐ฆ Saudi Arabia Death penalty โ 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.
๐ฌ๐ท Greece Tightening โ Article
Greece bans smokable products with added cannabinoids
Article 84 of Law 5322/2026 banned making, selling or buying any product meant for smoking, vaping or inhaling that consists of plant material to which natural or synthetic cannabinoids have been added, for example by spraying. Offenders face the trafficking penalties of the drug law. Licensed pharmaceutical cannabis is exempt.
๐ง๐ฒ Bermuda Debate โ
Bermuda prioritises hemp and medical cannabis reform
National Security minister Ryan Robinson Perinchief said drafting instructions had been issued for hemp and medical cannabis reforms, with initial implementation targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. The hemp changes were intended to clarify compliance for products already being sold, while the medical work aimed to improve patient access. He said a wider regulated adult-use regime would take longer because of Bermudaโs constitutional relationship with the UK and the need for further coordination.
๐ช๐ธ Spain Debate โ Article
Spain's cabinet backs a tobacco law that would hit cannabis clubs
The Council of Ministers approved a draft overhaul of the 2005 tobacco law that would remove the exemption for private smokers' clubs, one of the legal props the cannabis clubs rely on. It had not completed its passage by October.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Enforcement โ
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.
๐จ๐ด Colombia Debate โ
A Colombian bill would put adult-use cannabis in the constitution
On 20 July members of the House filed Proyecto de Acto Legislativo 017/2026, a constitutional amendment to Article 49. It would let adults use cannabis and put production, processing, distribution and sale under public licences, health controls and local taxes. The Chamber lists it as still in committee. The Supreme Court's July digest of congressional gazettes records it as Gazette 863 of 2026. It is a proposal.
๐ฟ๐ผ Zimbabwe Enforcement โ 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 BeitbridgeโMasvingo Highway on 11 July and found eight large packages. The report came after separate medical-production and industrial-hemp licensing routes had been introduced.
๐ฒ๐ช Montenegro Debate โ
Montenegroโs cabinet proposes early drug warnings and wider advertising bans
The cabinet approved proposed drug-law amendments creating an early-warning system for new psychoactive substances and closer information sharing with the EU drugs agency. The draft also widened the drug-advertising ban and added an individual advertising offence to the existing โฌ100โโฌ2,000 fine band. The Official Gazette later recorded a drug-law amendment taking effect on 7 August 2026.
๐ง๐ฉ Bangladesh Death penalty โ
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.
๐ฐ๐ช Kenya Other law โ
Kenya's High Court upholds the cannabis ban against a Rastafari challenge
Justice Bahati Mwamuye dismissed in its entirety a petition by the Rastafari Society of Kenya against the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act that criminalise possessing, using and growing cannabis. The society had asked only for an exemption for private use in worship. The court found that the petitioners had not proved a violation of their rights, that any limit was justified by public health and safety, and that they had not first used other legal and administrative routes. The judge added that cannabis use is now widespread, questioned whether scarce enforcement resources should go on small amounts, and called for a full and frank conversation, while saying that a change of policy belongs to other institutions and not the courts.
๐ง๐ฉ Bangladesh Enforcement โ
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.
๐ง๐ธ Bahamas Medical โ Article
The Bahamas still has not opened cannabis licensing
Two years after the cannabis legislation passed, the chairman of the Bahamas Cannabis Authority said the licence application portal had not opened; an earlier target of late June or early July had slipped. Applications will go through compliance checks and police vetting before the board decides, and every dispensary will need a registered pharmacist.
๐ฆ๐ฉ Andorra Other law โ
Andorra passes a new Criminal Code that keeps cannabis use a minor offence
The General Council passed a new Criminal Code, to take effect four months after its publication. It carries over unchanged the minor offence of using, growing, bringing in or possessing cannabis for one's own use, with arrest and a fine of 500 to 1,200 euros, as article 545.
๐ธ๐ช Sweden Tightening โ
Sweden bans THCA
The government classified a group of substances as narcotics, among them THCA, the acid form of THC sold mostly in vapes. The poison information centre had logged eleven calls about it since 2024.
๐ณ๐ฆ Namibia Other law โ Article
Namibia's High Court declines to rule on the cannabis ban
Judge Claudia Claasen upheld the government's special plea and ended, at this stage, the challenge filed in 2021. She held that cannabis policy is primarily for the executive and the legislature, that the dispute involves public health, law enforcement and social policy together, and that a court should not interfere while the government is reviewing the legislation. She did not decide whether the ban is constitutional.
๐ง๐ฆ Bosnia and Herzegovina Medical โ Article
Bosnia sets a deadline for its stalled medical cannabis rules
Six months after cannabis-based medicines were approved, a meeting called by the Ministry of Civil Affairs found that nothing had been done to amend the prescribing rulebook. The Federation's health ministry was given until 1 August to draft the changes; without them the medicines agency cannot file the estimate needed before imports are approved.
๐ซ๐ท France Medical โ Article
France sends its medical cannabis decree to the Conseil d'รtat
The decree sets out how the health authority will assess cannabis medicines and at what rate they are reimbursed. About 700 patients left in the pilot are covered until 31 December 2026; first prescriptions under a permanent regime are possible in 2027.
๐ป๐ณ Vietnam Other law โ Article
Vietnam's new drug law takes effect
Law 120/2025/QH15, passed on 10 December 2025, replaced the 2021 drug law. It names the cannabis plant as a narcotic plant, bans growing it or teaching others to grow it, and leaves cultivation out of the activities that can be licensed.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Georgia Medical โ
Georgia lets registered patients buy cannabis flower for vaporization
Georgia widened its medical programme beyond low-THC oil to tinctures, patches, capsules and other approved products, including flower for vaporization. Registered patients and caregivers may possess up to 12,000 mg THC in labelled pharmaceutical packaging, with a 1,200 mg limit per package; smoking remains prohibited. The law took effect on 1 July after the governor signed it on 12 May. Vaporization remains prohibited for patients aged 21 or younger.
๐ฐ๐พ Cayman Islands Debate โ
Cayman consults on 30 grams, four plants and clearing old convictions
Caymanโs Law Reform Commission opened consultation on replacing criminal penalties for personal cannabis possession and use, asking about limits of 30 grams of dried cannabis, 150 grams of wet cannabis and four plants per household. It also asked whether old minor convictions should be cleared, arguing that criminal records can limit peopleโs economic opportunities. The review followed the 2025 referendum and invited comments by 1 September 2026; in October the premier expected the final report and supporting legislation in November or December.
๐ฆ๐ท Argentina Medical โ
Argentina publishes a licence for medicinal cannabis seeds and cuttings
ARICCAME Resolution 41/2026, adopted on 26 June and published on 30 June, opens a special adaptation licence for seeds, seedlings and cuttings of cannabis for medicinal use. The window runs until 1 March 2027. The recitals tie it to people and companies that already held authorisations from the health ministry, the seed institute or the agricultural health service. Selling flowers, or making derivatives, is outside the licence, and any flowers that appear while plants are multiplied for propagation cannot be sold. The resolution takes effect on the tenth administrative working day after publication.
๐น๐ฌ Togo Enforcement โ
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 Togoโs port and position on the AbidjanโLagos corridor as routes used by traffickers, following the January destruction of cannabis seized in 2024.
๐น๐ณ Tunisia Debate โ
Tunisia's parliament hears the interior ministry on amending Law 52
The general legislation committee of parliament heard representatives of the interior ministry on a members' bill to amend Law 52 of 18 May 1992 on narcotics. The ministry reported about 15,253 drug cases in 2025 involving about 27,338 people, nearly 89% of them aged 19 to 40. It said a commission drawn from all the ministries and bodies concerned would prepare a text for an overall revision of the law, and proposed updating the schedules of substances annexed to it.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada ยท Nova Scotia Tightening โ
Nova Scotia raises fines for buying and selling outside its legal cannabis market
Provincial amendments and supporting regulations came into force. Buying outside the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation carries a C$600โ5,000 fine; unlawful individual sales carry C$5,000โ25,000 and business sales C$15,000โ50,000. New offences target advertising illegal sales and landlords allowing sales on their property. The changes do not prohibit lawful adult possession or home cultivation.
๐ฌ๐บ Guam Other law โ Article
Guam clears its first commercial cannabis grower to operate
The Cannabis Control Board unanimously approved an operating permit for Deep Green Guam after inspections and agency clearances. The grower had received conditional licence approval in February, seven years after adult use became legal. The tax department said further steps were required before production and sales could begin, while home cultivation continued to supply residents.
๐ฌ๐ช Georgia Easing โ
Georgiaโs top court bars prison in a tiny cannabis-resin case
Paata Cherkezishvili challenged punishment for buying or possessing 0.1315 g of cannabis resin for personal use. The Constitutional Court struck down imprisonment under the code as it stood before May 2025, including for someone with a prior drug conviction, while leaving criminal liability in place. The judgment followed a 2022 ruling on repeat possession of the same resin amount and took effect on publication. It concerns resin; the separate restrictions on dried cannabis remain in the countryโs possession rules.
๐ง๐พ Belarus Enforcement โ
Belarus reports more drug sentences served under restriction of liberty
The Prosecutor Generalโs 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.
๐ฎ๐ช Ireland Debate โ Article
An Irish parliamentary committee recommends decriminalising possession
The Oireachtas committee on drugs use, chaired by Gary Gannon, published a final report with 161 recommendations. It called for repealing Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, so that possessing any drug for personal use would no longer be a crime. The government had committed to a health-led approach but had shown little sign of preparing such a law.
๐ฎ๐ณ India Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฒ๐บ Mauritius Debate โ
Mauritius consults the public on cannabis reform
The National Agency for Drug Control held public consultations from 8 to 12 June 2026 and was to report at the end of July on the legal framework, medical use, industrial hemp and support for users. L'Express reported that the recommendations were expected to centre on changes to the Drug Users Administrative Panel, the diversion scheme created in 2022, not on wider legalisation. Critics said the law sets no quantity separating a user from a trafficker. The report was delivered in September.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Debate โ Article
Czechia's new government announces a tougher drug policy
Prime Minister Andrej Babiลก said after a cabinet meeting that he would not run a liberal drug policy and announced 18 measures across four laws. As reported by ฤTK they include cutting the THC limit for hemp from 1% to 0.3%, banning CBD products, taking kratom off sale and making some conduct a crime again. The former drug coordinator Jindลich Voboลil called it a return to before 1989. None of it had been adopted.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Alabama Medical โ
Alabama opens its first medical cannabis dispensary
Registered Alabama patients could buy licensed medical cannabis when Callieโs Apothecary opened in Montgomery on 4 June. Patients need Alabama residency, a qualifying condition, a certified physicianโs recommendation and a registry card; the approved products exclude raw plant material and products that can be smoked or vaped. The commission later listed openings in Talladega on 28 August and Athens on 14 September.
๐ฌ๐ฑ Greenland Debate โ
Greenland's government puts customs and prevention first on hash
Greenlandโs government backed stronger customs controls and prevention in its response to a parliamentary debate on reducing hash use. It pointed to funding for three to five additional customs officers in the 2025 budget and Allorfikโs expanding cannabis treatment and counselling since 2016. Its response linked action to children and families and the national public-health strategy.
๐จ๐ฉ DR Congo Tightening โ
A Congolese province announces a formal ban on selling and using cannabis
The interior and security minister of Kasaรฏ Oriental province, Patrick Mukendi Makanda, announced in a communiquรฉ the formal prohibition of the sale and consumption of cannabis across the province, together with a 22:00 closing time for drinking places. The communiquรฉ said cannabis smoking houses and late-night alcohol sellers had become meeting places where criminals planned their crimes, and threatened severe sanctions under the laws in force, without naming them. A year earlier, on 9 June 2025, 191 sacks of seized cannabis were burned at Mwene-Ditu in neighbouring Lomami in front of the city authorities.
๐จ๐ฑ Chile Tightening โ Article
Chile lets trafficking penalties reach small amounts
Law 21.817, passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 23 March by 130 votes to 12 and published on 23 May, adds a rule to Law 20.000: small quantities of substances that a regulation lists as capable of serious harm are punished as trafficking. The ministry has six months to write that list. Cannabis is not named, but the existing decree classes it with the most harmful drugs, and 37 deputies challenged the rule at the Constitutional Court for that reason.
๐ฌ๐ท Greece Tightening โ Article
Greece bans retail sale of hemp flower
Article 43 of Law 5302/2026 raised the THC limit for hemp from 0.2% to 0.3%, but at the same time banned selling dried hemp flower to consumers, and consumers buying or using it. Import and wholesale for industrial processing, such as cosmetics, stay legal. The medicines agency said the ban applied at once and announced shop inspections.
๐ฎ๐ฒ Isle of Man Debate โ
Tynwald turns down a citizens' jury on a regulated cannabis market
Tynwald rejected Dr Alex Allinson's motion for a citizens' jury to consider timelines for a regulated recreational cannabis market. An amendment reaffirming the 2024 policy principles on drug harm passed instead, and the government said an action plan would be published that summer.
๐ซ๐ฒ Micronesia Debate โ Article
A bill in Micronesia's Congress would set minimum fines for trafficking
Congressional Bill 24-153 would amend the trafficking section of the national code to add a minimum fine of 5,000 dollars for Schedule I and II narcotics, alongside up to ten years in prison. It keeps the rule that giving away an ounce or less of marihuana for no payment is treated as simple possession.
๐จ๐ด Colombia Debate โ Article
A Colombian House committee backs a legal cannabis market
The First Committee of the House of Representatives approved in first debate a bill to regulate adult use: sales to adults through dispensaries, clubs of 10 to 350 members, up to 20 plants per adult at home, a 20% tax, and most cultivation licences reserved for peasant and ethnic growers. It was the ninth such bill since 2020; the earlier ones were all shelved. It still needed the full House and the Senate.
๐ฉ๐ฟ Algeria Other law โ Article
Algeria's replacement Road Code sets out drug-driving offences
Law 26-09 was promulgated on 12 May and published in Official Gazette 36 on 17 May. Article 137 provides one to two years in prison and DZD100,000โ200,000 for driving, or accompanying a learner, under the influence of narcotics or psychotropic substances. Refusing prescribed examinations attracts the relevant intoxication penalties under article 143. Courts may additionally withdraw or suspend a licence for up to five years. The code repeals Law 01-14 while retaining its implementing texts pending replacement. Professional transport drivers also face employment-related drug examinations.
๐ฆ๐ฒ Armenia Debate โ
An Armenian bill would double the fine for a small amount
Hayk Sargsyan, of the governing Civil Contract party, presented amendments in second reading to a parliamentary committee. The fine for making, acquiring or keeping a small quantity for personal use would rise from 200,000โ400,000 drams to 400,000โ800,000, and to as much as 1.6 million for a repeat within a year. Selling through Telegram would bring five to ten years where it now brings three to six, and selling to minors eight to fifteen.
๐ฌ๐ฆ Gabon Enforcement โ
Gabon prosecutors burn seized cannabis and other drugs in Libreville
Libreville prosecutors destroyed three truckloads of seized drugs, including cannabis, in the presence of Justice Minister Augustin Emane. The ministry valued the combined haul at nearly five billion CFA francs and said the operation aimed to prevent seized drugs from returning to sale. The Penal Code requires confiscation and destruction of drugs seized in the offences covered by its drug provisions.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Debate โ Article
Swiss committee continues work on the cannabis market bill
The National Council health committee voted 16โ8, with one abstention, to continue work on its cannabis-market bill despite divided consultation responses. It asked a subcommittee to revise the draft's most disputed points during 2026 and rejected, by 17โ8, a proposal to suspend the work pending full results from the pilot trials.
๐ต๐ผ Palau Tightening โ Article
Palau toughens its drug law
President Surangel Whipps Jr. signed RPPL 12-5, which the legislature had passed in April. It raises penalties for drug crimes, requires drug tests at least twice a year for police, health workers and other designated employees, and treats a positive test for an illegal drug as possession of a small amount; driving under the influence of an illegal drug, marijuana included, can be charged the same way. The reports read deal mainly with methamphetamine and do not say how marijuana penalties changed.
๐ญ๐น Haiti Enforcement โ
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 Mรดle- 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.
๐บ๐ธ United States Medical โ Article
The US moves state-licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III
A DEA final rule, announced by the acting attorney general on 23 April and in force on publication, placed cannabis in FDA-approved medicines and cannabis held under a state medical licence in Schedule III. It relied on treaty obligations, which let it skip the usual comment period. Unlicensed and adult-use cannabis stayed in Schedule I, and a hearing on moving all cannabis opened on 29 June.
๐ธ๐ฌ Singapore Death penalty โ Article
Singapore carries out another cannabis execution
Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj was executed for importing 1,009.1 g of cannabis, about twice the 500 g capital threshold. His conviction dated from 2021 and had been upheld on appeal.
๐บ๐พ Uruguay Debate โ
Uruguay publishes its second evaluation of legal cannabis
The government's second evaluation of Law 19,172 found that classic trafficking of pressed cannabis, the main source in 2014, supplied only 6.7% of users in 2024. Pharmacies had 74,583 registered buyers at the end of 2024, but only 20 to 40% of them bought in any month, and the report said supply and distribution problems keep the legal market at about half its potential. It also said the law had reduced police and court action over minor cannabis conduct.
๐ฆ๐ฑ Albania Enforcement โ
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.
๐จ๐ฑ Chile Debate โ Article
Chilean deputies ask the Constitutional Court to stop a tougher drug law
Thirty-seven opposition deputies challenged a reform of Law 20.000 that Congress had passed. It would let trafficking penalties apply to small amounts when a substance is judged capable of serious harm, weighing potential harm and not only quantity. The deputies argued it would treat users and medical growers as traffickers. The law had not yet been promulgated.
๐ฌ๐บ Guam Easing โ
Guam extends its cannabis testing exemption from two years to five
Guam extended the temporary cannabis laboratory-testing exemption from two years to five years after enactment of the original law. Governor Lou Leon Guerrero said no licensed laboratory had opened and the exemption was otherwise due to expire that July. Lawmakers also cited problems obtaining agency clearances; Deep Green Guam received the first cultivation operating permit in June.
๐ช๐จ Ecuador Debate โ Article
Ecuador's Assembly admits a citizens' cannabis bill
With 142 of 151 votes the National Assembly admitted a proposal from cannabis organisations to allow growing for personal use and sales in state-regulated shops. Its backers must now collect at least 35,000 signatures for the electoral council to verify; the Assembly then has three months to debate it.
๐ง๐ด Bolivia Debate โ Article
Bolivia considers medical cannabis prescriptions and licensed supply
A bill from deputy Sandra Hinojosa Nรบรฑez would let registered patients obtain prescribed cannabis derivatives through authorised pharmacies, supplied by licensed growers and manufacturers. It also proposes closing prosecutions for proven medicinal cannabis-oil possession where there is no indication of illicit selling. Parliament received the proposal in April and still listed it among pending bills in October 2026; recreational use would remain prohibited.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Medical โ
Canada lowers veterans' medical cannabis reimbursement ceiling
Veterans Affairs Canada reduced its maximum reimbursement from C$8.50 to C$6 per dried gram or equivalent for products ordered on or after 1 April. Existing authorised quantities and eligible product forms remained unchanged; patients buying above the ceiling pay the difference. This is a change to a specific federal benefit, not a general cannabis price cap.
๐ฑ๐ฎ Liechtenstein Tightening โ
Liechtenstein puts a whole class of cannabinoid derivatives under control
A government regulation of 31 March 2026 amending the Narcotics Regulation, published in the Law Gazette on 3 April, replaced two individual entries with a generic one headed Cannabinoids. It covers any substance whose structure derives from the benzo[c]chromen-1-ol skeleton with alkyl groups at positions 3, 6 and 9, whatever its degree of hydrogenation, unless it is already listed elsewhere. Industrial and scientific use is exempt from control; private use is expressly not.
๐ต๐ฑ Poland Debate โ Article
A bill to stop punishing 15 grams and one plant is filed in Poland's Sejm
The bill came out of a cross-party parliamentary team on decriminalisation led by Ryszard Petru and Klaudia Jachira, and was filed by the Centrum club. It would add an exception to article 62 of the drug act so that possessing up to 15 grams of cannabis for personal use is not punished, and change article 63 so that growing one plant is not either; selling would stay a crime. It received print number 2672 on 11 June and was moved from the health committee to the justice committee on 1 July. By early September 2026 it had not had a first reading.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Easing โ
US Virgin Islands replace a hemp inventory freeze with a sales window
Governor Albert Bryan Jr. approved a replacement rule telling retailers to report their intoxicating-cannabinoid inventory within 60 days and sell or otherwise dispose of it within 75 days of the actโs effective date. The cannabis regulator was then to plan the lawful disposal of remaining stock. This replaced the January lawโs ban on selling or distributing existing inventory until regulations and retail licences were in place.
๐ณ๐ฟ New Zealand Enforcement โ
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.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Ohio Tightening โ
Ohio limits cannabis gifts to a private home or farm
Senate Bill 56 took effect on 20 March. An adult may possess up to 2.5 ounces of plant material, or 15 grams of extract, when it comes from a licensed Ohio dispensary or was grown at that adult's primary residence. A gift to another adult, with no payment, may be that same amount to the same person on the same day, and only on privately owned land used mainly as a home or a farm, including the buildings on it. A transfer outside those conditions is trafficking. Medical marijuana is outside the gift rule.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Hemp โ Article
Ghana opens licensing for low-THC cannabis
The interior minister launched the programme for growing low-THC cannabis for medical and industrial use, under the 2023 amendment act and regulations. Applicants must be Ghanaian citizens or permanent residents aged 18 or over, and companies at least half Ghanaian-owned.
๐ฉ๐ด Dominican Republic Debate โ
A Dominican senator proposes ending prison for drug users
The Senate took up a bill by Senator Edward Espiritusanto of La Romana to amend Article 75 of Law 50-88. Under the law in force, simple possession carries six months to two years in prison and a fine of 1,500 to 2,500 pesos. The bill would remove prison for possession or consumption and have the authorities refer the person to evaluation, treatment, rehabilitation or harm-reduction programmes under health ministry protocols. Penalties for distributors (3 to 10 years), traffickers (5 to 20 years) and financiers (30 years) would stay as they are.
๐ธ๐ฝ Sint Maarten Debate โ
Sint Maartenโs MPs hear a proposal for a regulated cannabis industry
Native Nations SXM presented its proposed cannabis framework to a parliamentary committee, including an independent oversight commission, licensing and product-safety controls. Its promoters argued that regulation would support local economic development and protect health and young people. Parliament later announced a continuation of the meeting after the March hearing was adjourned.
๐ฒ๐ช Montenegro Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฒ๐ฉ Moldova Other law โ Article
Moldova's new drug law takes effect
Law 201/2025, passed on 10 July 2025 and published on 28 August, replaced the 1999 law six months after publication. It bans growing cannabis for drugs, lets hemp with up to 0.3% THC be grown under an authorisation from the food safety agency, and allows seed for sowing to be supplied only to authorised growers.
๐ฌ๐บ Guam Other law โ
Guam approves its first two commercial cannabis growing licences
The Cannabis Control Board approved a cultivation licence for Pacific Root LLC, trading as Pacific Cultivation, and conditionally approved one for Guam Real Deal LLC, trading as Deep Green Guam. The businesses could then seek operating permits after years of delays implementing the 2019 adult-use law. Board chair Vanessa Williams Cruz described a learning curve for both applicants and government agencies.
๐ง๐ผ Botswana Debate โ
Botswana plans to ban driving under the influence of drugs
The assistant minister of transport, Keoagile Atamelang, announced proposed Road Traffic Act amendments at a consultative meeting in Kgomokasitwa, describing existing provisions as targeting drunk drivers while leaving drug impairment largely unaddressed. That is the announcement's characterisation, not an accurate statement that drug driving was lawful: published section 46(2) already prohibits driving while unfit through drugs, with penalties under section 46(4). No commencement date or enacted replacement was established by this report.
๐ธ๐ธ South Sudan Enforcement โ
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.
๐ต๐ญ Philippines Medical โ
Philippine House panels revive medical-cannabis legislation
The joint House committees on dangerous drugs and health approved a consolidated bill to legalise medical cannabis, ABS-CBN reported on 24 February 2026. The sources read do not show it becoming law.
๐ธ๐ง Solomon Islands Debate โ Article
Solomon Islands MPs examine tougher general drug-offence penalties
A parliamentary committee examined the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2025, No. 9 of 2025. Its official call for submissions set a deadline and announced an inquiry start of 17 February 2026; contemporary reporting on 20 February described proposed life sentences and larger fines. The proposal is not counted as enacted law. Existing section 8 already expressly criminalises cannabis possession, growing and giving; reports of wider gaps in drug legislation should not be read as an absence of cannabis offences.
๐ฌ๐ฉ Grenada Legalisation โ Article
Grenada legalises possession and home growing
From February 2026 adults aged 21 and over may possess 56 g of cannabis, and four plants at a household are outside the growing offence. The agriculture ministry says a grower registers with the Cannabis Secretariat before planting, and that the rules for signing up would follow. Parliament passed the bill with support from both sides. Past convictions for those amounts are wiped, and sale remains an offence.
1139+28 points
๐น๐ฏ Tajikistan Enforcement โ
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.
๐ซ๐ฎ Finland Debate โ
Finland's parliament rejects a citizens' initiative to legalise cannabis
Parliament voted 145 to 18 against an initiative that would have legalised the use, possession, home growing, production and sale of cannabis with age limits. The Legal Affairs Committee had advised rejection, saying a legal market could raise consumption and harm across the population. Two members, from the Greens and the Left Alliance, dissented.
๐น๐ฏ Tajikistan Other law โ
Tajikistan revises permits for controlled-drug imports and exports
Tajikistan amended its drug law to require authorising documents under national legislation for controlled-drug and precursor imports and exports. It also revised precursor licensing and the police-law powers applied to Drug Control Agency staff. These amendments revised the licensing and enforcement statute adopted in 1999.
๐ฒ๐ฐ North Macedonia Tightening โ
Police seize 40 tonnes of cannabis in North Macedonia
In late January and early February police in North Macedonia and Serbia seized 45 tonnes of cannabis, the largest drug bust in the region's history, about 40 tonnes of it in North Macedonia and about five in Serbia. The raids also found weapons caches. Between 2018 and 2024 North Macedonia had authorised 75 companies for the medical cannabis market and revoked 26 of the licences between 2021 and 2024. The authorities pledged to eliminate grey zones in the oversight of medical cannabis.
๐ณ๐ต Nepal Culture & science โ
Cannabis smoking continues at Nepal's Shivaratri gathering
Associated Press documented holy men and other devotees smoking cannabis at the Shivaratri gathering near Pashupatinath, despite the national prohibition.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Debate โ
Mexico's Supreme Court falls one vote short of ending the 5 g limit
Five of nine justices voted to strike the 5 g limit from the health law with general effect, one fewer than the six needed. The man in the case, a homeless person held in Ciudad Juรกrez in 2021 with 14 g, won individual protection: the judge must weigh whether the cannabis was for his own use. The limit stays in force for everyone else.
๐ฏ๐ช Jersey Debate โ
Jersey puts off its cannabis reform debate until after the election
The States Assembly debate on three cannabis reform options from the health minister, set for 3 February 2026, was cancelled and deferred until at least after the June election. The options ranged from ending prosecution for small amounts to a state-run sales pilot; none would have changed the law immediately.
๐ธ๐ณ Senegal Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฟ๐ฒ Zambia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฟ๐ฆ South Africa Debate โ
South Africa publishes draft limits for private cannabis
The justice department gazetted draft regulations under the 2024 Cannabis for Private Purposes Act and invited comments until 5 March 2026. They would cap an adult's possession at 750 grams, in private or in public, and private growing at five plants of any size or strain, and set rules for carrying cannabis in a vehicle out of sight and for expunging old convictions. Until they are made final the Act is not in force.
๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye Hemp โ
Tรผrkiye rewrites its hemp cultivation rules
A new regulation on growing and controlling hemp allows fibre, seed and stalk production in 21 provinces with a permit from the local administrative authority. Growing for medicines and health products is confined to the state alkaloid factory site, organised agricultural zones or secure indoor facilities approved by the health ministry, with applications to the state grain board.
๐พ๐ช Yemen Enforcement โ
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.
๐ง๐ญ Bahrain Enforcement โ Article
Bahrain appeal court cuts a cannabis-seed sentence to ten years
An appeal court reduced a manโs 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.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Tightening โ Article
US Virgin Islands require cannabis licences for intoxicating hemp products
Governor Albert Bryan Jr. approved a law requiring cannabis-regulator licences or permits for selling, possessing or manufacturing intoxicating hemp and artificially derived cannabinoids. It covered THCA products and specified altered or intoxicating cannabinoids, set civil fines starting at $2,500, and required age checks, independent testing and child-resistant packaging for licensed retail. Its original inventory freeze was replaced by reporting and sell-or-dispose deadlines in March.
๐ต๐ฆ Panama Medical โ
Panama's first medical cannabis pharmacy opens
The health ministry confirmed that seven licences to sell cannabis-derived products had been issued. All products are imported during a two-year transition.
๐ป๐บ Vanuatu Other law โ
Vanuatu keeps cannabis illegal outside its export licences
Agriculture Director General Timothy Tumukon told the public that cannabis and hemp activity required strict licensing, secure management and export, with no local sales. His comments followed public confusion in late 2025; he said the government had changed legislation to help approved firms obtain bank accounts. The export industry followed the licensing law and February 2023 rules.
๐ฟ๐ฒ Zambia Other law โ
Zambia's controlled-substances law takes effect
The Controlled Substances Act came into force on 16 January 2026. It licences manufacture, import, export and dealing in controlled substances, and it repeals the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1967. Cannabis and cannabis resin are listed among the narcotic drugs. Possession of a listed substance without authorisation is an offence of up to fifteen years. The Cannabis Act's own licences for growing cannabis for medicine and research are still not in force.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Other law โ
US Virgin Islands publish conditional cannabis dispensary approvals
The Office of Cannabis Regulation published applicants approved for conditional dispensary licences as of 15 January. The rules describe conditional licences as contingent awards that reserve a place while applicants meet requirements, with buying and selling dependent on further authorisation. Later that year, regulators identified product testing as a condition for commercial sales.
๐น๐ฌ Togo Enforcement โ
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 Agoรจ in Lomรฉ. The anti-drug office and national anti-drug committee supervised the operation. Security minister Calixte Batossie Madjoulba presented the destruction as part of the governmentโs effort to protect public health and young people.
๐ง๐ผ Botswana Hemp โ
Botswana publishes rules for industrial cannabis with a 0.7% THC limit
Regulations published in January allow licensed farming, processing, transport, research and trade in what the government calls industrial cannabis, with a THC limit of 0.7 per cent. Cultivation licences run for three years and manufacturing licences for five. Applicants must supply site maps, security clearance, crop plans, THC testing protocols and proof of financial capacity, which some politicians called elitist. Marijuana and CBD remain illegal. In February the second licence went to a company linked to a Swedish hemp firm, and the finance minister said trials would begin at the agricultural university.
๐ช๐ช Estonia Debate โ
Estonia's justice minister proposes easing punishment for drug users
The ministry proposed raising the threshold for a large quantity of a narcotic from 10 doses to 30, so that holding less would be a misdemeanour and not a crime, while making it easier to convict dealers. The minister said possession of any narcotic would still be a misdemeanour with a fine of 2,400 euros.
๐ฌ๐ฆ Gabon Enforcement โ
Gabon's police say cannabis seizures more than doubled in 2025
The commander of the National Police Forces, General Serge Hervรฉ 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.
๐ธ๐ป El Salvador Enforcement โ
El Salvador reports 395 kg of marijuana among 25 tonnes of drugs
Defence minister Renรฉ 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.
๐ท๐ธ Serbia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฎ๐ฉ Indonesia Easing โ
Indonesia removes minimum prison terms for cannabis offences
People prosecuted for planting or possessing cannabis no longer face a special four-year minimum prison term: the basic maximum remains twelve years, with prison and/or a fine. The reform also removes minimum terms for sale and giving drugs to another person, while retaining life and death alternatives for specified serious offences. It took effect alongside the new Criminal Code, whose production and import offence replaces the old Article 113.
๐ฆ๐ช United Arab Emirates Hemp โ
The UAE's industrial-hemp law takes effect
The federal decree regulating industrial and medical uses of industrial hemp, issued on 1 October 2025, took effect on 1 January 2026. It allows licensed cultivation at or below 0.3% THC in secured zones, licensed import and export of approved seeds by agricultural companies, and authorised medical products that contain hemp compounds. Personal and recreational use stay prohibited, as do hemp foods, supplements, veterinary products and smoking products. An emirate may prohibit or restrict an activity. Whether any cultivation licence has been issued, or any product is in a pharmacy, was not verified.
๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark Medical โ
Denmark makes its medical cannabis scheme permanent
The prescription scheme that began as a four-year trial in 2018 became permanent. Doctors may continue prescribing the scheme's cannabis products, pharmacies dispense them, and the licensed cultivation and production framework continues.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Legalisation โ Article
Czechia legalises possession and home growing
Act No. 270/2025, a reform of the criminal code, took effect on 1 January. Adults 21 and over may grow three plants and keep 100 g at home or 25 g in public; before, small amounts were only an administrative offence. Four or five plants, or up to twice those amounts, is an administrative offence, and more is a crime. Shops and clubs are still not allowed.
2944+15 points
๐จ๐ณ China Easing โ
China seals records of drug-use penalties
The revised Public Security Administration Punishments Law, passed on 27 June 2025, took effect. Article 136 seals records of public-security violations, drug use included: they may not be given out or published, except to state organs handling a case or bodies entitled to check under national rules. After a public outcry in late 2025 the legislature's legal commission said that sealing does not delete a record, and that drug use remains an offence punished under the same law.
2025114 entries10 score changes
๐ฒ๐ฒ Myanmar Other law โ
Myanmar sets three months' rehabilitation for a broken drug bond
The National Defence and Security Council enacted the second amendment to the narcotics law on 31 December 2025. The English text, published on 7 January 2026, contains no separate commencement date. A court must send a drug user to a rehabilitation centre for three months when the user does not enter the required bond or breaches its conditions. A user sent there who flagrantly breaks the centre's rules must do unpaid manual work for 45 to 90 hours a week. Life imprisonment, the upper term in the sale provisions, is defined as incarceration until death. More than 100 grams of marijuana, marijuana extract, or both is deemed possession for sale.
๐ง๐ฆ Bosnia and Herzegovina Medical โ Article
Bosnia and Herzegovina approves cannabis-based medicines
The Council of Ministers unanimously moved cannabis, its resin, extracts and tinctures from the table of prohibited substances to the table of substances under strict control, so that cannabis-based medicines can be prescribed. Growing cannabis for medicine stays prohibited. Prescribing depends on rulebooks that had still not been amended in July 2026, so no patient had been treated and the score has not moved.
๐ฎ๐ท Iran Death penalty โ
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.
๐ง๐ผ Botswana Easing โ Article
Botswana excludes imprisonment for possession of 60 grams or less
Act 26 of 2025 commenced on 22 December. It adds a low-level cannabis possession offence covering 60 grams or less, with a fine up to P10,000 or prescribed alternatives and an explicit prohibition on imprisonment. Notices require payment within 21 days and mandatory rehabilitation as prescribed; nonpayment leads to alternatives to imprisonment. Larger quantities and cannabis preparations remain subject to separate criminal penalties. Possession is still an offence, and the amendment does not legalise recreational supply.
๐ฌ๐ฎ Gibraltar Enforcement โ
Gibraltar fines a man ยฃ800 for possessing 127 grams of cannabis resin
A 42-year-old man received an ยฃ800 fine after police found about 127 grams of cannabis resin during a foot patrol. He appeared in the Magistratesโ 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.
๐บ๐ธ United States Debate โ
An executive order tells the DEA to speed up rescheduling
President Trump signed Executive Order 14370 requiring the DEA to expedite the rescheduling of cannabis. On 22 April 2026 the acting attorney general ordered medical cannabis products moved to Schedule III.
๐ฆ๐ช United Arab Emirates Tightening โ
The UAE brings back mandatory deportation for drug offences
Amendments to the drug decree-law require courts to deport foreigners convicted of narcotics offences once they have served their sentence, except the spouse or close relative of a citizen, or a member of a resident family that deportation would seriously harm. Doctors and dispensers who supply drugs without a valid prescription face at least five years in prison. A new National Anti-Narcotics Authority takes over from the interior ministry.
๐ผ๐ธ Samoa Debate โ
Samoa's follow-up review of the Narcotics Act stalls
The Samoa Law Reform Commission reported that its follow-up review of the Narcotics Act 1967 had been delayed pending the appointment of a lawyer in the Ministry of Health, which administers the Act. The Commission had taken stock of the recommendations in its earlier final report, sent the ministry a copy and proposed consultations with its management, and was waiting for the ministry to confirm them.
๐ฒ๐ป Maldives Death penalty โ
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.
๐ฐ๐ผ Kuwait Death penalty โ Article
Kuwait combines its drug laws and keeps death for trafficking
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.
๐ต๐ญ Philippines Medical โ
The Philippines updates its compassionate-permit rules
Administrative Order No. 2025-0024, guidelines for availing a compassionate special permit for the restricted use of covered pharmaceutical products and medical devices for human use, took effect on 10 December 2025. The order updates the general named-patient route rather than creating a medical-cannabis programme; the health department says a permit can cover the use and importation of a cannabis-based medicine for an individual patient.
๐ฆ๐น Austria Tightening โ
Austria puts hemp flowers under the tobacco monopoly
The National Council passed a tax law under which legal low-THC cannabis products may be sold only by tobacconists from 2029, supplied by approved wholesalers. Hemp and CBD shops may keep selling until the end of 2028. The cannabis trade association said it would challenge the law at the Constitutional Court.
๐ณ๏ธ Northern Cyprus Enforcement โ
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.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Debate โ
Most Swiss cantons reject the draft cannabis law in consultation
The consultation on the National Council health committee's draft Cannabis Products Act ran from 29 August to 1 December 2025 and drew 162 responses. Fifteen cantons rejected or leaned against the draft and ten approved or leaned towards it; of the parties in parliament four were for and four against. Addiction, business and civil-society organisations mostly welcomed it. The results report was published in April 2026.
๐น๐ฉ Chad Enforcement โ
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.
๐ต๐ฑ Poland Debate โ
A Sejm committee asks Poland's government to study decriminalising three grams
Acting on a citizens' petition filed in 2024, the Sejm's petitions committee adopted a formal request to the prime minister for a comprehensive analysis of allowing possession of up to three grams for personal use, and asked whether legislation or a regulated market was being considered. Such a request is not binding. By early January 2026 the government had not answered.
๐บ๐ฟ Uzbekistan Tightening โ
Uzbekistan's president decrees harsher drug penalties
A presidential decree reported on 8 November adds a section on crimes against public health and the nation's gene pool to the Criminal Code. It provides up to 20 years in prison for organising a trafficking group and for large-scale sales, including online, doubles penalties for dealing in schools, dormitories and children's camps, and introduces administrative arrest of up to 15 days for using drugs in public places. The existing code already set three to five years for illegal manufacture, storage, transport or sale.
๐บ๐ธ United States Tightening โ Article
The US Congress closes the hemp loophole for intoxicating products
A spending law, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act for 2026, rewrote the hemp definition of the 2018 Farm Bill. From 12 November 2026 hemp means cannabis with no more than 0.3 per cent total THC, counting THCA and not only delta-9; cannabinoids made outside the plant, such as delta-8 converted from CBD, fall outside it; and a finished product may hold no more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. Hemp grown for fibre, seed oil and other uses that are not about cannabinoids stays legal. Lawyers expected the change to close most state markets in hemp-derived THC products and to bring litigation.
๐ฉ๐ฒ Dominica Enforcement โ
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.
๐ง๐ฏ Benin Enforcement โ
Police in Benin stop 130 kg of cannabis hidden as maize
Police in Bohicon arrested two motorcyclists coming from Azovรจ 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.
๐ฑ๐ธ Lesotho Other law โ
Lesotho amends its cannabis regulations
Legal Notice 155 of 2025 revised the licensing rules for the medical cannabis industry. It set licence fees of 100,000 maloti each for cultivation, manufacturing and testing and 400,000 for an operator, added a permit route for laboratories, and required the Narcotics Bureau to endorse export permits and destruction certificates.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Other law โ Article
Kyrgyzstanโs top court says cannabis gifts count as drug supply
The Supreme Court adopted guidance explaining that supplying drugs includes gifts, swaps, loans and repayment of debts as well as sales. It told judges to distinguish personal possession from possession intended for supply, to use forensic evidence and to assess each drugโs quantity separately rather than add different drugs together. The guidance replaced earlier court explanations from 2001 and 2008.
๐ป๐บ Vanuatu Debate โ
Vanuatu MPs back financial checks for licensed cannabis businesses
Vanuatuโs national broadcaster reported parliamentary support for changes aimed at overcoming the bank-account and international-transfer barriers facing licensed cannabis and hemp businesses. The published bill proposed financial-intelligence checks on applicantsโ money and key people, a coordinatorโs office and a system of penalty notices. Agriculture Minister Ian Wilson said licences issued in 2023 had been held up by banking problems; opposition MPs supported the changes while stressing security.
๐ฒ๐ช Montenegro Enforcement โ
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.
๐จ๐พ Cyprus Debate โ
Cyprusโs Volt party proposes a regulated cannabis market for adults
Volt Cyprus called for legal adult possession and a licensed cannabis market overseen by an independent regulator. Its proposal included controlled production, retail and clubs, taxation, and easier medical access through the national health system. The party argued that criminalisation burdened courts, harmed young people and strengthened the illicit market, and invited public discussion.
๐ง๐ผ Botswana Medical โ Article
Botswana legalises cannabis under licence
The Cannabis Act allows cannabis for medical, scientific, research and industrial purposes within a licensing system. Regulations followed in 2026. Recreational use stayed illegal.
1112+1 point
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Other law โ Article
Abkhaziaโs top court treats cannabis gifts as supply and limits death sentences
Abkhaziaโs Supreme Court told judges that drug supply included gifts, exchanges, loans and payment of debts, and that ordinary supply liability applied even below large-quantity thresholds. The same guidance required evidence of the substance and quantity, protected access to a lawyer when questioning became accusatory, and barred life or death sentences where mitigating circumstances existed. It replaced earlier drug-case guidance from 2011 and 2012.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Debate โ
Germany's cabinet moves to restrict medical cannabis prescriptions
The cabinet adopted an amendment that would require an in-person consultation for a new prescription and ban mail-order delivery of flower, aimed at telemedicine platforms. It passed first reading on 18 December 2025 and went to a Health Committee hearing on 14 January 2026.
๐จ๐ฎ Cรดte d'Ivoire Enforcement โ
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.
๐ช๐ธ Spain Medical โ
Spain lets hospital pharmacies prepare a cannabis solution
Royal Decree 903/2025, signed on 7 October and in force on 10 October, the day after the official gazette published it, let hospital specialists prescribe a standardised cannabis preparation when authorised medicines have not worked. Hospital pharmacies make it up and hand it out. Ordinary pharmacies were left for a possible later rule.
๐ง๐ฟ Belize Debate โ
A Belizean island votes against a regulated cannabis industry
Voters on Caye Caulker were asked whether the government should legislate for a regulated cannabis industry, with part of the revenue kept for the island. A majority said no. Supporters had pointed to money for schools, health care and tourism jobs; the 'Hope Not Dope' campaign opposed it.
๐ฒ๐ญ Marshall Islands Tightening โ Article
Marshall Islands requires reports of witnessed drug activity
Anyone who witnesses activities involving drugs must report them to national or local police under an amendment effective on 6 October 2025. Failure to report carries a $1,000 fine, while good-faith reporters receive confidentiality and protection from civil or criminal liability. The amendment also expressly added marijuana and marijuana concentrate to the definition of a prohibited drug.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Tightening โ
Paraguay and Brazil destroy 285 hectares of cannabis in ten days
The fifty-second phase of the joint operation Nueva Alianza, by Paraguay's anti-drug secretariat and Brazil's federal police, eradicated 285 hectares in Amambay and dismantled 83 growers' camps. The secretariat valued the loss to traffickers at 130 million dollars and calls the operation the largest of its kind in the world by volume destroyed.
๐ช๐ฌ Egypt Enforcement โ
Egypt's police raid a desert drug farm in Ismailia
The Interior Ministry announced the seizure of 27.5 tonnes of narcotics at a desert farm in Ismailia: 21 tonnes of fully grown plants and 6.5 tonnes in hidden storage, valued at about 1.6 billion Egyptian pounds. One suspect was found with 90 kg of hashish and 10 kg of hydro, and firearms were seized. The report notes that growing or producing narcotics carries death or life imprisonment under Egyptian law.
๐ฒ๐ช Montenegro Enforcement โ 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 countryโs largest discovered marijuana plantation; the investigation brought a third arrest in October and complaints against two further suspects in March 2026.
๐ต๐ช Peru Debate โ
Peru publishes draft industrial-hemp rules
The agriculture ministry opened a 90-day consultation on draft regulations for Law 32195. The proposal would specify the technical and administrative rules for producing, processing and commercialising industrial hemp.
๐จ๐ฌ Congo Other law โ Article
Congo separates small personal quantities from wider drug trafficking
Small personal possession, purchase or growing carried one to six months for a cannabis derivative other than oil, and two months to one year for high-risk drugs including cannabis oil; a fine alone was possible in either tier. Wider high-risk trafficking carried two to ten years, a fine, or both. President Denis Sassou-N'Guesso signed the law after parliament debated the need to replace an outdated drug-control system.
๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia Medical โ Article
Slovenia's medical cannabis law takes effect
The law allows cannabis to be grown, produced and prescribed for medical use under licence, replacing a system that had relied on imported products.
2223+1 point
๐ฌ๐ณ Guinea Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฐ๐ญ Cambodia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ง๐ซ Burkina Faso Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฑ๐ฐ Sri Lanka Other law โ
Sri Lanka lets seven foreign investors grow cannabis for export
Seven investors chosen from 37 applicants received six-month licences to grow cannabis on Board of Investment land at Mirigama, the first legal commercial cultivation in the country. Each must invest at least five million US dollars and lodge a two-million-dollar bond with the central bank, fence and guard the site, and export the whole crop; none may be used in Sri Lanka.
๐ฑ๐พ Libya Enforcement โ
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.
๐ป๐ช Venezuela Enforcement โ
Venezuela seizes three tonnes of marijuana on a boat in Falcรณn
Diosdado Cabello, the vice-president for security, announced the seizure of 3,077 kg of marijuana at Pico de Zamuro in Falcรณn state. Eight Venezuelans travelling in a boat with five high-powered engines were arrested by the investigative police's anti-drug division.
๐ธ๐น Sรฃo Tomรฉ and Prรญncipe Enforcement โ Article
Sรฃo Tomรฉ 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 Sรฃo Tomรฉan and one Portuguese; all were suspected of trafficking, and the judicial authorities imposed bail. RSTPโs August report quoted a police announcement and recalled the previous yearโs raids on cannabis fields and sales points.
๐ฒ๐ณ Mongolia Debate โ
A Mongolian MP drafts prison terms for drug users
MP O. Amgalanbaatar announced a draft of an updated Law on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances under which drug users would be charged under criminal law, not only the law on misdemeanours, with five years in prison for a first offence and eight for a repeat one. He sent it to the government for comment, planning to submit it to parliament afterwards.
๐ฑ๐ง Lebanon Medical โ Article
Lebanon finally appoints its cannabis regulator
Five years after Law 178 legalised growing cannabis for medical and industrial use, the Council of Ministers formed the Cannabis Regulatory Authority that the law required. It is to manage and issue cultivation licences.
๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria Other law โ
Bulgaria's Constitutional Court upholds taking the cars of drugged drivers
A car driven after alcohol or drug use is confiscated if the driver owns it; otherwise its value is charged. The Supreme Court of Cassation and a district judge in Svilengrad had asked whether that squares with the constitution. The court held that it does, by seven judges to five.
๐บ๐ฌ Uganda Medical โ
Uganda grants an experimental growing licence
The government licensed one company to grow, process and export medicinal cannabis in Nakasongola and Luweero districts under police supervision.
๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia Debate โ
Two Slovenian coalition parties table a personal-use bill
The Freedom Movement and the Left submitted a bill to carry out the 2024 referendum: four plants per adult and six per household, 7 g in public and 150 g at home, unpaid sharing of small amounts, and no sales. The Social Democrats had not endorsed it and it has not been enacted.
๐ฆ๐ฉ Andorra Tightening โ
Andorra's Constitutional Court rules that CBD flower is a drug
The court dismissed the appeal of a resident who spent more than a year in prison after being caught at the border with just over half a kilo of cannabis flowers sold as CBD, and was then expelled for five years. It held that under the Penal Code any cannabis containing THC, however little, counts as a toxic drug.
๐ฆ๐ผ Aruba Easing โ Article
Aruba raises the cannabis dismissal band from 5 to 30 grams
Arubaโs revised prosecution instruction raised the soft-drug surrender-and-dismissal band from 0โ5 g to 0โ30 g. Its possession/courier table replaced the earlier short prison request with fine requests of AWG 250 for 30โ100 g, AWG 750 for 100โ300 g and AWG 1,500 for 300โ500 g. Exceptions remained for minors, repeat offending, another offence and specified settings, including carnival parades, workplaces and government buildings.
2124+3 points
๐ฎ๐ธ Iceland Easing โ
Iceland lets health bodies and charities run consumption rooms
An amendment extended consumption-room licences from municipalities to health institutions and non-governmental organisations, and defined the rooms as a legally protected setting for people aged 18 and over.
๐น๐ป Tuvalu Tightening โ Article
Tuvalu introduces minimum prison terms for cannabis offences
Tuvalu introduced minimum prison terms for cannabis offences: the smallest smoking or possession band, no more than 5 g, carries two to five years, while up to one plant carries one to five years. The same law lets the minister license medical and scientific cultivation, manufacture, sale and use. It took effect on 3 July 2025, continuing the drug controls inherited from the colonial ordinance.
96โ3 points
๐ฌ๐ช Georgia Tightening โ Article
Georgia brings back prison for possessing more than 5 g
Parliament amended the Criminal Code so that buying or holding more than five grams of dried marijuana can be punished with up to six years in prison, 70 to 250 grams with five to eight years, and more with up to twenty years or life. A repeat offence under five grams can bring up to a year. The change overrode Constitutional Court rulings that had ruled out prison for small amounts; the rules on consumption were left as they were.
2216โ6 points
๐ป๐ณ Vietnam Other law โ
Vietnam raises the quantities for a death sentence for selling drugs
Law 86/2025/QH15 took effect on 1 July 2025. Illegal possession that is not for sale, transport or production is three to five years from 1 g of cannabis resin or 1 kg of the listed plant parts, and a prior penalty can make a smaller amount criminal. Illegal sale is three to seven years. Twenty years or life applies from 5 kg of resin or 75 kg of the listed plant parts. Life or death applies from 30 kg of resin or 150 kg of those plant parts. Death in that bracket is an alternative, not a required sentence. The same law removed death for illegal transport.
๐ป๐ณ Vietnam Tightening โ Article
Vietnam makes repeat drug use a crime again
Law 86/2025/QH15, passed on 25 June 2025, added Article 256a to the Criminal Code. People who use drugs while in or recently out of rehabilitation, or during the one-year management period that follows a first detection, face two to three years in prison, and three to five for a repeat offence. A first detection stays an administrative matter. The same law removed the death penalty for transporting drugs.
65โ1 point
๐ฉ๐ฟ Algeria Death penalty โ Article
Algeria restores drug death penalties and expands maximum sentences
The amendment restored death sentences for specified aggravated supply offences, including transnational organised crime and use or threatened use of a firearm. It also required the maximum legal penalty when examinations established that an offender was under the influence of drugs when committing an offence. Pupils screened during periodic medical examinations, with consent from their legal representatives or the relevant juvenile judge, could be directed to treatment without prosecution based on those results.
86โ2 points
๐ณ๏ธ Northern Cyprus Enforcement โ
Nicosia court hears of 42 people benefiting from supervised release
At Nicosiaโs 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.
๐ฐ๐ฟ Kazakhstan Hemp โ
Kazakhstan legalises industrial hemp
The president signed a law allowing hemp to be grown for industry. Government rules approved in September let only licensed companies grow listed varieties with up to 0.3% THC, from original or elite registered seed, on fenced and guarded fields at least 2 km from settlements and roads. Crops are tested twice and destroyed if over the limit. Individuals may not grow.
๐ฌ๐ฒ Gambia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฐ๐พ Cayman Islands Debate โ
Caymanโs premier asks for cannabis limits and penalty options
Premier Andrรฉ Ebanks told Parliament that small-scale cannabis reform would be referred to the Law Reform Commission after voters backed decriminalisation. He asked for recommendations on possession limits, administrative penalties, enforcement, international obligations and the protection of vulnerable people. The commissionโs later discussion paper dates Cabinetโs referral to the same day and opened those questions to public consultation in July 2026.
๐ณ๐ฌ Nigeria Debate โ
Nigeria's president declines to sign the drug agency bill
President Tinubu refused assent to the NDLEA Amendment Bill, 2025. His letter, read in the House of Representatives, objected to letting the agency keep part of the proceeds of drug crime, which the law requires to be paid into a central forfeiture account.
๐ฒ๐ฒ Myanmar Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฐ๐ฒ Comoros Enforcement โ
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.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Tightening โ Article
Thailand goes prescription-only
Three years after removing cannabis from its narcotics list, Thailand reclassified the flower as a controlled herb. Buying or possessing it now requires a prescription, and thousands of dispensaries have closed rather than convert to medical premises.
6427โ37 points
๐ง๐ญ Bahrain Other law โ
Bahrain creates a dedicated prosecution unit for drug offences
Bahrainโs Attorney General created a dedicated narcotics-crimes prosecution unit to investigate and prosecute offences under the 2007 drug law. The International Narcotics Control Board reported that its remit included coordination with police and international bodies and proposals for legislative improvements.
๐ฒ๐น Malta Enforcement โ
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 โฌ235 fine if the nuisance continues. In May the police commissioner, Angelo Gafร , had told MPs that the police were not odour experts and he could not tell cannabis from a cigar or a vape.
๐ญ๐ณ Honduras Enforcement โ
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 Colรณn, held about 36,000 plants on eight manzanas.
๐ณ๐ด Norway Easing โ
Norway's parliament passes a drug reform that is not yet in force
The Storting adopted the government's reform. Use and possession of small amounts stay forbidden, but the fine will no longer go on a person's criminal record, people with dependency are to get help in place of punishment, and under-18s must attend a municipal advisory meeting. As of August 2026 no date had been set for it to take effect, so the old rules still applied.
๐ช๐จ Ecuador Other law โ
Ecuador rewrites its personal-use rule without bringing back thresholds
The National Solidarity Law, proposed by President Noboa and passed with 84 votes, reformed Article 228 of the criminal code to separate use from trafficking. The fixed amounts removed in November 2023, 10 g for marijuana, did not return: the health ministry, the judiciary council and the prosecutor's office are to set the criteria by joint resolution. Meanwhile judges decide case by case.
๐ฆ๐ฌ Antigua and Barbuda Easing โ
Antigua and Barbuda plans to wipe old cannabis convictions
After its weekly meeting the Cabinet said it would bring a bill to the next sitting of Parliament to pardon people convicted of possessing less than 15 grams of marijuana and to expunge their records. The attorney general was asked to draft it. Whether the bill has passed was not confirmed.
๐ง๐ง Barbados Medical โ
Barbados opens its first medicinal dispensary
Island Therapeutics became the first, and so far only, licensed medicinal cannabis dispensary, more than five years after the industry law was passed.
๐ธ๐พ Syria Enforcement โ
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.
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Medical โ
Ukraine issues its first permit to import medical cannabis
The State Service for Medicinal Products and Drug Control granted the first permit to import a medical cannabis substance, registered in Ukraine and entered in the State Register of Medicines.
๐ฌ๐ง United Kingdom Debate โ Article
A London commission calls for decriminalising cannabis possession
The London Drugs Commission, set up by Mayor Sadiq Khan and chaired by Lord Falconer, made 42 recommendations. It proposed moving natural cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act to the Psychoactive Substances Act, so that holding a small amount for personal use would no longer be a crime while supply stayed illegal. It did not call for legalisation. The mayor backed it and urged the government to consider it.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Enforcement โ
Thailand warns tourists against taking cannabis out of the country
As cases of travellers smuggling cannabis rose, the health minister, Somsak Thepsutin, said it was against Thai law to take cannabis out of the country without permission from the authorities, and that shops would soon be allowed to sell only to customers with a prescription. In March 375 kg had been seized in 22 suitcases at Samui airport and 13 foreigners arrested.
๐ต๐ฌ Papua New Guinea Tightening โ
Madang court gives two men 25 years for marijuana
Six people were convicted under the Controlled Substance Act. Four received five years and two received 25 years each for possessing 14โ20 kg, with the court relying on the quantity and the need for deterrence.
๐ท๐ผ Rwanda Debate โ
Rwanda reports unfinished infrastructure for its medical cannabis project
Rwandaโs development board reported that off-site infrastructure for the Musanze cannabis project was 83% complete, with double fencing still outstanding, according to reporting on 15 May 2025. The public infrastructure project had spent over one billion of its 2.2 billion francs allocated for 2024/2025. The licensed producerโs planned launch had already been delayed, as the country worked to develop cannabis-oil production aimed mainly at export.
๐ท๐บ Russia Debate โ
Russia's Supreme Court proposes softer penalties for personal possession
The plenum of Russia's Supreme Court put forward a bill to soften the punishment for keeping drugs for personal use and, in some cases, to replace prison with treatment for addiction. In 2024 about 50,800 people had been convicted under Article 228, roughly one in ten of all convictions.
๐ฒ๐น Malta Tightening โ Article
Malta tightens the rules for its cannabis associations
Parliament unanimously passed amendments to the 2021 cannabis law. Associations that let minors on site face fines of up to 10,000 euros and must keep 250 metres from schools, sports facilities and youth centres, and their offences now go before a Court of Magistrates. The definition of cannabis was clarified to cover THC and CBD, leaving out non-psychoactive cannabinoids with less than 0.2% THC. A new 235-euro fine covers cannabis smoke that bothers neighbours, even from inside a home.
๐ง๐พ Belarus Easing โ Article
Belarus widens amnesty eligibility for first-time drug offenders
People with no previous convictions became eligible for amnesty consideration across the principal personal-possession and supply offences, subject to the lawโs conditions. The anniversary amnesty included a one-year reduction route for eligible prison and restriction-of-liberty sentences. It followed Marchโs sentencing reform; the first-conviction exception did not extend to supply causing death.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada ยท Manitoba Easing โ
Manitoba allows four cannabis plants at home
From 1 May 2025 a person 19 or older may grow up to four cannabis plants in their ordinary residence, and the household may not exceed four. The plants must be indoors, locked away from young people or otherwise out of their reach, and grown from seed or plant material that is not illicit. Quebec's ban on personal cultivation remains.
๐ฐ๐พ Cayman Islands Debate โ
Cayman voters back decriminalising small amounts of cannabis
Cayman voters backed decriminalising the consumption and possession of small amounts of cannabis in the referendum held on 30 April 2025. Premier Andrรฉ Ebanks later told Parliament that 55.64% supported the proposal and promised a Law Reform Commission review of possession limits, penalties and safeguards. The commission opened public consultation in July 2026, with possession and consumption still criminal offences under the existing law.
๐ง๐พ Belarus Debate โ
Belarusโs lower house backs sentence cuts for first-time drug offenders
Belarusโs lower house approved an amnesty bill that would cut a year from eligible first-time drug sentences. The proposal accompanied the eightieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War and still needed to complete the legislative process. The final law took effect on 8 May, widening eligibility while retaining exclusions and individual conditions.
๐ฒ๐จ Monaco Enforcement โ
A Monaco court convicts a pensioner over 15 g of cannabis and CBD products
A Monegasque man born in 1956, with a clean record, was tried for possession and use of narcotics after a search of his home found 15.62 g of cannabis, a CBD spray and CBD chewing gum. The prosecutor cited a ministerial order banning cannabis and its derivatives, including CBD, even at low THC levels, and asked for three months suspended. The defence argued that CBD is legal in the neighbouring countries. The court gave one month in prison, suspended, with two years' probation and an obligation to undergo care.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Debate โ
Paraguay's Congress tries to merge seven cannabis bills
A public hearing examined a draft law on the comprehensive regulation of cannabis. Senator Lรญder Amarilla said seven bills with the same aim were before the two chambers and should become one; medical and industrial use were already regulated, he said, and what mattered now was recreational use and trade, as a source of development for the departments where cannabis is grown.
๐ญ๐บ Hungary Debate โ
Hungary's top court lets a cannabis rally go ahead
Six days after parliament wrote a ban on the 'promotion' of drugs into the constitution, the police tried to prohibit a 20 April cannabis gathering in Budapest. The supreme court overturned the ban, reasoning that it predated the amendment. It may have been the last such demonstration to be permitted.
๐ฌ๐ช Georgia Tightening โ
Georgia lengthens sentences and makes refusing a drug test a crime
Three months before it brought back prison for cannabis possession, the governing Georgian Dream party amended the drug laws to add longer prison terms and higher fines, criminal liability for refusing a drug test and mandatory treatment for users.
๐บ๐ฌ Uganda Tightening โ
Uganda's narcotics law comes into force
Statutory Instrument 42 of 2025 brought the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act, 2024 into force on 14 April 2025. The President had assented on 2 February 2024, and section 1 left the start to the internal affairs minister. From 14 April 2025, possession of a narcotic drug can bring up to twenty years in prison, with no lesser tier for a small amount; use can bring up to ten years; growing without a licence up to five; and trafficking, which the Act defines to include giving, up to life. The health minister may still license cultivation of a prohibited plant. The Constitutional Court had said in 2023 that annulling the previous Act did not legalise cannabis, so the score stays on the earlier ban until this commencement.
96โ3 points
๐ฑ๐ป Latvia Medical โ
A Latvian governing party decides to push for medical cannabis
The board of the Progressives resolved to seek a regulation letting doctors prescribe medicines containing cannabis, as capsules, extracts and tablets, and to take it to their coalition partners. Patients, the party said, now have to buy or import such products illegally. The chief of the State Police said he opposed legalising marijuana but would not object to medical use if experts agreed on it.
๐ญ๐บ Hungary Tightening โ
Hungary writes a drug ban into its constitution
The fifteenth amendment to the constitution prohibits producing, using, distributing and promoting drugs. It came with a wider government crackdown and ended the legal basis for pro-cannabis demonstrations.
๐ฎ๐น Italy Tightening โ
Italy bans the hemp flower trade
A security decree prohibited selling hemp flowers whatever their THC content, closing the "cannabis light" shops that had spread since 2017.
๐ณ๐ด Norway Easing โ
Norway proposes a drug reform that keeps use punishable
The government presented a bill under which small amounts for personal use bring a fine or up to six months in prison, adults with serious drug problems are generally not punished, and young people are sent to a drug advisory unit. Police gain powers to test for drug use.
๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands Legalisation โ Article
Dutch coffeeshops enter the regulated-supply phase
On 7 April 2025, the experiment entered its experimental phase in ten municipalities, with regulated growers intended to become the exclusive source. Enforcement against unregulated hashish was temporarily deferred because of supply concerns. The preceding transition phase had allowed regulated and tolerated products side by side.
๐จ๐ฌ Congo Debate โ
Congo's senators back a new law against illicit drug trafficking
Senators approved a drug-control proposal intended to combat trafficking and strengthen public security. Its sponsor, Yves Fortunรฉ Moundele-Ngollo Ehourossia, linked illicit drugs to organised crime, money laundering, corruption and violence. The debate came more than twenty years after Congo approved accession to the UN drug conventions; President Denis Sassou-N'Guesso signed the new drug law in August.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Medical โ Article
Czechia lets general practitioners prescribe medical cannabis
General practitioners became eligible to prescribe medical cannabis for chronic intractable pain. A prescription could also cover up to three months of treatment instead of one, while the existing monthly quantity limits remained in place.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Other law โ
Kyrgyzstan adopts new drug lists, quantity rules and licensing controls
The cabinet adopted replacement controlled-drug lists, quantity criteria and rules for lawful handling of controlled substances. The rules prohibit ordinary medical use and retail trade in the banned narcotic list while retaining narrow research and official-use exceptions. Cannabis oil, resin, plant material, marijuana and extracts appear in that prohibited list in the later consolidated text.
๐จ๐ฒ Cameroon Enforcement โ
Cameroon's gendarmes find 50 sacks of cannabis in a soap lorry
Gendarmes of the Njimom brigade stopped a lorry at the Manki checkpoint in the Noun department of the West region and found 50 sacks of cannabis hidden among cartons of soap. The driver and two other men were detained, and the defence ministry said they and the cargo would be handed to the courts.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Other law โ
Canada loosens its cannabis production and packaging rules
Amended regulations took effect. Micro-cultivators may grow on up to 800 square metres and micro-processors handle 2,400 kg a year; the 1 g limit on pre-rolls was dropped; packages may have transparent windows and need show only total THC and CBD; and small non-human research with up to 30 g no longer needs a licence.
๐ง๐พ Belarus Easing โ Article
Belarus adds shorter custody and supervision options for drug offences
Judges gained a short custodial sentence as an option for personal drug offences, alongside restriction of liberty or two to five years in prison. Basic supply gained a three-to-five-year restriction-of-liberty option, and the minimum for organised-group supply fell from ten years to eight. The government presented the wider criminal-code reform as a way to tailor punishment to each case.
35+2 points
๐ณ๐ช Niger Enforcement โ
Niger's anti-drug office seizes cannabis hidden in peanuts
The Konni unit of the anti-drug office OCRTIS found 80 bricks of cannabis weighing 72.325 kg in sacks of peanuts at the Tchรฉrassa checkpoint. The load had come from Kalmalo in Nigeria and was bound for Dan Issa and Maradi. Three people were arrested for international trafficking of high-risk drugs.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Medical โ
French Polynesia publishes the first rules for its hemp pilot
Six implementing arrรชtรฉs of the 2024 law appeared in the Journal officiel. They allow at most ten growers on 1.5 hectares, with plants at or below 0.3% THC, and permit products such as seeds, food, dried leaves and infusions; CBD oil still needed further arrรชtรฉs.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Debate โ
A Swiss committee drafts a law to legalise cannabis
The National Council's health committee adopted a preliminary draft of a Cannabis Products Act that would let adults grow, buy, possess and use cannabis under strict limits on commerce. Consultation closed on 1 December 2025; on 7 May 2026 the committee sent the draft back to its subcommittee for revision. It is not expected to take effect before 2029.
๐ท๐ด Romania Easing โ
Romania's top court requires more than a drug test to convict a driver
From 28 January 2025, a driver in Romania commits the criminal drug-driving offence when a biological sample contains a psychoactive substance and that substance was capable of affecting the ability to drive. The High Court of Cassation and Justice decided the point on 27 January 2025, and the ruling became binding when the Official Gazette published it the next day. The court asks for that capacity. Proof that the driver made a mistake on the road sits outside what the prosecution must show. The sentence, set by a May 2024 amendment of the criminal code, is one to five years in prison and a ban on exercising rights, or two to seven years for public passenger transport, dangerous goods, a driving lesson or a driving test.
๐ฝ๐ฐ Kosovo Enforcement โ 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. Kosovoโs criminal code punishes unauthorised distribution and sale with a fine and two to twelve years in prison.
๐ฑ๐จ Saint Lucia Debate โ
Saint Lucia publishes its cannabis-industry bill for consultation
The commerce ministry published a draft Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Bill for public review, with comments due by 7 February 2025. The draft proposed cultivation, processing and dispensary licences but was not itself an enacted law.
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Medical โ
Ukraine registers its first medical cannabis products
Three full-spectrum cannabis oils made by Curaleaf became the first medical cannabis products on Ukraine's State Register of Medicinal Products. As of the first quarter of 2025 no patient had yet been treated, with clinical protocols, pharmacy registration and distribution still being set up.
๐น๐ด Tonga Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฟ๐ฒ Zambia Hemp โ
Zambia brings the Industrial Hemp Act into force
The Industrial Hemp Act (Commencement) Order, 2024, published in the Gazette of 3 January 2025, brings the Act into operation on the date of that publication. A licence is required to grow, process, distribute, buy, export or research hemp of not more than 0.3% THC. The Cannabis Act, published on the same day in 2021, is still not in force.
๐ธ๐ฆ Saudi Arabia Death penalty โ
Saudi Arabia announces six executions for hashish smuggling
The Interior Ministry announced that six Iranian men had been executed after convictions for smuggling hashish and the rejection of their appeals. It did not disclose when the executions had taken place.
๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye Medical โ
Turkey allows low-THC cannabis products in pharmacies
A new law permits pharmacies to sell products derived from cannabis with less than 0.3% THC.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Legalisation โ Article
Czechia passes its cannabis reform
Parliament approved a reform of the criminal code that legalises growing three plants and keeping 100 g at home, and the president signed it. A proposal for licensed shops had been dropped along the way. The changes were set to start on 1 January 2026. The amendment setting the personal limits, which also abolished the offence of holding drugs for someone else, was drafted by the think tank of the former drug coordinator Jindลich Voboลil, who accused the STAN deputies who submitted it of passing it off as their own.
๐ง๐ฎ Burundi Debate โ Article
Burundi's drug users face gaps in court supervision and care
Mainline reported that court supervision for drug consumption was rarely implemented in Burundi because institutions lacked staff, funding and capacity. Its interviews described stigma and fear of arrest as barriers to care, while BAPUD, an association of people who use drugs, pressed for better services. The report connected these practical problems with the supervision requirement introduced in 2009 and retained in the 2017 criminal code.
202494 entries10 score changes
๐ฎ๐ถ Iraq Enforcement โ
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.
๐ณ๐ท Nauru Tightening โ Article
Nauru makes prison mandatory for cannabis possession and raises other penalties
Cannabis possession without lawful authority now carried twelve months to three years in custody. Growing, supplying, acquiring or using illicit drugs, and importing or exporting them, exposed people to life imprisonment with at least ten years to be served before parole or probation. The government said the reform sought deterrence by replacing fines and suspended sentences with imprisonment, following earlier cannabis cases ending in fines and community service.
60โ6 points
๐ง๐ด Bolivia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ต๐ช Peru Hemp โ
Peru creates an industrial-hemp framework
Law 32195 established a framework for producing, supervising and commercialising industrial hemp below 1% THC. It covers seeds, cuttings, plants and their parts and requires authorisation and registration, with detailed rules left to a regulation.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Debate โ
A Kyrgyz MP proposes legalising marijuana, then industrial hemp
At a session of the Jogorku Kenesh, MP Dastan Bekeshev proposed revising drug policy and legalising light natural substances such as marijuana, arguing that banning and destroying natural drugs only drives up their price and pushes young people to cheaper and more harmful synthetic ones. In February 2026, as parliament prepared to review a draft law allowing medicinal herbs to be grown on arable land, he proposed also allowing industrial hemp under stricter state supervision. The agriculture ministry's list of medicinal crops did not include it.
๐ฏ๐ต Japan Tightening โ Article
Japan makes cannabis use a crime
Japan used to punish possession but not use. Amendments in force from 12 December moved cannabis under the narcotics law, made use itself an offence and raised the maximum for possession from five to seven years in prison. The same reform allowed cannabis-derived medicines.
32โ1 point
๐ฒ๐น Malta Culture & science โ
Cannabis use in Malta falls after legalisation, survey finds
A Eurobarometer survey found past-year cannabis use in Malta at 4%, down from 7% in 2021, while the share saying it was very easy to obtain rose from 26% to 35%. Half favoured regulated sale and 46% a ban, eight points more than in 2021, and 49% saw public smoking as a problem locally.
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji Debate โ
Fiji says a medicinal cannabis bill will come in 2025
Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica told Parliament the government aimed to table a medicinal cannabis bill in 2025, after delays in the legislative review. Cabinet had approved the initiative in August 2023 and a taskforce of 12 departments has worked on it since. Seventeen consultations held from 9 October to 28 November 2024 drew more than 500 people, 75 per cent of whom supported legalising cannabis for medicinal purposes. The industry is planned as export-only.
๐ธ๐ท Suriname Debate โ
Suriname's president says drugs should be treated mainly as a health issue
Opening a workshop of the National Anti-Drugs Council in Paramaribo on the revision of the five-yearly National Drugs Master Plan, President Chandrikapersad Santokhi said drug problems should be approached mainly as a health matter and less as a criminal one, with a focus on reducing use, helping addicts and curbing demand, and proposed coordinating the plan from the Presidency. The report of the workshop does not mention cannabis specifically.
๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark Medical โ
Denmark agrees to make its medical cannabis trial permanent
The government and opposition parties agreed that the prescription trial begun on 1 January 2018, extended in 2021 and due to end in 2025, would become permanent from 2026. It keeps its focus on multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, cancer and chronic pain, with better guidance for doctors; the health ministry's evaluation had found no new evidence strengthening the medical case.
๐จ๐ท Costa Rica Debate โ
Costa Rica's top court blocks a recreational cannabis bill
The Constitutional Chamber ruled that the government's bill to regulate recreational cannabis, file 23.383, was unconstitutional because it conflicts with the three UN drug conventions, which rank above domestic law. The electoral tribunal had asked after a citizen sought to put the bill to a referendum. The bill could go forward only if Costa Rica left the conventions.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia Debate โ
Australia's Senate votes down a bill to legalise cannabis
The Senate rejected the Greens' Legalising Cannabis Bill by 24 votes to 13, with Labor and the Coalition against. A Senate committee had recommended rejection on 31 May. The bill would have legalised the production, sale and use of cannabis by adults nationwide.
๐ฑ๐ฆ Laos Enforcement โ
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.
๐จ๐ฌ Congo Enforcement โ
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.
๐ต๐ฑ Poland Medical โ
Poland restricts online prescriptions for medical cannabis
A health ministry rule first aimed at opioid prescribing was extended to cannabis: specialist clinics may issue a prescription only after examining the patient in person, though family doctors can still prescribe remotely. Prescriptions had peaked in October 2024 and fell by more than half by the end of the year, before growing again in 2025.
๐ช๐ท Eritrea Debate โ
Eritrea confirms its new penal code is still awaiting enforcement
Eritrea told the UN childrenโs-rights committee that its 2015 Penal Code was not yet enforced and identified the Transitional Penal Code as the working law. The published replacement contained separate personal-use drug offences and a fine alternative, but its entry-into-force rule required gazette publication. A UN Special Rapporteurโs 2025 report also said that the new codes had not been brought into force.
๐จ๐ซ Central African Republic Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฌ๐บ Guam Easing โ Article
Guam lets licensed cannabis sellers use a temporary testing exemption
Licensed cannabis businesses could use a temporary exemption from laboratory testing while Guam had no qualifying laboratory, with warning labels and growersโ sworn assurances about contaminants. Governor Lou Leon Guerrero signed the change to help businesses open after years of delays under the 2019 law. It took effect ninety days after signature and originally had a two-year expiry; lawmakers extended that window in 2026.
๐ฏ๐ช Jersey Easing ?
Jersey lets Centeniers fine people for possessing cannabis
The Crime (Public Order) (Jersey) Law 2024 came into force. It inserted Article 28A into the Misuse of Drugs Law, allowing a Centenier at a Parish Hall enquiry to impose a level 1 fine for possessing a Class B or Class C drug if the person accepts it, without a criminal conviction.
1619+3 points
๐ฌ๐ฑ Greenland Debate โ
Greenlandโs cannabis review compares prohibition and reform options
An independent review prepared for Greenland compared prohibition, decriminalisation, limited legal access and commercial cannabis sales. It examined health, criminal-justice and economic trade-offs, with a strong focus on young people, prevention and treatment. The health department commissioned the work after a parliamentary proposal seeking a balanced assessment.
๐ฌ๐พ Guyana Enforcement โ
Guyana's attorney general tells police not to lock people up for small amounts
After police in Matthew's Ridge held a man found with 4.2 g of marijuana, Attorney General Anil Nandlall said the detention misapplied the amended drug law. Because a court cannot impose prison for possessing up to 30 g, he said, the police cannot detain a person for it before trial and bail must be granted; they should charge the person and bring them before a magistrate. Up to 15 g means counselling, and 15 to 30 g may mean community service.
๐ต๐ฌ Papua New Guinea Hemp โ
National study says Papua New Guinea is not ready for hemp
A report for the National Narcotics Bureau, summarised by the National Research Institute in September 2024, found demand for industrial hemp products in Papua New Guinea but little support for legalising its production and marketing, and a widespread belief that the country lacks the capacity to regulate it. It recommended that hemp production not be legalised until the country has that capacity. It did not legalise the crop.
๐ต๐ฐ Pakistan Debate โ
Pakistan's Senate passes the cannabis regulator bill
The Senate passed the Cannabis Control and Regulatory Authority Bill, 2024, which the law minister said the National Assembly had already approved. It sets up an authority to regulate growing cannabis and extracting, refining, making and selling its derivatives for medicinal and industrial use. Several senators objected that the subject belongs to the provinces.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Other law โ
Kyrgyzstan replaces its drug-control law and extends it to living organisms
A replacement drug-control law took effect on 12 September 2024, six months after publication, replacing the 1998 law. It expressly covered listed living organisms containing controlled substances and defined gathering wild organisms as manufacture or production. President Sadyr Japarov signed the law, which also banned medical and veterinary use of substances in its prohibited lists; implementing rules followed in 2025.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Other law โ
Canada publishes expanded guidance distinguishing edibles from extracts
Health Canada announced that its compliance statement now included the ingestible-product classification policy shared with licence holders in December 2023. Products represented for mixing with food or drinks are treated as edibles, with a 10 mg THC limit per immediate container, rather than extracts with a 1,000 mg limit. This is commercial classification guidance under existing regulations, not a new ban on cooking at home.
๐ง๐ธ Bahamas Other law โ
The Bahamas brings only its cannabis regulator into force
The appointed-day notice commenced Parts I and II of the Cannabis Act, establishing the Bahamas Cannabis Authority, along with four rulemaking and oversight sections. It did not commence the licensing, medical access, possession, fixed-penalty or religious-use provisions, so this administrative step did not change personal cannabis freedom.
๐จ๐ณ China Tightening โ
China puts cannabidiol under its precursor-chemical rules
Six government departments issued an announcement on seven substances, cannabidiol among them, bringing their production, trade and transport under the Regulations on the Administration of Precursor Chemicals.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Medical โ
French Polynesia passes a law on hemp and cannabis medicines
Adopted on 9 July 2024 by 41 votes with 16 abstentions and promulgated on 23 August as loi du pays no. 2024-19, the law regulates growing cannabis without intoxicating properties and medicines containing cannabis or cannabinoids, starting with a small pilot. Recreational use was left out.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Other law โ
Germany sets a THC limit for drivers
A limit of 3.5 nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood serum took effect, with a ban on any cannabis for novice drivers and on combining it with alcohol.
๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco Easing โ Article
Morocco's king pardons more than 4,800 cannabis growers
King Mohammed VI pardoned 4,831 people convicted, prosecuted or wanted in cases tied to growing cannabis, on the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People. The justice ministry said it would let them join the regions' new strategy for legal cannabis.
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Medical โ Article
Ukraine legalises medical cannabis
The medical-cannabis framework took effect, allowing licensed cultivation and providing for registered or pharmacy-compounded medicines on electronic prescription. The Ministry of Health says prescribing depends on medicines being imported and pharmacies becoming ready.
2223+1 point
๐ธ๐ฐ Slovakia Easing โ Article
Slovakia cuts sentences for small amounts
Act 40/2024 split the old drug offence into four and replaced "usual doses" with fixed amounts. Possessing cannabis in a negligible amount, up to 2 g, now carries up to one year in prison and growing up to two plants for one's own use up to six months; larger tiers carry more. The milder text, applied by prosecutors from 6 August 2024, also covers earlier acts.
911+2 points
๐ฒ๐ฟ Mozambique Debate โ
Mozambique's president calls for studies on legalising cannabis
Opening a two-day meeting of the Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs in Maputo, President Filipe Nyusi called for deep reflection on policies to regulate cannabis, noting that other countries were already treating it as a legal plant. More than cooperation between countries, he said, deep studies were needed on how to legalise the plant. In the same speech he warned that drug trafficking fuels terrorism, citing the violence in Cabo Delgado. The European Union's representative said the EU was ready to share its members' experience with countries of the region.
๐ International Debate โ
An African drugs commission meets in Maputo on regulating cannabis
The Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs met in Maputo on 5 and 6 August to compare approaches to regulating cannabis. Its report set out the region's steps: Lesotho licensing medical growing in 2017, Zimbabwe in 2018, Zambia after a cabinet decision in 2019, Malawi in 2020, and South Africa's court ruling of 2018 and Act of 2024, which a South African delegate called not really ideal because it allows use without any legal way to buy. Tanzania and Mozambique still criminalise production, trade and use. Delegates warned that the cost of compliance shuts out small traditional growers and risks handing the market to large companies.
๐ต๐ญ Philippines Medical โ
The Philippine House passes a medical-cannabis bill
The House approved the Access to Medical Cannabis Bill on its third and final reading by 177 votes to nine, with nine abstentions. The Senate did not complete its counterpart before the 19th Congress ended, so the proposal lapsed.
๐ง๐ธ Bahamas Other law โ
The Bahamas enacts a cannabis framework
The Cannabis Act received assent on 26 July. It lays out medical and religious access, licences and a $250 fixed penalty for possession below 30 g, but allows different provisions to commence on dates appointed by the minister. Enactment alone therefore did not change the operative rules.
๐ฑ๐ป Latvia Debate โ
Latvia's president and prime minister back ending prosecution of minors for drug use
After the medical association asked for personal use to be decriminalised, the prime minister, Evika Siliลa, and the president, Edgars Rinkฤviฤs, supported a justice ministry proposal that young people should no longer be criminally liable for using drugs. Possession and supply would stay crimes. Ten minors were prosecuted for drug offences in 2024, against hundreds of administrative cases a year; the amendments were due before the Saeima in January 2026.
๐ธ๐น Sรฃo Tomรฉ and Prรญncipe Enforcement โ
Sรฃo Tomรฉ police raid cannabis fields and sales points, arresting nine
Policeโs Operation 971 targeted cannabis fields and sales points across Sรฃo Tomรฉ and Prรญncipe in July 2024, according to a later account of the operation. Seven men and two women, all Sรฃo Tomรฉan, were detained and brought for an initial judicial hearing. The operation involved the prison and social reintegration service and the state leadersโ protection unit alongside the judicial police.
๐ท๐ด Romania Medical โ
Romanian prosecutors charge a couple carrying prescribed cannabis
A Romanian couple living in Britain were held for hours at Bucharest airport, charged with importing drugs and had their cannabis seized despite their medical papers. The Bucharest Court of Appeal later overturned the indictment and the seizure. The government had said that cannabis prescribed by doctors elsewhere in the European Union would be accepted.
๐ต๐น Portugal Other law โ
Portugal's top court says drug detection is not influence
A uniform judgment published on 15 July 2024, about an insurer's claim after a crash, held that the insurer must prove the driver was under the influence of a psychotropic substance in a way that diminished the fitness to drive safely, shown by a medical or expert examination. In that case 0.8 ng/mL of THC and 4.3 ng/mL of THC-COOH, without such a report, did not establish influence. The judgment does not itself decide every administrative driving case.
๐ฒ๐ฌ Madagascar Enforcement โ
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 Tsaratanร na, 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.
๐ฎ๐ฒ Isle of Man Medical โ
Any Isle of Man pharmacy may now apply to dispense medical cannabis
After a year-long pilot at a single Onchan pharmacy, used by more than 650 patients, the Isle of Man opened licences to all registered pharmacies wishing to dispense private prescriptions for cannabis-based medicines, and let private clinics register to prescribe on the island.
1213+1 point
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Debate โ
Czechia's drug coordinator is pushed out
The governing coalition's leaders agreed that Jindลich Voboลil would leave the post of national drug coordinator at the end of August. He had clashed with politicians over a regulated cannabis market and other measures; the Christian Democrats and the opposition leader Andrej Babiลก had pressed for his departure. He stayed on as an adviser and said he had faced pressure and threats from large industries.
๐จ๐ผ Curaรงao Tightening โ Article
Curaรงao keeps its cannabis ban and prohibits sales advertising
Curaรงaoโs replacement drug law kept the bans on cannabis growing, possession and use, and prohibited public messages promoting controlled-drug sales or supply, except purely medical or scientific information. It also gave the government a route to create exemptions by decree, subject to prior parliamentary approval and a 30-day period in which Parliament can request legislation to govern commencement. The law retained medical exceptions for licensed professionals and lawfully obtained personal treatment supplies, and took effect on 6 July, the day after publication.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Legalisation โ Article
German cultivation associations become legal
The second stage of the Cannabis Act let non-profit associations of up to 500 members grow cannabis and hand it out to them, the only legal source besides home growing and a prescription.
4244+2 points
๐ฐ๐ท South Korea Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฏ๐ช Jersey Debate โ
Jersey rejects cannabis decriminalisation by one vote
The States Assembly rejected decriminalising personal possession and recreational use by 23 votes to 22, with one abstention, but asked ministers by 26 votes to 19 to bring forward cannabis proposals by November 2025 and to fund the work.
๐ง๐ท Brazil Easing โ Article
Brazil's Supreme Court decriminalises personal possession
After a case that ran for nine years, the court ruled that possessing cannabis for personal use is not a crime. Up to 40 g or six female plants is presumed to be personal use and is handled with a warning or an educational course. It is still prohibited, and the cannabis is seized.
1523+8 points
๐ณ๐ฆ Namibia Medical โ
Namibia declines to allow medicinal cultivation
The government decided not to permit commercial growing of cannabis for medicinal purposes.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia Debate โ
Slovenians vote for legal cannabis
In two advisory referendums, 66% backed growing cannabis for medical use and 51.6% backed growing and possessing it for personal use. The governing coalition later drafted a personal-use bill, which is still before parliament.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Enforcement โ
A Papeete court fines Guy Lalibertรฉ 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.
๐ณ๐ท Nauru Enforcement โ Article
Nauru fines two adults after a one-gram cannabis case
Two adults received fines of A$1,500 each, community service and one yearโs probation after pleading guilty in a one-gram cannabis case. A teenager received a A$200 fine and one monthโs community service, with no conviction recorded. The magistrate considered imprisonment disproportionate for the adults, months before parliament introduced mandatory custody for possession.
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji Enforcement โ Article
Fijiโs appeal court cuts two cannabis growersโ prison terms by four years
Waisake Kalouliaโs nineteen-year cannabis cultivation sentence was reduced to fifteen years, and Kaminieli Naqelecaโs eighteen years to fourteen. The Court of Appeal applied its newer plant-count and role guidelines to the menโs older case, involving a remote plantation with at least 208 whole plants confirmed in the analystโs report. Both convictions stood, while the periods before parole eligibility also fell.
๐ฟ๐ฆ South Africa Legalisation โ
South Africa signs the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act
The president signed the law Parliament wrote in response to the 2018 court ruling. It removes cannabis from the drugs act and provides for old convictions to be expunged, but it has not been brought into force: regulations setting the limits are still in draft.
๐ณ๐ต Nepal Debate โ
Nepal's budget promises a law for medical cannabis farming
Presenting the 2024/25 budget, Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun said legal provisions would be made for the commercial cultivation of marijuana for medical use. No law followed: in August 2026 his successor Swarnim Wagle told the National Assembly that further study was needed before changing the rules on production.
๐ป๐บ Vanuatu Enforcement โ 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 monthsโ 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.
๐ธ๐ฑ Sierra Leone Medical โ Article
Sierra Leone sets licensing rules for medical cannabis growers
Licensed companies, manufacturers and approved health organisations could apply to grow and process cannabis under Pharmacy Board guidelines focused on medical production for export. The rules required suitable staff, secure sites, traceable planting material and inspections, using permission powers already contained in the 2001 pharmacy law. The document gives 17 May 2024 as its effective date and focuses on cultivation, harvesting and processing for medicinal products.
๐จ๐ผ Curaรงao Debate โ
Curaรงaoโs advisers seek clearer rules for future drug exemptions
Curaรงaoโs Advisory Council asked the government to explain why its replacement drug bill would let it exempt substances, activities or circumstances from existing prohibitions. The council wanted a reasoned explanation with examples, alongside clearer procedures for individual permissions. The final July law kept an exemption power covering cannabis but required the government to seek Parliamentโs approval before making such a decree.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Other law โ
US Virgin Islands certify the rules for cannabis licences and patient cards
Lieutenant Governor Tregenza Roach certified and attested the cannabis rules on 13 May, following Governor Albert Bryan Jr.โs approval dated 4 May. The rules covered patient registration, business applications, testing and sacramental use, and distinguished conditional awards from permission to buy or sell cannabis. Conditional dispensary approvals followed in January 2026.
๐ณ๐ฌ Nigeria Debate โ
Nigeria's Senate votes for the death penalty for drug trafficking
Passing a bill to amend the NDLEA Act, the Senate adopted a floor amendment replacing life imprisonment with death as the penalty for drug traffickers. A first voice vote seemed to go against it; the Deputy Senate President called a second and ruled it carried, over protests from some senators. The bill still needed agreement with the House of Representatives.
๐ฒ๐ด Macau Easing โ Article
Macauโs top court keeps one drug conviction for linked growing and selling
A cannabis growerโs combined sentence stayed at nine years three months after Macauโs top court rejected prosecutorsโ demand for separate production and trafficking convictions. His growing, keeping, giving and selling cannabis formed one continuous operation under a single plan; the appeal court had reduced an earlier twelve-year combined sentence. The top court also refused the growerโs request for a further reduction, citing the operationโs duration and scale.
๐จ๐ป Cabo Verde Hemp โ Article
Cabo Verdeโs health regulator clarifies its ban on cannabinoid cosmetics
ERIS circular 012/ERIS-CA/2024 reiterated its prohibition on cannabis-related preparations and CBD or other cannabinoid ingredients in cosmetic products under the framework described. It warned that an inventory entry without a listed restriction did not establish permission. The circular was a regulatory clarification, not a general ruling on all CBD uses.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia ยท Queensland Other law โ
Queensland requires a diversion offer for an eligible minor drugs offence
From 3 May 2024 an eligible person must be offered diversion for a minor drugs offence, including possession of not more than 50 grams of cannabis. There are three lifetime opportunities: a warning, then two assessment appointments. An offer is spent even if the person declines it. A cannabis diversion offered before that date counts as the first assessment. Diversion does not decriminalise possession.
๐ฒ๐ฟ Mozambique Enforcement โ 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.
๐ฌ๐ฑ Greenland Tightening โ Article
Greenland requires low-THC imports to pass through local distribution
Greenland required the low-THC cannabis exception to use imports in batches for distribution after receipt at storage controlled by the authorised importer. The earlier rule already required an authorised legal entity and a 0.2% THC ceiling; the replacement added the distribution condition and more detailed product documentation. Those conditions remain in the current regulation.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Tightening โ
A Paraguayan woman in her sixties is jailed over two plants
The case drew public criticism. The same month a deputy, Jatar Fernรกndez, presented a bill to authorise growing at home, and in May a Senate committee examined changing article 30 of the drug law to raise the amount allowed and permit up to three plants.
๐ง๐ช Belgium Debate โ
Belgium's parliament passes a report on cannabis policy
The federal parliament approved in plenary an information report evaluating drug policy, cannabis above all. It does not advocate decriminalising cannabis. It calls for a new legal framework that makes the law equal, accessible and predictable and harmonises prosecution policy, and recommends that people who use or hold cannabis for their own use without disturbing the peace could avoid criminal or administrative punishment by choosing free psycho-medico-social support. PS, MR, Ecolo, Groen, Open Vld and Vooruit supported it; CD&V, a party of the federal majority, opposed it, Les Engagรฉs abstained, and N-VA and Vlaams Belang gave no opinion.
๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria Hemp โ
Bulgaria's parliament rejects a bill on processing hemp
A bill by Rosen Kosturkov of the Continue the Change โ Democratic Bulgaria alliance to amend the drug control act and allow industrial hemp to be processed was defeated at first reading by 81 votes to 49, with 31 abstentions. Only his own alliance voted for it. Farmers may grow licensed hemp but may process only the stems and seeds.
๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark Tightening โ Article
Christiania closes Pusher Street
For half a century hashish had been sold openly from stalls in Copenhagen's freetown. After a series of gang shootings, residents dug up the street themselves and the stalls were removed for good.
๐ธ๐ฑ Sierra Leone Debate โ Article
Sierra Leone declares a national emergency over drug abuse
President Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency on drug and substance abuse, focusing on the synthetic drug sold as kush. He promised treatment centres in every district and a task force combining prevention, recovery support, community work and stronger enforcement against suppliers. Preliminary testing published in June detected synthetic cannabinoids and nitazenes, a group of synthetic opioids, in kush samples from Freetown; it challenged earlier rumours about the drug's ingredients.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Legalisation โ Article
Germany legalises possession and home growing
From 1 April any adult may carry 25 g of cannabis. People who have lived in Germany for six months may grow three plants at home and keep 50 g there, and the same six months are required to join a non-profit growing association. Giving that cannabis to another person is a crime.
2142+21 points
๐ฒ๐ผ Malawi Medical โ
Malawi allows licensed growing of its local chamba
Parliament passed the Cannabis Regulation (Amendment) Bill on 28 March 2024 to facilitate regulation of a locally produced variety of cannabis. MP Peter Dimba presented it. The Leader of the House said that growing chamba without a licence or being found in possession of it remains an offence, and that passing the Bill does not legalise smoking. Presidential assent was not confirmed in the sources read.
๐ฎ๐ฉ Indonesia Medical โ
Indonesia's Constitutional Court again rejects medical cannabis
In a second case brought by parents of a child with cerebral palsy, the court kept the ban on using Class I narcotics for therapy. It repeated its call for the government to conduct medical cannabis research, noting that no comprehensive Indonesian study had followed its 2022 ruling.
๐ฒ๐ฐ North Macedonia Tightening โ
Arrests in North Macedonia's medical cannabis industry
A police operation named Chibuk raided sites in Strumica, Gevgelija, Demir Kapija, Struga and Prilep and seized more than 100 kilograms of marijuana. Among those arrested was Boro Stojchev, whose son's company had held a cultivation licence since 2020; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in May to five years and three months in prison.
๐ฎ๐ฑ Israel Medical โ
Israel moves medical cannabis from licences to prescriptions
A Health Ministry reform, delayed from 2023 by the war, let many more doctors prescribe cannabis like other medicines in place of personal licences issued by a few approved doctors. For most conditions patients no longer had to try conventional drugs first. More than 137,000 people held licences at the time, up from about 30,000 in early 2019.
๐ธ๐ฟ Eswatini Debate โ
Eswatini introduces a bill to legalise medical cannabis
The government introduced legislation to revise the colonial-era drug law and legalise cannabis for medical purposes. Its spokesperson said this would limit the black market, raise tax revenue and empower farmers.
๐ธ๐ฝ Sint Maarten Debate โ Article
Sint Maarten forms a committee to prepare cannabis legalisation
Sint Maarten established a committee to prepare cannabis rules for medical, scientific, religious and recreational purposes. Its mandate covered research into the effects of prohibition, conditions for growing and selling cannabis, and changes to possession and use offences. The regulation cited people continuing to be punished for possession and cultivation, alongside the governmentโs interest in new revenue.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Legalisation โ
The Bundestag votes to legalise cannabis
After a plan for licensed shops was abandoned as incompatible with European law, parliament passed the Cannabis Act by 407 votes to 226. It took effect five weeks later.
๐จ๐พ Cyprus Hemp โ Article
Cyprus raises its agricultural hemp definition to the EUโs 0.3% limit
Cyprus replaced the hemp-production lawโs fixed 0.2% definition with the THC limit in EU agricultural legislation, allowing the definition to follow the 0.3% standard. Published in February 2024, the amendment deemed itself effective from 7 December 2021. Farmers and suppliers still needed licences under the system introduced in 2016.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Tightening โ
Thailand treats more than 30 grams as intent to sell
A notification in the Royal Gazette classed possession of more than 30 grams or 30 millilitres as intent to distribute.
๐บ๐ฌ Uganda Tightening โ Article
Uganda's president assents to a replacement narcotics law
On 5 May 2023 the Constitutional Court nullified the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 because Parliament had lacked a quorum when passing it. The President assented to the replacement on 2 February 2024. Section 1 says it comes into force on a date the internal affairs minister appoints. That date was later fixed as 14 April 2025. The court had said the annulment did not legalise cannabis.
๐ท๐ธ Serbia Enforcement โ Article
Serbiaโs top court keeps three years for 372 grams of personal cannabis
The Supreme Court upheld Senad Makajiโs three-year prison sentence for holding about 372 grams of cannabis, even though it was for his own use. An appeal had increased his original thirteen-month sentence by applying the large-quantity offence introduced in 2019. The court said the purpose of possession did not defeat that offence and left the meaning of a large quantity to assessment in each case.
๐ฎ๐ช Ireland Debate โ
Ireland's Citizens' Assembly calls for a health-led approach
An assembly of 99 citizens recommended that possession of drugs for personal use be dealt with by health services, not the courts. On cannabis, it fell one vote short of recommending legalisation.
๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco Other law โ
Morocco allows its local cannabis variety, beldiya, in the legal programme
From the beginning of 2024 the cannabis regulator authorised the use of beldiya, the local variety, under a protocol drawn up with the food safety office and following first results of a study with the national agronomic research institute. By August it had granted 106 authorisations covering 1,916 hectares to cooperatives of 1,816 farmers. The first legal plantings in 2023 had used imported seed.
๐ฒ๐น Malta Legalisation โ Article
Malta's first cannabis associations open
Two years after legalisation, the first licensed non-profit associations began handing out cannabis to their members, the only legal source other than growing at home.
3841+3 points
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Debate โ
Czechia's cannabis bill drops the commercial market
The government presented a draft cannabis law covering home growing, cannabis clubs, licensed sales and exports, and taxation, with registration of users, small growers and clubs. It left out the open regulated market that had been planned. Pro-legalisation groups criticised the omission, and the drug coordinator Jindลich Voboลil said he was not giving up.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Nevada Easing โ
Nevada raises the adult possession and gift limits
From 1 January 2024 a person 21 or older may possess, and may give without payment to another person 21 or older, up to 2.5 ounces of usable cannabis or one-fourth of an ounce of concentrated cannabis. The gift may not be advertised or promoted to the public. The previous limits were one ounce and one-eighth of an ounce. Senate Bill 277 was approved on 14 June 2023, and these sections took effect on 1 January 2024.
๐ต๐น Portugal Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฎ๐ถ Iraq Death penalty โ
Iraqi courts pass 144 death sentences for drug trafficking in a year
Figures from the General Directorate of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, made public in January 2025, show that 144 people described as international drug traffickers were sentenced to death in 2024 and 434 local traffickers to life imprisonment. About 14,000 dealers and possessors were arrested and six tonnes of narcotics seized.
๐ฌ๐ท Greece Medical โ
Greek patients can finally get prescriptions
After long administrative delays, medical cannabis became available on prescription, as oil or flower, for conditions including cancer, epilepsy and chronic pain.
๐จ๐พ Cyprus Enforcement โ
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.
๐ญ๐ท Croatia Enforcement โ
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.
202395 entries6 score changes
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Medical โ
Ukraine's parliament adopts the medical cannabis law
Parliament adopted Law 3528-IX. President Zelenskyy signed it on 13 February 2024; its medical cannabis framework was to enter into operation six months after the law took effect.
๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands Legalisation โ Article
The Netherlands starts supplying coffeeshops legally
Coffeeshops in Breda and Tilburg began selling cannabis from regulated growers. During this start-up phase, regulated and tolerated products could be sold alongside one another. The experiment created a legal supply route without immediately replacing every illegal supplier.
๐ฏ๐ต Japan Medical โ
Japan passes a law to allow cannabis medicines and punish use
The House of Councillors passed amendments that open the way for cannabis-derived medicines while making non-medical consumption a crime. The changes took effect a year later.
๐ช๐จ Ecuador Other law โ
Ecuador's top court tells judges to weigh each case
President Noboa repealed the drugs table by Executive Decree 28 in November 2023. The National Court of Justice then issued Resolution 14-2023, instructing judges to assess each case individually to decide whether the substances were for personal use or trafficking. A 2025 reform of Article 228 of the penal code, in the Ley Orgรกnica de Solidaridad Nacional, leaves the personal-use parameters to the health ministry, the prosecutor's office and the judiciary council.
๐จ๐ด Colombia Debate โ
Colombia's Senate sinks adult-use cannabis a second time
Six months after the first defeat, the Senate approved by 46 votes to 40 a motion by Senator Karina Espinosa to shelve the constitutional amendment regulating cannabis for adult use. The Conservatives, Centro Democrรกtico, Cambio Radical and some Liberals voted to shelve it, and the proposal had to start again from the beginning.
๐ฑ๐จ Saint Lucia Other law โ
Saint Lucia establishes a regulated-substances authority
The Regulated Substances Act came into force, establishing an authority, tribunal and fund and a general framework for licensing substances declared to be regulated. It did not by itself open a cannabis market.
๐ท๐ผ Rwanda Easing โ
Rwanda lets judges reduce drug sentences below statutory minima
Rwanda widened judgesโ power to reduce sentences when they accepted mitigating circumstances from 5 December 2023. Life imprisonment could be reduced to at least fifteen years, down from twenty-five, and fixed prison terms of six months or more could fall to half the offenceโs minimum sentence. The general rules also allowed fines to fall to a quarter of the statutory minimum and community-service sentences to be suspended.
๐จ๐ณ China Culture & science โ Article
Bronze Age cannabis seeds illuminate cultivation at Haimenkou
A study of the Haimenkou assemblage in Yunnan reports more than 800 charred cannabis grains, most from a context dated to 1400โ1100 BCE, and compares measurements of 30 grains with modern and archaeological material. Most measurements overlap fibre/oilseed and psychoactive types, limiting identification of the cropโs intended uses. This event dates the paperโs first online publication, rather than the Bronze Age settlement or its 2008 excavation.
๐จ๐บ Cuba Enforcement โ
Cuba's Supreme Court reports 689 people sanctioned for drugs
The head of the Supreme Court's criminal chamber said on state television that courts had sanctioned 689 people linked to drug trafficking so far that year, 92% with prison sentences. These totals cover drugs generally, not cannabis alone. Authorities separately reported 77 cases of marihuana growing. The broadcast's broad account of maximum drug penalties does not replace article 236's separate, lower range for simple cannabis possession.
๐ช๐จ Ecuador Tightening โ Article
Ecuador repeals its personal-use thresholds
President Noboa scrapped the table that had treated up to 10 g of cannabis as personal use. The constitution still says users must not be criminalised, but there is no longer a safe amount: a person has to convince police and a judge that it was for their own use.
2318โ5 points
๐ง๐ฆ Bosnia and Herzegovina Debate โ
Bosnian officials back medical cannabis at a Sarajevo conference
The head of the medicines agency, the Federation's health minister and the MP Saลกa Magazinoviฤ all supported legalising cannabis for medical use, saying seriously ill people were buying cannabis oil of unknown quality on the black market. The decision followed two years later.
๐ฆ๐ฟ Azerbaijan Other law โ
Azerbaijan amends its narcotics law to cover parts of plants and to define small amounts
Law No. 1024-VIQD added "(their parts)" to the definition of plants containing narcotic substances and reworded Article 21: amounts below the substantial amount set by law are a small amount that leads to administrative liability.
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Medical โ
French Polynesia repeals its unused medical cannabis law
The Assembly repealed the law of 5 January 2023 by 41 votes to 16. The new government called it too complicated to implement; repeal restored rules dating from 1978, and a narrower text on hemp and cannabis medicines was promised.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Other law โ
US Virgin Islands ask people with cannabis convictions to seek record relief
Government House asked people convicted in cases involving two ounces or less of cannabis to come forward for potential expungement. It said gaps in judicial data complicated the automatic process and identified Positive Nelson as head of the task force. Earlier that year, Governor Bryan had announced possession pardons and explained that clearing a conviction from the record required expungement.
๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar Debate โ
Qatar's cabinet approves changes to the 1987 narcotics law
The cabinet approved a draft amending Law 9 of 1987 on drugs and dangerous psychotropic substances. The report read does not say what the amendments change.
๐น๐ฏ Tajikistan Other law โ
Tajikistan replaces the quantity list used in drug prosecutions
A Criminal Code amendment replaced the annex governing drug quantities and updated the cross-reference used for its quantity bands. The code distinguishes its lowest and next quantity bands from large and especially large amounts, with different penalties for personal possession and supply. Cultivation quantities follow a separate plant-count list.
๐ง๐ฒ Bermuda Easing โ Article
Bermuda helps clear cannabis records that omit the amount possessed
Bermuda allowed qualifying old possession records with no cannabis weight recorded to be treated as involving seven grams or less, where the penalty did not exceed a $1,000 fine or twelve monthsโ conditional discharge. The change followed a government report that roughly forty of fifty-one applications could not be processed because the records omitted the amount. The new rules also clarified that additional elements of a qualifying sentence were cleared with the conviction.
๐ฆ๐ฒ Armenia Debate โ
Armenia's interior minister calls for making addiction a crime again
Drug crimes recorded by the police more than doubled in the first nine months of 2023, a rise blamed on synthetic drugs sold through Telegram channels advertised on the walls of Yerevan. The interior minister, Vahe Ghazarian, said that tougher sanctions would bring the figures down and called for re-criminalising drug addiction. A deputy of the governing party proposed yearly drug tests for all teenagers.
๐ธ๐ธ South Sudan International โ
South Sudan joins the 1988 UN convention against drug trafficking
South Sudan acceded to the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 on 20 October 2023. Article 3 of the convention requires each party, subject to its constitutional principles, to make the possession, purchase and cultivation of drugs for personal consumption a criminal offence.
๐ณ๐ฆ Namibia Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฒ๐น Malta Other law โ
Malta licenses its first cannabis associations
The Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis granted the first operational licences to two non-profit associations, KDD Society and Ta' Zelli, with four more holding licences in principle. Its chair, Leonid McKay, said the authority would not set prices, expected them to compete with the black market, and would keep out commercial interests.
๐ฎ๐ถ Iraq Enforcement โ
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.
๐ณ๏ธ Somaliland Enforcement โ 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 Hargeisaโs Gaโan Libaah district. The published account said traffic police worked with the district station; it reported an arrest and allegation, with no conviction or sentence.
๐ฆ๐ด Angola Enforcement โ 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 Uรญge 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.
๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar Enforcement โ
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.
๐ต๐น Portugal Easing โ
Portugal ends the automatic crime for personal possession above ten days
Law 55/2023 was published on 8 September and took effect on 1 October. It amended article 40 of the 1993 drug law and article 2 of the 2000 decriminalisation law. Acquisition and possession for personal use are an administrative offence. Holding more than the average amount for ten days is a sign that the purpose may not be personal use. Where the judicial authority finds the drugs were only for personal use, it closes the case, withholds indictment or acquits, and sends the person to a dissuasion commission. Growing for one's own use remains a crime, with up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 30 days.
๐ง๐น Bhutan Debate โ
Local leaders in eastern Bhutan ask Parliament to allow medicinal marijuana sales
The district council of Samdrup Jongkhar decided to ask the National Assembly to amend the law so that marijuana could be sold for medicinal purposes. Leaders of Lauri and Serthig gewogs, where the plant grows wild and villages are far from markets, said it could bring income; about 25 villagers from the two gewogs had been arrested for trafficking over the previous five years.
๐ท๐ด Romania Debate โ Article
Romaniaโs Senate rejects replacing cannabis charges with a three-gram fine
The Senate rejected a bill that would have replaced criminal penalties for possessing up to three grams of cannabis for personal use with an administrative fine of 1,000โ3,000 lei. Its electronic roll call records 103 votes for the rejection report, one against and four abstentions. The proposal then went to the Chamber of Deputies, where a joint committee rejection report followed in December.
๐ฌ๐ฎ Gibraltar Medical โ
Gibraltar announces trained cannabis doctors and a supply agreement
GHA doctors had completed the necessary training and the government had reached an agreement with Cantourage UK, subject to final detail, to enable cannabis prescribing for eligible patients. The September 2023 announcement followed the 2019 rules requiring trained public doctors and specifically approved products. Health minister John Cortes said the government had been working to make these medicines available for some time.
๐ต๐ช Peru Medical โ
Peru's association-cultivation rules take effect
Supreme Decree 004-2023-SA implemented the patient-association licence and regulated cultivation from seed or seedling, licensed seed supply, security, production plans and delivery to member patients.
๐ธ๐ฑ Sierra Leone Enforcement โ
Sierra Leone remands two men accused of possessing cannabis and kush
A Freetown magistrate refused bail to two men accused of unlawful possession of cannabis and kush under the 2008 drug law. They were among ten defendants remanded across separate drug cases at the same hearing; the judiciary's account names cannabis in the allegations against these two. The case shows the possession offence being used against cannabis before the 2024 emergency campaign.
๐บ๐ธ United States Debate โ
US health officials recommend Schedule III
The Department of Health and Human Services recommended that the DEA move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. The DEA confirmed that intention in April 2024.
๐ฆ๐ท Argentina Medical โ
Argentina launches its cannabis regulator
The agency responsible for licensing cannabis production and trade was formally launched.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia Debate โ
A bill to legalise cannabis is introduced in the Australian Senate
Senator David Shoebridge introduced the Legalising Cannabis Bill to legalise recreational cannabis nationally. It did not pass.
๐ต๐ฐ Pakistan Death penalty โ
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.
๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria Tightening โ
Bulgaria raises the penalties for driving after using drugs
Amendments passed late at night stiffened the law on dangerous driving. The fine for driving after using narcotics rose from 500โ1,500 leva to 1,000โ5,000, and to 2,000โ10,000 for a repeat; refusing a test after an accident brings up to a year in prison. A roadside test that detects seven drugs, marijuana among them, is enough to open criminal proceedings. In the first half of 2022 police had caught 222 drivers after drug use, against 128 a year earlier.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Tightening โ
Mexico's health regulator moves against a CBD shop chain
COFEPRIS inspected six Mexico City branches of Paradise, a chain with shops in 25 states linked to former president Vicente Fox, seized 1,811 products and suspended one branch. It said the health law still lists cannabis, its preparations and its seeds as narcotics. The government had said in April that 63 permits to sell cannabis products were issued in the last days of the previous administration.
๐ฑ๐บ Luxembourg Legalisation โ Article
Luxembourg legalises home growing
Adults may grow up to four plants per household and consume at home. Cannabis stays prohibited in public, but carrying up to 3 g became a โฌ145 fine instead of a criminal matter. There is no legal place to buy it.
2037+17 points
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Easing โ Article
Swiss Federal Court: up to 10 g may not be confiscated
The court went a step beyond its 2017 ruling and held that police have no basis to seize up to 10 g that an adult holds for their own use.
๐ฌ๐ฌ Guernsey Debate โ
Guernsey's review of non-punitive drug approaches stalls
Home Affairs reported that people whose only offence was possessing a small amount of drugs were not being jailed, so non-punitive approaches already existed, and said further work had all but paused. A separate review of a legal framework for cannabis was shelved.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Medical โ
Ghana restores licences for industrial and medical cannabis
Parliament passed again the provision, struck down by the Supreme Court the year before, that allows low-THC cannabis to be grown under licence.
๐ฆ๐ฑ Albania Medical โ
Albania legalises medical cannabis cultivation
Parliament allowed cannabis to be grown under licence for medical and industrial purposes, in a country long known for illegal production.
๐ฟ๐ผ Zimbabwe Hemp โ Article
Zimbabwe excludes industrial hemp up to 1% THC from its cannabis-plant ban
The criminal code excluded industrial hemp from its dangerous-drug definition for the cannabis plant, defining hemp at no more than 1% delta-9 THC by dry weight. The definition includes seeds and plant derivatives, while someone asserting in an investigation that material is cannabis rather than industrial hemp must prove that assertion. The enacted amendment followed the narrower 0.3% authorisation and growing-permit rules introduced in 2019 and 2020.
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Medical โ
Ukraine's medical cannabis bill passes its first reading
A week after the health ministry gave its support, the bill passed with 268 votes. It was adopted in December, signed by the president on 13 February 2024 and took effect that August.
๐ฑ๐ท Liberia Tightening โ Article
Liberia adds prison minimums for cannabis use and bars trafficking bail
President George Weah signed a drug law setting four months to one year for first-time Schedule I drug use, including cannabis, and raising repeat use to a second-degree felony. Cannabis trafficking became non-bailable; personal possession and cultivation remained separate second-degree felonies with cash bail set at twice the bond. After a dispute over bail in the Senate, the signed law also required deportation of non-Liberians convicted under it and drug clearance for institutional admission or employment.
๐ญ๐ฐ Hong Kong Enforcement โ
Hong Kong jails a traveller in its first CBD imprisonment case
A traveller received two months overall after convictions for possessing CBD, possessing ketamine and having injection equipment. Officers had found two personal-care bottles containing about 5 g of CBD, about 2.2 g of ketamine and ten syringes after her arrival from the United States in March. Customs described the July sentence as the first imprisonment since CBD became a dangerous drug in February 2023.
๐ฒ๐พ Malaysia Death penalty โ
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.
๐ซ๐ฒ Micronesia Other law โ
A Micronesian court asks whether national jurisdiction reaches locally grown cannabis
In FSM v. Ehsa, 24 FSM R. 151, the Supreme Court excludes marijuana found in a bag outside the justified firearms search, but finds probable cause concerning approximately seven plants. It requests briefing on national subject-matter jurisdiction over locally grown cannabis. The order leaves that question open; it is neither a general cannabis acquittal nor a final nationwide sentencing rule.
๐จ๐ด Colombia Debate โ
Colombia's Senate narrowly rejects a legal market
A constitutional amendment to allow regulated sales to adults had passed seven of its eight debates. It fell a few votes short in the last one. New versions have been introduced since and have also failed.
๐ฐ๐ณ Saint Kitts and Nevis Easing โ
Saint Kitts and Nevis recognises Rastafari rights and licenses personal growing
Parliament approved the Rastafari Rights Recognition Bill, which lets registered groups grow and use cannabis as a sacrament at their places of assembly, and the prime minister apologised to the Rastafari community. A companion Freedom of Conscience (Cannabis) Act lets adults apply for licences to grow up to five plants in a secured part of a private home, to carry limited amounts in permitted public places and to smoke in designated areas; the government made the application forms available in April 2026 and waived the fees until the end of that year.
๐ธ๐ฌ Singapore Tightening โ
Singapore raises penalties for possessing large amounts
A Misuse of Drugs Act amendment introduced weight-based prison terms and caning for possession of cannabis and seven other drugs. The maximum for possession rose from ten years to 30 years and 15 strokes of the cane.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada ยท Nunavut Tightening โ
Nunavut prohibits smoking cannabis in publicly funded housing
On 31 May 2023 the Tobacco and Smoking Act came into force. A person shall not smoke in a private dwelling leased from a publicly funded housing provider, including the Nunavut Housing Corporation and staff housing rented to public servants. Smoking means a lit or heated device, including one that heats cannabis. The ban binds tenants once they receive written notice. The Department of Health describes the rule as covering cannabis use in those units, on balconies, and in hallways and shared spaces.
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji Other law โ Article
Fijiโs appeal court sentences growers by plant count and their role
Cannabis growers would be sentenced according to the number of plants and whether they led the operation, managed it or played a lesser role. The Court of Appeal set a non-custodial to suspended-sentence range for lesser-role cultivation of fewer than ten plants for personal use, and a sixteen-to-twenty-year range for leaders growing at least 100 plants. The new guidelines addressed conflicting approaches based on plant weight; Jone Seruโs own nine-year sentence for growing twenty plants stood.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Other law โ
Ghana's Supreme Court refuses to revisit its cannabis ruling
A nine-judge panel voted five to four to dismiss the Attorney-General's application for review, leaving the licensing clause struck down. Parliament restored licensing by amending the law that July.
๐จ๐ฑ Chile Medical โ
Chile accepts a prescription as grounds for growing cannabis
Law 21.575 amended Article 8 of Law 20.000: growing cannabis is treated as justified when it serves a medical treatment and the grower presents a prescription from the treating doctor stating the diagnosis, the treatment and its length, and a way of taking it other than smoking. Forging such a prescription became a crime.
๐ท๐ด Romania Debate โ
Romanian deputies propose fines instead of criminal charges for three grams
Deputies introduced a bill to replace criminal penalties for possessing up to three grams of cannabis for personal use with fines of 1,000โ3,000 lei. It proposed using the revenue for prevention and support services and exempting medically prescribed cannabis possession from the personal-use penalties. REPERโs sponsors argued that prosecution damaged usersโ records and obstructed treatment; the Senate later rejected the proposal.
๐ฉ๐ฟ Algeria Other law โ Article
Algeria lowers personal growing penalties while raising drug fines
Algeria added a two-to-five-year prison term and a 200,000โ500,000-dinar fine for growing cannabis for personal consumption; the original law had imposed life imprisonment without that exception. For personal use, buying or possession, the prison range stayed at two months to two years, while the fine floor rose to 20,000 dinars, with a fine alone still possible. The amendment also strengthened treatment protections for minors and increased penalties for certain suppliers.
58+3 points
๐บ๐ฌ Uganda Other law โ
Uganda's Constitutional Court strikes down the 2015 drug law
The court annulled the Narcotic Drugs Act because parliament had passed it without a quorum. The judiciary stressed that the ruling did not legalise cannabis. Parliament passed a replacement, and that Act commenced on 14 April 2025. The national score stays on the earlier ban until then.
๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria Hemp โ
Bulgaria's hemp-growing permits move to 0.3% THC
From 5 May 2023 Ordinance No. 1 of 2018 permits registered farmers to grow hemp below 0.3% THC in the leaves and the flowering and fruiting tops, for fibre, for seed for feed or food, or for sowing seed. A crop over 0.3% is destroyed, and the grower declares that the leaves and tops will not be processed. The agriculture ministry's current permit service uses that 0.3% figure and charges no fee. Article 29(1) of the narcotics act, in the consolidation that was read, still says below 0.2%.
๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark Tightening โ
Denmark bans the semi-synthetic cannabinoid HHC
An amendment added hexahydrocannabinol to Schedule B, restricting it to medical and scientific use from 3 May.
๐ธ๐ฌ Singapore Death penalty โ
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.
๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco Other law โ
Morocco receives its first legal cannabis seed
The first shipment of imported seed for the legal programme landed at Casablanca airport, with a larger one due days later. The seed came from countries including Switzerland, Uruguay, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy and the United States, was enough for about a hundred hectares, and went to cooperatives in Al Hoceima and Chefchaouen.
๐ฐ๐ณ Saint Kitts and Nevis Medical โ Article
Saint Kitts and Nevis activates its medicinal cannabis law
The government brought Parts III to VII of the Cannabis Act into force, activating the Medicinal Cannabis Authority and the licensing framework for cultivation, supply, possession, production and medical use.
3233+1 point
๐ฑ๐บ Luxembourg Debate โ
Luxembourg sketches a state-controlled cannabis supply
The government presented plans for two domestic production licences and a supply chain ending in fourteen dispensaries, and said the draft would not be finished before the October elections. Only the home-growing part became law that summer.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada Other law โ
Canada's Supreme Court lets provinces ban home growing
In Murray-Hall v Quebec the court held that Quebec's ban on growing cannabis at home, although the federal Act allows four plants, was a valid use of provincial powers.
๐ฉ๐ช Germany Debate โ
Germany drops its plan for licensed cannabis shops
The coalition had promised a nationwide regulated market. After talks with the European Commission, ministers announced a narrower plan: home growing and non-profit associations first, with shops only as regional trials later.
๐จ๐ผ Curaรงao Debate โ
Curaรงao opposition presses for the stalled medical cannabis bill
MAN and KEM lawmakers called for approval of Curaรงaoโs medical-cannabis export bill, according to reporting published on 7 April. KEMโs Michelangelo Martines and MANโs Giselle McWilliam wanted answers after the proposal had been discussed twice and then stalled following a change of government. The campaign renewed the argument for a cannabis industry first advanced by former minister Suzanne Camelia-Rรถmer in 2018.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Easing โ Article
Abkhazia cuts arrest for cannabis use to three days
Abkhaziaโs law dated 3 April 2023 set three daysโ administrative arrest for non-prescribed cannabis or hashish use, with ten days for a repeat within a year. Other drugs retained fifteen days for a first offence and thirty for repetition; seeking medical help voluntarily brought an exemption. The final cannabis repeat penalty was lower than the thirty days proposed at the December 2022 first reading.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Debate โ
Abkhaz prosecutors say harsher drug penalties have not curbed cases
Prosecutorโs-office official Daur Amichba proposed a central drug-control body, saying harsher penalties had not significantly reduced drug cases or the number of users. He named hemp cultivation as a factor in drug availability and said enforcement mostly reached consumers and small dealers. The proposal followed the capital-penalty changes and preceded the Supreme Courtโs later instructions on evidence and sentencing.
๐จ๐ป Cabo Verde Other law โ
Cape Verde's Constitutional Court rules in a 15-gram cannabis case
Ruling 18/2023 of the Constitutional Court, published in the official bulletin on 29 March 2023, concerned a man found with 15 g of cannabis. He had been convicted of lesser trafficking under Law 78/IV/93 and sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison, which two appeal courts upheld; he argued the cannabis was for personal use.
๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye Medical โ
Turkey allows hemp to be grown for flowers and leaves under the state grain board
Law 7442 rewrote the first paragraph of Article 23 of the narcotics law. Alongside fibre, seed and stalk, hemp may now be grown with the agriculture ministry's permission for flowers and leaves to make active ingredients for medicines. That growing is done by the Soil Products Office, the state grain board, or by people and companies it engages under its control, within a quota the President may set. A law of July 2025 widened the purpose to medical, health, personal care and supplement products.
๐ธ๐ฒ San Marino Medical โ
San Marino sets the licensing rules for medical cannabis businesses
Delegated Decree No. 53 of 21 March 2023 ratified, with amendments voted by the Great and General Council on 15 and 16 March, the decree of 30 December 2022 on authorisations to cultivate, process and trade cannabis, semi-finished products, flowers and cannabis- derived medicines under the 2021 medical cannabis law. Companies apply to the San Marino Cannabis Control Agency (ASCC) with the cadastral details of the site, a cultivation manual following EU good agricultural practice, staff lists and a security plan approved by the Gendarmerie command.
๐ฆ๐ผ Aruba Other law โ
Aruba refuses a business permission to grow and make medicinal cannabis
Arubaโs health minister refused Cannacrossaruba Healthy permission to grow cannabis and manufacture medicinal or supplement preparations containing controlled drugs. The business had been seeking permission since 2019; its CBD-import request was conditionally refused while it was given time to submit the required documents. A later court record says that refusal became final when the inspectorate did not receive the documents by the deadline.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Other law โ
US Virgin Islands tell cannabis users to wait for implementing rules
Government House said cannabis use and sales remained prohibited while officials prepared the regulations for the January law. It reiterated a $100 fine for possession up to an ounce and said that public use, federal facilities and personal transport between islands would remain restricted after implementation. The signed law had already set out adult possession limits and the licensing system.
๐น๐ผ Taiwan Tightening โ
Taiwan makes its largest cannabis seizure as the rally grows
Police in Taoyuan seized more than 4,000 plants, valued at 1.26 billion Taiwan dollars. Two years earlier a senior justice official had said Taiwan must declare war on marijuana, and the ministry said it firmly opposed decriminalisation. That April the Taipei rally drew thousands, watched by at least a hundred officers. Use carries up to three years in prison.
๐ฆ๐ซ Afghanistan Tightening โ
The Taliban ban cannabis cultivation
Order No. 510 of the Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada declared growing cannabis absolutely prohibited across the country. Crops are to be destroyed, the interior ministry is to bring growers before the courts, and judges are to punish them under Sharia. The newspaper reporting it noted that his earlier ban on poppy had not stopped the opium trade.
๐ฆ๐ฌ Antigua and Barbuda Easing โ
Antigua and Barbuda grants three Rastafari communities sacramental authorizations
The Medicinal Cannabis Authority issued sacramental authorizations to Nyabinghi Theocracy Church Inc., Rasfreeman Foundation for Unification of Rastafari and Wan Love Chant, allowing religious cultivation and use under the Cannabis Act framework. The authorizations were for sacramental purposes, not commercial business.
๐ฎ๐น Italy Hemp โ
An Italian court restores use of the whole hemp plant
The regional administrative court of Lazio annulled a ministerial decree of January 2022 that had limited industrial hemp to its seeds. The leaves and flowers could be used again, until the security decree of 2025 banned trade in the flowers.
๐ป๐บ Vanuatu Medical โ
Vanuatu signs rules for licensed cannabis and hemp production
Vanuatu signed rules for licensed medical-cannabis and hemp importation, cultivation, processing and export on 8 February 2023. The rules set a ten-year licence term and annual VT10 million fee; medical cannabis was confined to Efate, Santo and Malekula, while hemp also included Tanna and Erromango. The agriculture ministry later reported revenue from cannabis and hemp licences during 2023.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Debate โ
Activists end their cannabis camp outside Mexico's Senate
The collectives behind Plantรณn 420, a protest camp and open cannabis garden set up beside the Senate in early 2020, withdrew after three years. They said the camp had turned into a tolerated green ghetto, that dealers of hard drugs had moved in, and that a regulation law was unlikely under the current government. A second camp at the Estela de Luz was cleared by city workers and police on 23 June 2025.
๐ญ๐ฐ Hong Kong Tightening โ Article
Hong Kong brings CBD under dangerous-drug controls
CBD and products containing it entered dangerous-drug controls on 1 February 2023, exposing unlawful possession or consumption to up to seven years and HK$1 million, and trafficking or illicit manufacture to life imprisonment and HK$5 million. Before the change, authorities collected about 77,400 CBD items for disposal, mainly skincare, edible oils and supplements. CBD itself had remained outside dangerous-drug controls when the government warned sellers about THC in 2021.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Easing โ Article
Switzerland starts regulated pilot sales
Basel opened the first city trial selling regulated cannabis to registered adult residents through pharmacies. Zurich, Bern, Lausanne and others followed. Outside the trials there is still no legal source.
2930+1 point
๐ธ๐ช Sweden Tightening โ
Sweden's government proposes to punish attempts and conspiracy in drug offences
The bill made attempting and conspiring to commit drug offences punishable, except where the aim is personal use, and raised the minimum penalty for possession with intent to distribute to six months.
๐ธ๐จ Seychelles Debate โ
Seychelles campaigners call prison sentences for cannabis excessive
After two men were given custodial sentences for cannabis offences, the Seychelles Kanabis Association said the sentences were excessive and out of line with reality. Its chairman, Nelson Esparon, said the 2020 medical cannabis rules were not fit for purpose, so that people seeking cannabis for treatment had to turn to illicit sources and risk prison, and urged the government and parliament to review the law.
๐ป๐ฌ British Virgin Islands Debate โ
BVIโs premier proposes a route for doctors to administer cannabis
Premier Natalio Wheatley said talks with the UK had identified a route towards licensing local doctors to administer medical cannabis. He proposed considering regulations under existing legislation while reconsidering the unassented 2020 licensing bill. Work on the approval arrangements was still to be completed.
๐ญ๐ฐ Hong Kong Tightening โ Article
Hong Kong ends lighter trafficking sentences for herbal cannabis
Herbal cannabis and cannabis resin were placed on the same trafficking sentencing scale after the Court of Appeal accepted evidence of similar THC concentrations. The court also set cultivation bands based on estimated annual yield, ranging from below two years for under 5 kg to over ten years above 150 kg, subject to the growerโs role and circumstances. Nguyen Thang Loiโs seven-and-a-half-year sentence and Dang Hung Ngocโs eight-and-a-half-year sentence were upheld.
๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands Legalisation โ Article
US Virgin Islands sign adult-use cannabis and patient growing into law
Governor Albert Bryan Jr. signed a law setting adult possession limits at two ounces of cannabis, 14 grams of concentrate and one ounce of cannabis products. Qualified resident patients could grow six flowering and six immature plants for personal medical use with landowner consent. Bryan also announced pardons for simple possession and an application process; in March his administration said use and sales still awaited implementing regulations.
1633+17 points
๐ต๐ซ French Polynesia Medical โ
French Polynesia promulgates a law opening the way to medical cannabis
The Assembly adopted a law on poisonous substances on 17 November 2022 by 33 votes with 20 abstentions, and it was promulgated on 5 January 2023. It would have allowed cannabis as a medicine and licensed growing, with hemp below 0.3% THC reserved for fibre, but it needed about fifteen implementing decisions that were never made.
๐น๐ฒ Turkmenistan Other law โ Article
Turkmenistan sets five-to-twelve-year prison terms for drug supply
Turkmenistanโs replacement criminal code set five to twelve years in prison for unauthorised drug supply and possession with intent to supply, rising to fifteen to twenty-five years in the most serious tier. The ordinary offence of possessing drugs without intent to supply allowed a fine or up to five years, while unauthorised cannabis growing allowed corrective labour or two to five years in prison. President Serdar Berdimuhamedow signed the new edition in April 2022 for commencement on 1 January 2023.
๐ฌ๐ฑ Greenland Easing โ Article
Greenland allows low-THC cannabis through authorised importers
Greenlandโs new drug law and regulation took effect together, creating an exception for cannabis products with no more than 0.2% THC imported by an authorised legal entity. The law retained prescription and pharmacy routes for controlled medicines and replaced the inherited Danish statute. The change followed parliamentโs 2019 calls for access to low-THC oils.
๐ณ๏ธ Transnistria Tightening โ Article
Transnistria adds a year without driving rights to drug-use penalties
People punished for using drugs without a prescription faced a one-year restriction on driving rights alongside the existing fine or administrative arrest. The reform also applied to specified public-use offences and prevented someone without a licence from taking a driving test during the restriction. Parliament backed the prosecutorโs proposal in October; the president signed the law on 8 November, with commencement fourteen days after official publication.
๐ช๐ธ Spain Tightening โ
Barcelona's mayor pledges to close the city's cannabis clubs
Jaume Collboni promised to shut every cannabis social club in the city, after his deputy for security called cannabis use a basic source of conflict. Clubs and their federations began protests early in 2024.
๐ฒ๐ฐ North Macedonia Tightening โ
North Macedonia seizes tonnes of cannabis from licensed medical growers
Police actions against licensed medical cannabis companies seized 561 kilograms and 8,723 stems in 2022 and 4.6 tonnes and 3,799 plants in 2023, and the government revoked seven licences in 2022 and eight in 2023. Cannabis grown in the country cannot be exported unless it is used for medical purposes. By March 2024 nearly 70 private companies were registered to grow.
๐ฏ๐ด Jordan Hemp โ Article
Jordan allows hemp seed foods with THC limits and label restrictions
Food producers could use hulled, nonviable hemp seeds and specified seed products under rules limiting THC in food and restricting labels and advertising. The source crop had to contain no more than 0.1% THC in its leaves and flowering tops; the finished-food limits ranged from 0.2 mg/kg in beverages to 10 mg/kg in seed oil. Health Minister Firas Hawariโs instructions also required seed oil to be labelled unsuitable for cooking.
๐ฏ๐ด Jordan Medical โ Article
Jordan sets approval and prescription rules for CBD medicines
Patients could receive approved CBD natural medicines and preparations containing no more than 0.3% THC on a valid medical prescription under new product rules. Health Minister Firas Hawariโs instructions set registration, testing and import controls, alongside separate requirements for external-use cosmetics and medical devices. They followed the 2021 expansion of licensing authority for controlled plants and seeds.
202276 entries11 score changes
๐ซ๐ท France Hemp โ Article
France's top administrative court legalises CBD flower
The Council of State struck down a government ban on selling hemp flowers and leaves with less than 0.3% THC, ruling that they pose no risk that would justify it.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Debate โ
Abkhaz deputies propose cutting arrest for cannabis use to three days
Abkhaz deputies passed a first-reading proposal to cut cannabis-use arrest from fifteen days to three, arguing that marijuana should receive a lighter penalty than other drugs. The draft proposed thirty days for repetition within a year. The law dated April 2023 ultimately set three days for cannabis or hashish use and ten for repetition.
๐ฑ๐ฆ Laos Medical โ
Laos opens a licensed route for low-THC hemp medicines
Companies could seek approval to grow, process and sell low-THC hemp under a health ministry decision issued on 28 December 2022. The decision specified a thirty-day transition after signing. Its permissions covered prescribed dried hemp flower and low-THC medicines, alongside registered consumer products; the narcotics law and Penal Code still awaited alignment.
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania Debate โ
Lithuania's parliament votes for fines but keeps the crime
The Seimas approved by 63 votes to 60 an amendment making possession of a small amount of cannabis an administrative offence, with a warning or a fine of 50 to 300 euros. In the same sitting it failed to remove the offence from the Criminal Code and sent that draft back to committee, so possession stayed a crime.
๐ง๐ท Brazil Medical โ
Anvisa lets a university grow cannabis for research
The health regulator Anvisa unanimously authorised the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte to import, store and germinate cannabis seeds and to grow and process the plants for research on treatments for drug-resistant epilepsy in animal models. Ribeiro, a former director of the institute, calls it the first Brazilian institution to research the plant legally without workarounds.
๐ฎ๐ฒ Isle of Man Medical โ Article
Isle of Man opens a local pharmacy pilot for medical cannabis prescriptions
A DHSC announcement set 1 December as the opening of the island's first medicinal cannabis dispensing service at Karsons Pharmacy in Onchan. The pilot accepted private prescriptions, with an initial estimated seven to ten working days for medicines to arrive after receipt of a prescription. It was licensed for a minimum of twelve months to gather evidence on need and demand; the products were not available on NHS prescription.
1112+1 point
๐จ๐บ Cuba Tightening โ Article
Cuba replaces its Penal Code and broadens aggravated drug offences
Law 151 takes effect, retaining six months to two years, a fine or both for simple cannabis possession, and four to ten years for unauthorised cultivation and knowing seed possession. Article 235 broadens aggravated circumstances, including use of someone under eighteen, specified institutions and youth settings, organised crime, relatively large quantities and similar prior convictions. The aggravated range is ten to thirty years, life imprisonment or death. These maxima do not apply automatically to simple possession.
๐จ๐ฉ DR Congo Medical โ
DR Congo specifies controls for medical and scientific cannabis
A ministerial order revised the 2021 narcotics framework and set cannabis-specific cultivation, production, import and export controls. Medical cultivation requires authorisation and is subject to a stated 0.2% THC ceiling; scientific cultivation has no THC ceiling under article 100. Recreational activities remain prohibited. The order takes effect on signature; its existence does not establish operating patient access.
๐ฎ๐ณ India Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฒ๐บ Mauritius Medical โ Article
Mauritius allows medical cannabis and diverts users to treatment
Amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act passed in November 2022 let a Medicinal Cannabis Therapeutic Committee in each regional hospital approve medicinal cannabis patient by patient. They also created a Drug Users Administrative Panel, to which people caught with drugs for personal use can be referred for rehabilitation in place of prosecution. The changes had not yet been proclaimed in January 2023.
69+3 points
๐ฎ๐ช Ireland Debate โ
An Irish deputy proposes legalising seven grams
Gino Kenny introduced a bill to legalise personal use and possession of up to seven grams of cannabis. In December the parliamentary Joint Committee on Justice recommended decriminalising drugs for personal use, and in February 2023 the government agreed to call a Citizens' Assembly on drug use.
๐ง๐ผ Botswana Other law โ Article
Botswana's Court of Appeal overturns the ruling that restored a cannabis exemption
On 21 January 2022 the Gaborone High Court had restored Fresh Standard's exemption to cultivate cannabis and industrial hemp. The state appealed, arguing that the company had brought its review outside the four-month period, and the Court of Appeal, in a judgment delivered by Judge President Tebogo Tau and reported on 8 November, set the High Court ruling aside with costs.
๐ธ๐ฆ Saudi Arabia Death penalty โ
Saudi Arabia resumes executions for drug offences
The first drug executions in 33 months ended the informal moratorium. By 1 December the authorities had executed 20 people on drug charges, most of them foreign nationals, without making any change to the law or announcing why the pause had ended.
๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar Enforcement โ
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.
๐ฌ๐พ Guyana Easing โ Article
Guyana ends jail for small amounts
The National Assembly removed prison for possessing up to 30 g. Up to 15 g is simple possession, and 15 to 30 g brings community service. Before, anything over 15 g was treated as trafficking, with at least three years.
917+8 points
๐ฒ๐ด Macau Easing โ Article
Macauโs top court cuts two home growersโ sentences for a single plant
Two first offenders who grew one cannabis plant for personal use had their combined prison sentences reduced from five years nine months each to one year nine months and two years. The plant yielded 37.208 grams of leaves and flowers, above the five-day reference quantity, but the top court applied the lesser production tier after considering the whole case. The ruling showed how the lesser tier remained available under the stricter personal-use rules introduced in 2017.
๐ญ๐ท Croatia Debate โ
Croatia's parliament debates nine plants for every adult
The Social Democrats' bill 'on using the full potential of hemp', submitted in March, would have legalised growing and use and let every adult grow up to nine plants. Thirty signatures were needed to force a debate, and they included deputies from the governing coalition's partners and from the right. The government rejected the bill in its opinion, saying the nine plants would encourage drug use.
๐ต๐ท Puerto Rico Medical โ
Puerto Rico removes a disability protection barrier for cannabis patients
Registered medical-cannabis use could no longer by itself exclude a person from Puerto Ricoโs disability-protection law through its restriction on illegal-drug users. Lawmakers said the earlier medical and employment reforms had left a gap because federal drug rules still treated cannabis as illegal. The change followed the separate 2021 protections against workplace discrimination.
๐ณ๐ท Nauru Tightening โ
Nauru bars bail for people charged with drug offences
People charged under the drug-control law, including cannabis offences, were added to the cases in which bail could not be granted. The restriction took effect on certification on 8 October 2022 and also covered bail while appealing a conviction. In a later one-gram cannabis case, the court ordered the defendants released from remand after imposing fines and community service.
86โ2 points
๐บ๐ธ United States Easing โ
The US president pardons federal possession convictions
President Biden pardoned everyone convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law and ordered a review of its scheduling. That review led to the partial rescheduling of 2026.
๐ฟ๐ฆ South Africa Easing โ
South Africa's top court bars criminal diversion of children
The Constitutional Court confirmed that criminalising a child's use or possession of cannabis is invalid. It suspended that finding for 24 months and, during the suspension, ordered that no child may be arrested, prosecuted or diverted for that contravention. A child who is apprehended may be referred to civil processes. Use or possession by a child is still not permitted. Dealing, and an adult who uses a child to possess or use cannabis, are outside the order. The 2024 Act that would replace this criminal rule has not come into force.
๐น๐ฑ Timor-Leste Debate โ Article
Timor-Lesteโs president urges a different approach to cannabis
President Josรฉ Ramos-Horta urged Timor-Leste to distinguish cannabis from methamphetamine and heroin, and to reconsider the costs of punitive prohibition. Speaking to Parliament after cannabis investigations in Dili, he criticised procedural failures that could undermine the presumption of innocence and argued for considering medical and economic uses. His intervention followed the justice ministerโs call for tougher penalties; in November he again advocated medical cannabis in his independence-anniversary address.
๐ต๐ฆ Panama Medical โ
Panama issues its medical cannabis regulations
The regulations implementing Law 242 set up a government body to oversee cultivation, production and distribution and limited the first manufacturing licences.
๐ธ๐ฝ Sint Maarten Debate โ Article
Sint Maarten seeks studies before deciding how to legalise cannabis
Health minister Omar Ottley invited local and international organisations to propose studies and a route towards a regulated cannabis industry. The government wanted to assess the economic, social and medical effects before deciding how legalisation should work, with proposals due on 5 December. A formal inter-ministerial committee followed in February 2024.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Medical โ
Paraguay lifts the cap on medical cannabis licences
Decree 7761 removed the limit of thirteen licences and the rule that medical cannabis could be grown only in the Central department. The regulator had reported that very few products were reaching patients with refractory epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. A licence requires a pharmaceutical laboratory in Paraguay and runs for five years.
๐ง๐ฒ Bermuda Debate โ Article
Bermudaโs governor blocks cannabis licensing on UK instructions
Governor Rena Lalgie announced that the UK had instructed her not to assent to Bermudaโs cannabis licensing bill as drafted. The UK concluded that its adult-use provisions conflicted with obligations under the 1961 and 1971 UN drug conventions. After Bermudaโs government shifted from a medical-only proposal towards a broader licensed market, the House passed the bill in March 2022, but the governor reserved assent for a UK decision.
๐น๐ฑ Timor-Leste Debate โ
Timor-Lesteโs justice minister asks for tougher drug penalties
Justice Minister Tiago Amaral Sarmento asked Parliament to increase drug penalties and reconsider how cases were tried. His comments followed the release under court supervision of nine Dili suspects and criticism of the prosecutionโs charges. A month later, President Josรฉ Ramos-Horta urged a different direction, calling for cannabis to be distinguished from drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin.
๐น๐ฑ Timor-Leste Enforcement โ
Timor-Leste arrests nine in a Dili drug operation involving cannabis
Police and intelligence officers arrested nine suspects in Dili on 11โ12 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 prosecutionโs handling of the case.
๐ท๐บ Russia Enforcement โ 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.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Medical โ Article
Switzerland lifts its ban on medical cannabis
An amendment to the Narcotics Act passed on 19 March 2021 took effect. Doctors may prescribe cannabis without asking the federal health office for an exceptional permit each time, and growing and trade for medicine are licensed by Swissmedic.
2829+1 point
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji Hemp โ Article
Fiji approves a hemp exemption at up to 1% THC
Parliament passed and signed an amendment excluding hemp and plant parts derived from hemp with no more than 1% THC from the drug scheduleโs references to the cannabis plant. A person prosecuted under the law who claims the material is hemp must prove that it meets the limit. The government promoted the change as the basis for an export crop, with plans for tested imports, university trials and seed distribution to farmers.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Tightening โ
Ghana's Supreme Court strikes down the cannabis licensing clause
By four votes to three the court declared section 43 of the Narcotics Control Commission Act, 2020 null and void. The section let the minister license cannabis with no more than 0.3% THC for fibre, seed or medicine. In a case brought by Ezuame Mannan, the court held that Parliament had not followed the constitution's procedure for passing bills.
๐ฑ๐ท Liberia Debate โ
Liberiaโs senators clash over denying bail in drug cases
A Senate committee objected to a proposed ban on bail for drug trafficking and recommended an immediately payable bond worth twice the value of the seized drugs. Another senator argued that wealthy dealers could pay and escape prosecution. The West Africa Drug Policy Network, which worked on the amendment with Representative Thomas Goshua and the drug agency, urged a compromise protecting people who use drugs; the final law was signed in July 2023.
๐ฎ๐ฉ Indonesia Medical โ
Indonesia's Constitutional Court rejects medical cannabis
The court dismissed a challenge brought by mothers of children with serious illnesses, leaving the absolute ban on using Class I narcotics for health care in place. It urged the government to carry out research that lawmakers could use when reconsidering the policy.
๐ง๐ฟ Belize Debate โ
Belize puts its cannabis legalisation law on hold
The National Assembly had passed the Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Control and Licensing Bill, which awaited the Governor General's signature, when the Council of Churches gathered the 20,000 signatures needed to force a referendum. Prime Minister John Briceรฑo deferred the vote until further notice, citing its cost of 5 million dollars and banks' fears for their links with US banks. The bill was to be amended so that it could become law only after a referendum.
๐น๐ฟ Tanzania Enforcement โ Article
Tanzania overturns a thirty-year cannabis sentence over gaps in the evidence
Agnetha Sebastian won her appeal against a thirty-year sentence for alleged possession of 414 g of cannabis. The Court of Appeal found that the prosecution had not established the chain of custody connecting the seized parcel with samples sent for examination, leaving reasonable doubt. It reversed the conviction and ordered her release unless she was lawfully held for another reason.
๐ฆ๐น Austria Debate โ
Austria's Constitutional Court refuses to hear a challenge to the cannabis ban
A man caught late in 2020 by two plain-clothes officers with a half-smoked joint asked the court to strike down the prohibition, arguing that cannabis carries less risk of dependence than nicotine or alcohol. The court had opened proceedings in February and asked the government to justify the ban. It then declined unanimously: cannabis, unlike alcohol and tobacco, is covered by international treaties, and how to regulate drugs is for parliament. The decision was made public on 18 July.
๐ฎ๐ฒ Isle of Man Medical โ
Isle of Man announces its first conditional medical cannabis export approval
The Department for Enterprise announced that GrowLab Organics had received the first letter of approval in principle for medicinal cannabis cultivation, extraction, manufacture, import and export. The announcement described a conditional licence offer; it does not prove completion of conditions, a first harvest or a first export.
๐บ๐ธ United States ยท Nevada Other law โ
Nevada's board approves consumption-lounge regulations
Assembly Bill 341 of 2021 authorised the Cannabis Compliance Board to license and regulate cannabis consumption lounges. On 28 June 2022 the board approved the regulations and expected the first application round in the autumn. A retail lounge must be attached or immediately next to an adult-use shop. An independent lounge is separate from one. A 2017 bill to license lounges had missed its deadline, and a counsel opinion that year was not a licensing statute.
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania Debate โ
Lithuania's Seimas agrees to consider decriminalising cannabis
A narrower bill, covering only cannabis and its oil, resin and extracts, was sent to committee by 70 votes to 46 with 10 abstentions. A small amount, to be defined by the health minister, would bring a warning or a fine of 30 to 250 euros, and no penalty for someone who hands the drug over voluntarily.
๐น๐น Trinidad and Tobago Other law โ
Trinidad and Tobago enacts a cannabis licensing law that awaits proclamation
Parliament assented to the Cannabis Control Act on 17 June 2022, and the Gazette published it on 23 June. The Act comes into operation only on a date the President fixes by proclamation. Parliament's record of the 2020 bill, which became Act No. 10 of 2022, still says that proclamation is awaited. The Act would create a Cannabis Licensing Authority and licences for cultivation, processing and dispensaries. Those licences are not operating. Adults may still possess up to 30 g and grow four plants under the 2019 amendment.
๐ฒ๐ช Montenegro Debate โ Article
Montenegroโs cannabis petition draws parties and patients into reform debate
A petition by Legalizuj.me had gathered more than 6,500 signatures, Pobjeda reported, as parties discussed medical access and wider cannabis reform. Campaigner Edin ล arkinoviฤ, who has quadriplegia, described using cannabis following medical advice in the United States and serving six months with an ankle monitor after cannabis was found at home. The Liberal Party agreed to bring the campaignโs proposals to parliament through Andrija Popoviฤ, who had proposed medical cannabis in 2014.
๐จ๐ฎ Cรดte d'Ivoire Easing โ Article
Ivory Coast treats drug use as a health matter
Law 2022-407 replaced the 1988 law. Growing, trafficking and selling cannabis remain crimes, but users can now be given a therapeutic injunction in place of prison.
911+2 points
๐น๐ญ Thailand Legalisation โ Article
Thailand removes cannabis from its narcotics list
Thailand became the first Asian country to decriminalise. Possessing and growing the plant stopped being offences, home growers only had to register through an app, and thousands of dispensaries opened within months. No law regulating the new market followed.
764+57 points
๐น๐ฑ Timor-Leste Enforcement โ
Timor-Leste police seize a suspected marijuana parcel from Ireland
Police and customs seized a suspected marijuana parcel during maritime cargo checks on 1 June, the national police reported. Officers detained a 43-year-old who came to collect it; police said relatives had sent the parcel from Ireland and that examination of its quantity was continuing. The suspect was referred for an initial court hearing on 3 June.
๐ฌ๐บ Guam Other law โ
Guam brings in licensing rules for cannabis businesses
Guamโs commercial-cannabis rules took effect by operation of law, setting separate stages for a business licence, inspection and an operating permit. The rules required cannabis to be tested for potency and safety before consumer sales and required recognised laboratory accreditation or certification. They followed the 2019 adult-use law; the absence of a qualifying laboratory later led lawmakers to create a temporary testing exemption.
๐ธ๐ธ South Sudan Enforcement โ Article
Bor court gives five young men prison terms and fines five over bhang
A Bor court sentenced ten men aged eighteen to twenty-two after police found them smoking bhang during a night patrol. According to the state police commissioner, one received a year in prison, four received six months, and five were fined 50,000 South Sudanese pounds each. Police also arrested a supplier; the report did not state how much cannabis each young man held.
๐ฟ๐ผ Zimbabwe Culture & science โ
Zimbabwe opens a medical cannabis farm as other projects stall
President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissioned a US$27 million medical cannabis farm and processing plant built by Swiss Bioceuticals at Mount Hampden. Contemporary reporting said only fifteen of fifty-seven cannabis permits had been activated and described concern that some were being held for speculation. Later in 2022 the medicines regulator began accepting applications for hemp-based CBD products as complementary medicines.
๐ป๐จ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Medical โ
A cannabis consumption lounge opens in Saint Vincent
The Greenhouse Cafรฉ opened at a beach club with a doctor on site. Visitors get a prescription there and a one-year cannabis card from the Medicinal Cannabis Authority, then may buy from the dispensary and consume on the premises.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Easing โ
Mexico's Supreme Court questions the 5 g limit
In the case of a man held in 2018 with 30.6 g, the First Chamber ruled 3 to 2 that the part of Article 478 of the health law limiting the no-prosecution rule to 5 g of cannabis is unconstitutional: prosecutors and judges must look at whether the cannabis was for personal use, whatever the amount. The limit stayed in the law for everyone else.
๐ต๐ฑ Poland Medical โ
Poland allows state institutes to grow medical cannabis
An amendment passed on 24 March 2022 let research institutes supervised by the agriculture minister grow cannabis and harvest herb and resin as pharmaceutical raw material, under a permit from the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector valid for up to five years and with each plant tracked. Nobody else may grow it. The same act defined fibre hemp as plants with no more than 0.3% of THC and THCA together.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Medical โ
Paraguayan patients call the medical cannabis law a dead letter
Four years after the law, the national register held three doctors and forty patients. The patients' association Mamรก Cultiva said that no state research had been done, that the licensed firms were not growing in the country and that no oil was being distributed; it estimated that 700,000 to a million people could need the treatment.
๐น๐ผ Taiwan Easing โ
Taiwan lowers the sentence for growing cannabis for personal use
The Legislative Yuan amended the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act without objection. Growing for personal use in minor circumstances now carries one to seven years in prison and a fine of up to NT$1 million, down from a minimum of five years and up to NT$5 million.
๐น๐ญ Thailand Legalisation โ
Thailand's dispensaries start trading
Cannabis dispensaries began operating two months before the flower was taken off the narcotics list. In May the government announced it would give away a million plants to households.
๐ญ๐ณ Honduras Debate โ
Honduras's vice-president proposes growing cannabis for export
Salvador Nasralla proposed legalising cannabis cultivation, entirely for export, to create jobs; he said it would not legalise medical or other use at home. No bill was filed. Two deputies backed a debate, and a former deputy noted that a bill for terminally ill patients filed in October 2020 had not advanced.
๐ณ๐ด Norway Easing โ Article
Norway's Supreme Court ends punishment for addicts
After parliament rejected a general decriminalisation, the court ruled that people who are dependent on drugs should not be punished for holding small amounts for their own use. The Director of Public Prosecutions turned this into guidelines for police the following month.
1217+5 points
๐ฆ๐ฑ Albania Debate โ
Albania's prime minister announces medical cannabis
Edi Rama announced plans to legalise medical cannabis after a national consultation in which 61% favoured it. Parliament voted the law through by 69 to 23 on 21 July 2023.
๐ต๐ฌ Papua New Guinea Tightening ?
Papua New Guinea's new controlled-substances regime takes effect
The Controlled Substance Act put cannabis, resin, oil and cannabis plants in Schedule I and introduced quantity tiers. Ten grams or less can bring two years, more than 10 g but less than 2 kg up to 15 years, and more than 2 kg from 16 years to life; cultivation is graded by plant count. A companion amendment had also raised the old Dangerous Drugs Act ceiling to 40 years.
117โ4 points
๐น๐ฟ Tanzania Enforcement โ Article
Tanzania upholds thirty years for growing cannabis but drops a possession count
Tanzania's Court of Appeal upheld Hamis Muhibu Abdallah's thirty-year sentence for cultivating cannabis after police found 535 plants on a farm. It quashed a separate possession conviction because the uprooted plants proved cultivation, not the additional possession offence charged. His confession, though retracted, was supported by other evidence linking him to the field, so the cultivation sentence remained.
๐ฐ๐ช Kenya Easing โ Article
Kenya lowers the penalty for cannabis for personal use
An amendment to the narcotics Act halved the maximum for cannabis held solely for one's own use, from ten years to five, and added the option of a fine of up to 100,000 shillings and of a court-ordered treatment programme. Possession that is not shown to be for personal use falls under the trafficking section, with at least 30 million shillings or thirty years for 1 to 100 grams and at least 50 million shillings or fifty years above 100 grams. Using a drug carries a fine of not less than 250,000 shillings or at least five years.
16+5 points
๐จ๐ท Costa Rica Medical โ Article
Costa Rica legalises medical cannabis and hemp
The president signed a law allowing cannabis to be grown and processed for medical use and legalising hemp. Personal use was already not punished.
2526+1 point
๐จ๐ซ Central African Republic Enforcement โ
Central African Republic police seize cannabis during a security operation
A joint security operation in Ouandago had led to eleven arrests and the seizure of eleven homemade weapons and over ten kilograms of cannabis, MINUSCA reported. The operation responded to abuses by a self-defence group; the figures were a mid-operation report.
๐ฎ๐น Italy Debate โ Article
Italy's Constitutional Court blocks a legalisation referendum
More than 600,000 people had signed for a vote on decriminalising home growing. The court ruled the question inadmissible because it would also have touched hard drugs and Italy's treaty obligations.
๐ป๐บ Vanuatu Medical โ Article
Vanuatu starts licensing medical cannabis for export and industrial hemp
A new licensing law took effect on 17 January 2022, allowing licensed medical-cannabis cultivation for export and industrial-hemp production. The original Act required applicants to show ten yearsโ relevant experience, VT10 million in a local bank, an agricultural lease and an export market or buyer; licences ran for ten years. Hemp was defined at no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis, and implementing rules followed in February 2023.
๐ป๐จ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Medical โ
Saint Vincent approves its first cannabis export
The government approved its first export certificate, for a shipment to Germany by Caribbean Cannabis Company, after Germany's medicines institute issued an import certificate. Saint Vincent was the first Eastern Caribbean state allowed to export medicinal cannabis.
๐บ๐ธ United States Hemp โ
The DEA says cannabis seeds are not federally controlled
Answering a lawyer's inquiry, the Drug Enforcement Administration wrote that marijuana seed with no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight meets the 2018 definition of hemp and is not controlled, and likewise tissue culture and other genetic material. A second letter in December 2022 added that material grown from a seed is marijuana once it exceeds 0.3%.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Medical โ Article
Czechia opens medical cultivation to multiple licensees
Czechia replaced the system in which a single tendered supplier grew for the state agency. Any applicant meeting the statutory conditions could seek a cultivation licence and a permit to handle controlled substances, then supply Czech pharmacies or export with permission.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Hemp โ Article
Czechia raises the hemp limit to 1% THC
The amendment raised the threshold for technical hemp from 0.3% to 1% THC, removed its permit requirement and simplified proof of compliance for growers. Farms larger than 100 square metres still had to report specified information to customs.
๐ฟ๐ผ Zimbabwe Medical โ Article
Zimbabwe opens applications for hemp-based CBD medicines
The medicines regulator began accepting applications to register hemp-based CBD products as complementary medicines in the second quarter of 2022. A July circular explained the requirements to licensed producers, manufacturers, traders and retail pharmacists. The regulatorโs annual report records two manufacturing applications and one manufacturer licensed after inspections in early 2023.
๐บ๐ธ United States Hemp โ
A federal appeals court treats delta-8 products as lawful hemp
In AK Futures v. Boyd Street Distro, a trademark dispute and the first case on delta-8 THC before a US court of appeals, the Ninth Circuit held that the products could be protected as trademarks and, in passing, that they were lawful under the 2018 hemp definition. Federal courts later upheld state laws that restricted or banned delta-8, among them Virginia's and Wyoming's.
๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco Medical โ
Morocco sets up its cannabis regulator
The National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-related Activities was created to license legal growing for medical, cosmetic and industrial use. It began taking applications in January 2023, and legal exports to Europe started in 2024.
๐ฒ๐ญ Marshall Islands Culture & science โ
Marshall Islands survey finds recent cannabis use among high school students
A 2022 survey found that 13.8% of participating high school students reported using marijuana in the previous thirty days. Researchers surveyed pupils in grades 9โ12 at public and private high schools between March and May, with substance-use answers completed confidentially and submitted anonymously.
๐ฎ๐ณ India Other law โ
Karnataka's High Court rules bhang is not prohibited
The court held that bhang does not fall under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Debate โ
Czechia's drug coordinator plans a licensed cannabis market
The national drug coordinator Jindลich Voboลil said he was preparing a law to regulate the sale and growing of cannabis: licensed growers, possibly licensed shops, caps on purchases and perhaps registration of buyers. In April 2023 the government approved an addiction plan that included a regulated market. In May Voboลil said he wanted shops for adults, clubs and licensed growing by 2024, and admitted that another EU member state might challenge the plan at the European Court of Justice.
๐ง๐ท Brazil Medical โ
Brazil's Superior Court of Justice allows medical home growing
The sixth panel of the Superior Court of Justice unanimously authorised three people to grow cannabis at home for therapeutic purposes. The decision became guidance for courts across the country and led to a large increase in court orders for domestic cultivation, though only for those able to go to court.
๐ฆ๐น Austria Debate โ
Germany's plans reopen the debate in Austria
Germany's announcement that it would legalise cannabis set off a discussion in Austria, where almost half the public said it was open to legal cannabis.
202173 entries13 score changes
๐ฒ๐น Malta Legalisation โ Article
Malta becomes the first EU country to legalise
Adults may carry 7 g, keep 50 g at home and grow four plants per household. Instead of shops, the law allows licensed non-profit associations that grow for their members. Smoking in public is still prohibited. President George Vella, a doctor, signed it despite calls from opponents to refuse, saying the president could not impose his own view on parliament, and the law was published on 18 December.
2238+16 points
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Hemp โ
Mexico's Supreme Court allows one firm to grow hemp
The court granted Desart MX, a subsidiary of Canada's Xebra Brands, the right to sow, grow and harvest cannabis with 1% THC or less, finding that the ban restricted freedom of trade without being needed to protect health. The ruling covered only that company. The health regulator issued the permit in March 2023 under a court order, saying it would keep contesting it.
๐ฐ๐ฌ Kyrgyzstan Easing โ Article
Kyrgyzstan moves small possession and cultivation to administrative fines
New codes took effect on 1 December 2021, moving small possession without intent to supply and small unauthorised cultivation out of the former misdemeanour code. The replacement offences code sets administrative penalties: a 200-unit fine or 40 hours of community work for small possession, and a 125-unit fine for an individualโs small grow. The former code had coupled these offences with probation-style restrictions on liberty.
1321+8 points
๐ญ๐ฐ Hong Kong Debate โ
Hong Kong warns CBD sellers against even trace THC
The government told CBD sellers that products must contain no THC, which was controlled regardless of concentration. CBD itself was still outside dangerous-drug controls, but importers and traders were responsible for the ingredients they supplied. The warning preceded the decision to bring CBD itself under those controls in February 2023.
๐ฆ๐ช United Arab Emirates Easing โ Article
The UAE reduces penalties for drug offences
Federal Decree-Law 30 of 2021, in force from 2 January 2022, lowered the penalties for use and possession: three months in prison or a fine of 20,000 to 100,000 dirhams for a first offence, six months for a second within three years, and two years for a third. A court may send a first offender to a treatment centre instead, for up to a year. Deportation of foreigners convicted of use stopped being automatic, and a first-time visitor carrying food or products containing drugs has them confiscated without being charged.
02+2 points
๐ฐ๐ฎ Kiribati Enforcement โ Article
Kiribati fines a man A$250 for keeping one cannabis plant
A man who kept a small cannabis plant belonging to his late half-brother received a A$250 fine after pleading guilty to possession. Chief Justice William Hastings found no evidence of use or dealing and treated the case as less serious than the earlier fisheries officerโs cannabis offence. Failure to pay by the end of December would bring one month in prison.
๐ง๐ด Bolivia Medical โ Article
Bolivia authorises a childโs compassionate cannabis import
Boliviaโs ombudsman reported that the medicines agency had authorised cannabis imports exclusively for the compassionate treatment of one child, under a doctorโs supervision. The family had applied in September 2020, but changing requirements complicated the process until the ombudsman helped clarify them. The approval used the medicines-law procedure, following the 2017 lawโs controls on medicinal substances.
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania Hemp โ
Lithuania allows hemp products
Products made from hemp were permitted if their THC content did not exceed 0.2%, a limit raised to 0.3% in 2022.
๐ฑ๐น Lithuania Debate โ
A Lithuanian bill to decriminalise small amounts falls for lack of a majority
The Freedom Party, a partner in the governing coalition, proposed replacing criminal liability for acquiring and possessing small amounts of drugs with a warning or a fine of 50 to 350 euros and a prevention course, largely restoring the law as it stood before 2017. Sixty-one deputies voted for, 58 against and 7 abstained, which was not enough.
๐ฎ๐ณ India Debate โ
Indian ministries discuss ending prison for personal use
A meeting of government stakeholders reached a consensus to remove imprisonment and fines for personal consumption by amending Section 27 of the narcotics law, after the social justice ministry recommended decriminalisation. The law has not been changed.
๐ฏ๐ด Jordan Other law โ Article
Jordan grades drug penalties and widens first-offence record protection
Jordan divided personal-use drug offences into four penalty bands, ranging from one to three years plus a fine to one to six months, a fine, or both, depending on the controlled-drug schedule. It broadened the acts covered by first-offence record protection and expressly allowed plant and seed licences under future regulations. The same amendment expanded the distribution offence to include gifts and retained prison as a possible personal-use punishment.
๐ฑ๐บ Luxembourg Debate โ
Luxembourg scales back its legalisation plan
The 2018 coalition agreement had promised a fully regulated market with shops. Citing European law, the government announced it would legalise only growing and using at home.
๐ต๐ฆ Panama Medical โ Article
Panama legalises medical cannabis
Law 242, sanctioned on 13 October 2021, regulates cannabis for medical use, with a patient registry, licences issued by the Ministry of Public Security and sale only through authorised pharmacies. The regulations followed on 30 August 2022.
1112+1 point
๐น๐ฟ Tanzania Other law โ Article
Tanzania moves the cannabis trafficking boundary to one hundred kilograms
Tanzania moved the boundary between lower-quantity cannabis trafficking and the life-imprisonment tier from 50 kg to 100 kg. The same amendment made thirty years the minimum for the lower tier, replacing the earlier fixed thirty-year wording. It changed the trafficking rules introduced in 2017; the personal-use small-quantity rules remained separate.
๐ฑ๐จ Saint Lucia Legalisation โ Article
Saint Lucia legalises 30 g and home growing
An adult holding 30 g or less for personal, private use is no longer guilty of an offence, and a household may grow four plants. There is no legal market.
1139+28 points
๐ฌ๐ฎ Gibraltar Medical โ
Gibraltar approves a medicinal cannabis industry licensing law
Gibraltar approved a law for a commission and licences covering medicinal cannabis production, import, export, marketing and supply on 24 September 2021. Starting the law requires a ministerial notice, and the official text remained marked Not In Force on 24 October 2026. The existing GHA patient rules continued separately, followed by a 2023 supply announcement.
๐ฏ๐ด Jordan Debate โ
Jordanโs Lower House backs broader first-offence record protection
The Lower House backed extending first-offence record protection to a longer list of personal-use acts, including importing, transporting and storing drugs. Its proposal also expanded drug-control offences, including distribution without payment. The amendment was published later in September and took effect in October, while personal-use prosecution remained possible.
๐ณ๐ท Nauru Other law โ
Nauru gives cannabis field-test certificates a defined role in court
Appointed officers could identify seized cannabis with specified colour-change tests and submit certificates that courts had to accept unless materially disproved. The regulations took effect on 27 August 2021 and replaced the earlier 2016 drug-analysis rules, while leaving existing proceedings under those rules. A 2024 one-gram cannabis prosecution later relied on a police test using the KN reagent system.
๐ณ๐ฆ Namibia Debate โ
Namibian cannabis users challenge the ban in the High Court
Brian Jaftha, president of Ganja Users of Namibia and of the Rastafari United Front, and the group's secretary general Borro Ndungula asked the Windhoek High Court to declare the prohibition on adult possession and use of cannabis unconstitutional. They argued that the ban rests on outdated views and was partly motivated by a racist political agenda against the Rastafari religion. The government answered that the justice minister had approved a review of the cannabis laws by the Law Reform and Development Commission, so the claim was premature.
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Legalisation โ
Northern Mariana Islandsโ first lounge gives adults a place to use cannabis
Adults aged 21 and over could use cannabis on site at Common Wealth Cannabis in Garapan, reported open on 16 August after receiving a lounge licence in July. Customers could bring their own cannabis or buy it at the adjoining shop, while staff checked identification at the entrance. The venue extended the 2018 legalisation beyond home use after the first retail shop opened that summer.
5455+1 point
๐ท๐บ Russia Enforcement โ
An American teacher gets 14 years in Russia for medical cannabis
Customs officers at Sheremetyevo airport found about 17 grams of cannabis in the luggage of Marc Fogel, a history teacher who had worked in Russia since 2012; an American doctor had prescribed it for chronic pain. In June 2022 he was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 14 years. He was released on 11 February 2025, after three and a half years, in an exchange for a Russian held in the United States.
๐ต๐ญ Philippines Debate โ
UN rescheduling leaves Philippine cannabis law unchanged
The Dangerous Drugs Board and PDEA said the UN's recognition of cannabis's potential medical value had no immediate domestic effect. Cannabis remained a dangerous drug under Republic Act 9165, and cultivation, possession, use and supply remained punishable.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Hemp โ
Paraguay launches exports of hemp foods
A Paraguayan company, Healthy Grains, opened a plant at Luque that had cost more than three million dollars and began shipping hemp oil, protein and other non-psychoactive products to the United States and Europe, and for the first time to Australia and Canada. The agriculture minister said small farmers had a secured buyer.
๐ต๐ท Puerto Rico Medical โ Article
Puerto Rico protects registered cannabis patients against job discrimination
Registered medical-cannabis patients who identify themselves to an employer became a protected group in hiring, dismissal and other employment decisions. Employers could still establish exceptions for real safety risks, interference with essential duties, threatened federal permissions or funding, or unauthorised use or possession at work. The amendment filled an employment-protection gap left by the 2017 medical-cannabis law.
๐ต๐ช Peru Medical โ
Peru authorises patient-association cultivation
Law 31312 created a licence for associations of two or more registered patients, their designated supporters or legal representatives to cultivate cannabis and process it exclusively for their qualified members.
๐จ๐ณ China Culture & science โ Article
Genome research proposes an East Asian origin for cannabis domestication
Ren and colleagues analyze a worldwide panel of cannabis genomes and infer an early East Asian domestication history, followed by specialization into fibre and drug crops. Their model estimates an early divergence around 12,000 years before present, with a broad confidence interval. This is a genomic inference from modern samples, not a directly dated 12,000-year-old cultivated plant; later archaeobotanical research calls for testing the chronology against material evidence.
๐ฌ๐ฌ Guernsey Medical โ
Guernsey agrees a medicinal cannabis cultivation arrangement with the UK
A memorandum with the UK Home Office addressed authorisations to cultivate medicinal cannabis and compliance with the Single Convention. Jersey's subsequent scrutiny report records the July agreement and describes the Guernsey cannabis agency's interdepartmental membership. The month is verified from that report; an exact signing date and the memorandum's original text have not been established here.
๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco Medical โ Article
Morocco legalises cannabis for medical and industrial use
Law 13-21, promulgated by dahir on 14 July 2021, created a state agency that authorises growing, processing and sale for medical, pharmaceutical and industrial purposes, in provinces listed by decree. Growers must be Moroccan adults in a cooperative and deliver the whole harvest. Unlicensed activity stays under the 1974 drug law.
1213+1 point
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Legalisation โ Article
Northern Mariana Islandsโ first cannabis shop opens in Saipan
Saipan Select began selling cannabis to adults in Tanapag with a soft opening on 14 July, followed by its grand opening on 16 July. Nearly three years after legalisation, customers could buy flower from a licensed shop supplied by its adjoining indoor farm. The commission had granted its first retail licence in May; a separate cannabis lounge followed later that summer.
4854+6 points
๐ฎ๐ธ Iceland Hemp โ
Iceland lets its food authority license imports of hemp seed
A new article in the drug act allows the Food and Veterinary Authority to permit imports of seeds of Cannabis sativa under conditions set by regulation, as an exception to the general ban on importing and handling cannabis.
๐จ๐ณ China Tightening โ
China controls synthetic cannabinoids as a whole class
The National Narcotics Control Commission announced on 11 May 2021 that synthetic cannabinoids would be placed under national control by a generic definition covering the whole class, together with 18 other substances listed one by one. The control took effect on 1 July.
๐ท๐ผ Rwanda Medical โ Article
Rwanda licenses medical cannabis and sets prescription rules
Rwanda opened a licensing system for growing, processing, researching, importing and exporting cannabis for medical or research purposes on 28 June 2021. Medical use required a prescription from a doctor with written health-ministry authority, and operators had to meet detailed security and tracking rules. The order used powers in the 2012 drug-control law; licences lasted five years and could be renewed.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Easing โ Article
Mexico's Supreme Court strikes down the ban on personal use
The court declared the ban on adult personal use unconstitutional after Congress missed several deadlines to legislate. Adults can apply to the health regulator for a permit to grow and consume, but Congress never passed a law to regulate it and there is no legal market.
1826+8 points
๐ธ๐ฒ San Marino Medical โ
San Marino licenses growing cannabis for medicines
Law 113, approved by the Council on 18 June, allows cannabis seeds and plants to be grown in technological greenhouses and processed into medicines for medicinal or therapeutic use only. Growers, processors and traders need an authorisation from the health authority, which acts as the national cannabis control agency.
๐ต๐น Portugal Debate โ
Portuguese parties table bills to legalise cannabis for adults
Twenty years after decriminalisation, bills for a regulated adult market were put before parliament. The Left Bloc, Liberal Initiative and LIVRE support legalisation. Shops had spread in the meantime, but they may sell only products without THC.
๐ฆ๐ฒ Armenia Hemp โ Article
Armenia legalises industrial hemp
The government approved a bill on 29 April and the National Assembly passed it in June: hemp with no more than 0.3% THC may be produced and processed. A government decision of 15 July set the terms. Only companies may apply, to the health ministry, for licences of up to ten years, one kind for growing and one for trade and processing; they need capital of 10 million drams, must grow in greenhouses and must start within a year. By 26 January 2022 six companies, all founded in 2021, held licences.
๐ง๐น Bhutan Debate โ
Bhutan's government says it is exploring medicinal cannabis
Answering a question in the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji said the government was exploring ways to legalise marijuana for medicinal use but needed more time before tabling an amendment to the narcotics act, because it depended on outside experts. One member asked for the whole act to be amended, saying many men in some villages were in prison. Under the 2018 amendment, possessing up to seven grams of cannabis is illegal possession and anything above it is illicit trafficking; cultivation is allowed only for medical and scientific research.
๐จ๐ณ China Tightening โ
China bans cannabis ingredients in cosmetics
New catalogues of prohibited cosmetic ingredients listed cannabis sativa fruit, seed oil and leaf extract, and prohibited cannabidiol in cosmetics, the main legal outlet for Chinese- made CBD.
๐ฌ๐ท Greece Medical โ
Greece ends the state monopoly on selling medical cannabis products
Law 4801/2021 amended the 2013 drug law. It repealed the state's monopoly on the sale of finished cannabis products, so that they can be sold directly to pharmacies, wholesalers, clinics and public hospitals; made the medicines agency EOF the sole licensing body; and allowed exports of finished products and of dried flower in packs of up to 30 g. Products for the Greek market still need EOF's approval before they can be prescribed.
๐ฟ๐ฒ Zambia Medical โ
Zambia enacts its Cannabis Act and Industrial Hemp Act
Parliament published both Acts on 20 May 2021. Each comes into operation only on a date the Minister appoints. The Cannabis Act would let the medicines regulator license cultivation, manufacture, storage, distribution, import and export for medicinal, scientific or research purposes. The hemp Act covers plants of not more than 0.3% THC. Neither Act was in force on the day it was published.
๐จ๐ญ Switzerland Legalisation โ
Switzerland allows pilot trials of legal sales
An amendment to the Narcotics Act let cities run scientific trials selling cannabis to registered adult residents for up to ten years. The first opened in Basel in 2023.
๐ต๐ผ Palau Debate โ
A medical cannabis bill passes first reading in Palau
The Compassionate Cannabis Use Act would have let licensed doctors prescribe cannabis and set up a Belau Cannabis Authority to license imports, manufacture and research. It passed first reading in the House of Delegates after a campaign by the Belau Cannabis Society; President Surangel Whipps Jr. voiced reservations.
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Other law โ
Northern Mariana Islands grant their first cannabis retail licence
Saipan Select received the first retail licence alongside a Class III production licence allowing up to 5,000 square feet of growing canopy. The commission reported that many other applicants still needed premises inspections while construction continued. The licensed shop opened to customers in July.
๐ต๐ช Peru Medical โ
Peru licenses a specialist medical-cannabis pharmacy
Lima Centro's health authority granted Cannabis & Co. Peru a licence to sell registered and pharmacy-compounded cannabis medicines. The licence recorded operations from 19 April 2021.
๐ธ๐ฐ Slovakia Hemp โ
Slovakia takes CBD off its drug list
Slovakia had been the last EU country to class CBD as a psychotropic substance.
๐น๐ฏ Tajikistan Tightening โ
Tajikistan extends drug offences to chemical analogues
A Criminal Code amendment extended drug offences to analogues of controlled drugs, according to the codeโs amendment notes. The updated offences covered possession without intent to supply, supply and premises for consumption; analogue quantities were linked to the corresponding controlled substanceโs bands. The separate quantity annex was replaced in 2023.
๐ฒ๐ผ Malawi Other law โ
Malawi issues its first cannabis licences
The Cannabis Regulatory Authority granted 86 licences for growing, processing and storing industrial hemp to 35 companies and cooperatives, out of 41 that applied. No export licence had yet been issued.
๐ณ๏ธ Transnistria Enforcement โ
Transnistria sends a personal growerโs harvest case to court
Investigators sent Ivan Zavyazkinโs case to court after police found 34 cannabis plants and 749.054 g of dried cannabis at his cottage in an October 2020 search. They alleged large-scale cultivation and possession of an especially large amount for his own use. The announcement illustrates how a grower could face separate charges for the plants and the harvested cannabis; the report records the charges and pre-trial detention.
๐ณ๐ด Norway Easing โ
Norway limits police powers in minor drug cases
The attorney general ruled that police may not search phones or homes, or carry out drug tests, on people caught with small amounts for personal use.
๐ซ๐ท France Medical โ Article
France begins a medical cannabis experiment
A trial for up to 3,000 patients with conditions such as severe epilepsy and cancer pain began, the first legal medical use in France. It has been extended several times without becoming permanent.
1314+1 point
๐จ๐พ Cyprus Medical โ Article
Cyprus receives imported cannabis oils for approved patients
Panaxia announced its first medical-cannabis delivery to Cyprus after securing an order and import permits from the government. The agreement covered two oil concentrations, with government distribution through pharmacies for approved patients. The shipment followed the named-patient oil route and the 2019 medical-cannabis regulations.
๐น๐ณ Tunisia Easing โ
The Kef court cuts the 30-year cannabis sentences
After the appeal hearing was postponed from February to 9 March, a court in El Kef reduced the sentences of the three men to two years in prison, according to a report of 10 March. The January verdict had drawn criticism from citizens, civil society and human rights organisations and calls to amend Law 52, which sets a minimum of one year in prison and a fine from 1,000 dinars for use.
๐ง๐ง Barbados Easing โ Article
Barbados decriminalises 14 g
Possession of up to 14 g became a fixed-penalty matter: a $200 penalty payable within 30 days, which discharges any liability to conviction. Not paying is an offence with a $1,000 fine. People under 18 must also attend the National Council on Substance Abuse, and earlier convictions for up to 14 g are deemed expunged.
1222+10 points
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Other law โ
Northern Mariana Islands license their first commercial cannabis grower
T-Marianas, operated by Slider Marianas, received the territoryโs first commercial cannabis licence, a Class I production licence. It followed the commissionโs emergency rules and the opening of business applications in 2020. Retail licensing and the first shop opening followed that spring and summer.
๐ง๐ฒ Bermuda Easing โ Article
Bermuda lets people apply to clear old cannabis possession convictions
Bermuda brought into force a process for people convicted of possessing seven grams of cannabis or less before 20 December 2017 to apply for an order clearing the conviction. The government launched online applications the next day, arguing that people convicted before decriminalisation should also benefit from reform. Old records that omitted the amount later blocked many applications, prompting new rules in 2023.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Debate โ
Mexico's lower house votes to legalise
The Chamber of Deputies passed a bill to create a regulated market. The Senate never approved the amended text, and three months later the Supreme Court acted on its own.
๐จ๐ฉ DR Congo Medical โ
DR Congo sets licensing rules for medical and scientific cannabis
DR Congo set five-year authorisations for growing and producing narcotics for medical and scientific purposes under its 2018 health law. Medical cannabis varieties had to contain no more than 0.2% THC and a high CBD content; cultivation was reserved to authorised Congolese organisations operating at industrial scale. The rules kept other purposes prohibited, and a revised order followed in 2022.
๐ฒ๐น Malta Debate โ
Malta's prime minister announces a cannabis law
Robert Abela announced plans to legalise possession of small amounts of cannabis and plants for personal use. A public consultation from March drew 350 submissions. The opposition Nationalist Party, which had claimed the idea of regulated clubs, voted against the bill, and it passed on 14 December by 36 votes to 27.
๐ฐ๐ฒ Comoros Tightening โ Article
The Comoros adopt a new Penal Code with 10 to 15 years for holding or using narcotics
Law 20-038/AU of 29 December 2020, promulgated by decree 21-018/PR of 16 February 2021, sets 10 to 15 years in prison for transporting, holding, offering, acquiring or using narcotics (Article 208), 10 to 20 years for production (Article 206) and 5 to 10 years for giving narcotics to a person for personal consumption (Article 210).
90โ9 points
๐ฏ๐ฒ Jamaica Culture & science โ
Jamaica runs short of ganja
Heavy rain in the 2020 hurricane season and then a severe drought, together with rising consumption, left the island short of cannabis early in 2021. The licensing authority had by then authorised 29 growers and 73 transporters, processors and retailers; the legal herb houses sold at five to ten times the street price.
๐ฆ๐ฒ Armenia Hemp โ
Armenia plans to allow industrial hemp
At a cabinet meeting on 4 February the government announced that it would permit industrial hemp as part of its programme to revive the economy after the pandemic and the war. The deputy prime minister, Tigran Avinyan, said about 40% of Armenia's farmland lay idle. The prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said no hemp would be grown for human consumption, and the economy minister promised oversight by law enforcement. Two years earlier the health ministry had denied any plan to decriminalise cannabis.
๐ฆ๐ผ Aruba Other law โ Article
Aruba tells prosecutors to drop many cannabis cases up to 5 grams
Arubaโs prosecution guideline set surrender and dismissal for the 0โ5 g soft-drug band, subject to exceptions including minors, repeat offending, another offence and specified settings. For 5โ250 g the possession/courier table set a sentencing request of up to one month, potentially partly suspended, with three yearsโ probation. The guideline drew on policies elsewhere in the Dutch Caribbean; a revised instruction later raised the dismissal band to 30 g.
๐น๐ณ Tunisia Enforcement โ 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.
๐ฎ๐ฒ Isle of Man Medical โ Article
Isle of Man cannabis licensing regulations take effect
The Misuse of Drugs (Cannabis) Regulations 2020 allowed the Gambling Supervision Commission to license cultivation and specified controlled-drug activities, subject to licence terms and conditions. They were made on 30 December 2020, approved by Tynwald on 19 January 2021 and commenced the following day. This created a licensing framework rather than a general cultivation exemption or proof that a producer had begun operating.
๐ธ๐ฆ Saudi Arabia Death penalty โ
Saudi Arabia announces a moratorium on drug executions
The Saudi Human Rights Commission said the country had stopped executing people for drug offences and was focusing on rehabilitation. The pause had operated since February 2020 but was never written into law.
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico Medical โ Article
Mexico issues its medical cannabis regulation
The regulation needed to apply the 2017 reform was published in the official gazette, after the Supreme Court ordered it in August 2019. It set up growing permits for research and for making medicines, issued by the agricultural health service, and requires doctors to get authorisation from the health regulator and use special coded prescriptions.
1718+1 point
๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar Enforcement โ
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.
๐ช๐ธ Spain Debate โ
Spain's Socialists vote down a legalisation motion
Mรกs Paรญs proposed legalising recreational use; Unidas Podemos supported the motion and the governing Socialist Party voted against it. That July the Supreme Court was reported to have closed the gap in the law that Barcelona's clubs relied on.
๐ณ๐ด Norway Debate โ
Norway's parliament rejects decriminalisation
The government proposed replacing fines for possession with mandatory counselling, as recommended by an expert committee. The bill failed to win a majority in parliament.
๐ฏ๐ต Japan Tightening โ
A Japanese ministry panel recommends making cannabis use a crime
The 1948 law punished possession and growing but not use itself. A health ministry panel recommended making use an offence and regulating chemical compounds instead of parts of the plant. In 2020 there had been 5,034 cannabis convictions, 4,121 of them for possession. The law was changed in 2023.
๐ฌ๐ฉ Grenada Debate โ
Grenada's first decriminalisation bill is tabled and lapses
Agriculture minister Peter David laid a bill before the House that would have let anyone over 18 hold 28 g and each homeowner grow five plants, and allowed Rastafarian use in places of worship. It died when Parliament was dissolved before the June 2022 election.
๐ซ๐ฎ Finland Debate โ
Finland's Greens adopt legalisation
The Green League became the first party in parliament to put legalising cannabis in its programme. Parliament had made personal use a crime in 1971 by 92 votes to 80.
๐จ๐ด Colombia Hemp โ
Colombia opens cannabis to industrial use
The legal framework for medical cannabis was widened to cover industrial uses of hemp and non-psychoactive derivatives.
202072 entries12 score changes
๐ป๐จ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Medical โ
Saint Vincent's first cannabis pharmacy opens
Green Lava Labs Pharmacy opened at Bentick Square in Kingstown, opposite the main hospital, to serve local and visiting patients.
2224+2 points
๐ณ๐ต Nepal International โ
Nepal votes at the UN to ease the treaty status of cannabis
Nepal was among the countries on the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs that voted to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention, the list of drugs considered most dangerous.
๐ฎ๐ช Ireland Easing โ Article
Ireland lets police caution for cannabis possession
The adult caution scheme was extended to simple possession of cannabis, so a first offence can end with a formal caution and no prosecution.
1214+2 points
๐ป๐ฌ British Virgin Islands Debate โ
BVIโs governor sets conditions before cannabis bills can receive assent
Governor Augustus Jaspert said a BVI cannabis licensing authority required preparatory work and an agreement with the UK Home Office before the licensing bill could receive assent. The UK Foreign Secretary also requested the separate record-clearing bill for further consideration, citing trafficking and security concerns. A July 2026 legal review still recorded both bills as unassented.
๐ International International โ Article
The UN removes cannabis from its strictest schedule
On the advice of the World Health Organization, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs voted 27 to 25 to take cannabis and its resin out of Schedule IV of the Single Convention, the category for drugs with little or no medical value. They stay in Schedule I, so the duty to prohibit non-medical use did not change.
๐ต๐ท Puerto Rico Enforcement โ Article
Puerto Ricoโs appeal court upholds a dispensary closure over its use permit
The Family Dispensary lost its challenge to Bayamรณnโs order stopping cannabis sales under a permit for essential household goods. Patients had joined the lawsuit after police enforced the closure in March 2017, shortly after the shop began selling medical cannabis. The appeal court upheld the municipalityโs authority and $1,500 in legal costs and fees, while rejecting a separate counterclaim tied to patient claims that had been withdrawn.
๐ฒ๐ฐ North Macedonia Debate โ
North Macedonia's prime minister floats cannabis for tourists
Zoran Zaev said the government was considering legalising recreational use in hospitality venues and tourist areas, among them Skopje and Ohrid. He left office in 2022 and the plan was never carried out.
๐ฏ๐ช Jersey Medical โ
Jersey's first local medical cannabis clinic begins prescribing
The Chief Pharmacist's evidence to a later scrutiny review dates the first local clinic to November 2020. Before then, following the January 2019 law change, Jersey patients' prescriptions had been issued by UK clinics and dispensed by UK pharmacies. This records the start of local prescribing rather than the first legal access to these medicines.
๐ฆ๐ท Argentina Medical โ Article
Argentina lets registered patients grow their own
A decree created the REPROCANN registry: with a doctor's indication, a registered person may grow cannabis at home or name a grower or association to do it for them.
2026+6 points
๐ฉ๐ฒ Dominica Legalisation โ Article
Dominica legalises possession and home growing
Parliament amended the drug law so that a person holding 28 g or less of cannabis is not guilty of an offence, and a person aged 18 or older may grow three plants at the place where they live. Smoking in a public place became an offence with a fine of 1,500 East Caribbean dollars that leaves no criminal record, and earlier convictions for 28 g or less are treated as spent. Larger amounts keep the old penalties, and there is no legal market. The House passed the act on 26 October and the president assented on 30 October.
1139+28 points
๐บ๐ฆ Ukraine Debate โ
Ukrainians back medical cannabis in a presidential poll
In a non-binding national survey announced by President Zelenskyy, 64.88% of participants were in favour of legalising cannabis for medical use and 29.53% against. In April 2021 the cannabinoid medicines dronabinol and nabiximols were approved.
๐น๐ด Tonga Tightening โ
Tonga's parliament amends its drug law against methamphetamine
Parliament passed an amendment to the Illicit Drugs Control Act 2003 by 17 votes to none. The government presented it as a response to methamphetamine, which the acting justice minister called Tonga's killing virus.
๐ณ๐ฟ New Zealand Debate โ Article
New Zealand votes against legalisation
A referendum on a detailed bill for a regulated market was lost by 50.7% to 48.4%, the closest any country has come to legalising by popular vote.
๐ธ๐ฒ San Marino Debate โ
San Marino's health committee takes up three cannabis petitions
The Council's permanent health committee heard the health secretary report on three citizens' petitions approved by the Council: one of 2015 on therapeutic use and two of 2019 asking for recreational cannabis to be regulated. He said they raised the same urgency by different approaches.
๐ฑ๐ป Latvia Debate โ
A Latvian parliamentary panel reopens the question of soft drugs
The criminal law policy subcommittee of the Saeima resumed talks on whether small-scale use of soft drugs should stop being a crime while remaining illegal. Its chairman doubted that punishment cures addiction. The interior ministry was opposed; the health ministry and the head of the narcology service leaned towards treatment. More and more people were being punished repeatedly for use: one person had been fined fifteen times in a year. In 2019 courts convicted 1,370 people of drug crimes and 3,203 received administrative penalties.
๐ฌ๐ฌ Guernsey Medical โ
Guernsey lets islanders import prescribed medical cannabis and GPs prescribe it
Amendments approved by the Committee for Health & Social Care came into force on 28 September. Islanders could now use off-island clinics privately and import prescribed cannabis products under a licensing process, and prescribing was extended from specialists to general practitioners. The patient bears the cost; there is no adult-use source.
1113+2 points
๐ฟ๐ผ Zimbabwe Hemp โ Article
Zimbabwe sets permits and testing rules for hemp growers and traders
Hemp growers, researchers and merchants received separate permit routes, with commercial growing and merchant permits lasting one year and research permits three years. The Agricultural Marketing Authority required approved varieties, security checks, seed and harvest records, and testing under a 0.3% THC definition. These rules followed the 2019 authorisation of approved hemp farmers; the criminal code later adopted a broader 1% hemp definition in 2023.
๐น๐ฌ Togo Enforcement โ Article
Togo seizes 1.5 tonnes of cannabis hidden in a bus
Security officials in Lomรฉ presented 1,541.60 kg of cannabis and three arrested suspects after stopping a bus arriving from Ghana during the night of 14โ15 September. According to the authorities, the cannabis was hidden among second-hand clothing and was being taken to Benin through Togo. The national press agency described the operation as part of the anti-drug officeโs campaign against cross-border trafficking.
๐ธ๐พ Syria Tightening โ
North-east Syria's security forces arrest 1,165 drug users
The Asayish of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria began a campaign against drugs late in September 2020. Reporting on it in Qamishli on 29 June 2021, they counted 1,875 arrests, of 1,165 users, 480 dealers and 230 traders, and 1,700 kilograms of hashish seized, with a further 2,637 kilograms of hashish paste. The suspects were handed to the administration's courts.
๐ต๐พ Paraguay Medical โ Article
Paraguay's president vetoes home growing for patients
On 26 August the Chamber of Deputies had given final approval to a bill amending articles 30 and 33 of the drug law: a patient with a medical certificate endorsed by the health ministry could hold cannabis, and grow and process it on premises authorised by the anti-drug secretariat. The president vetoed it on the advice of that secretariat and the health ministry, who said it breached the 1961 Single Convention. On 5 November the Senate voted again for the bill, with 26 votes. In April 2022 it was still waiting in the Chamber of Deputies.
๐ต๐ธ Palestine Tightening โ
Palestine sets ten years for promoting drugs online
Law by Decree No. 29 of 2020 rewrote article 28 of the 2015 narcotics decree. Creating a website to traffic, promote or use narcotic drugs, encrypting dealers' sites or publishing instructions for making drugs now brings at least ten years in prison and a fine of 3,000 to 5,000 Jordanian dinars.
๐ต๐ฐ Pakistan Hemp โ
Pakistan approves industrial hemp
The federal government approved growing hemp for industrial use and allowed cannabis extracts for industrial and medical purposes.
๐ซ๐ท France Easing โ Article
France introduces a โฌ200 on-the-spot fine
Possession stays a crime with up to a year in prison on paper, but police can now settle cases under 50 g with a fixed fine, which has become the usual outcome.
1113+2 points
๐ฌ๐ฌ Guernsey Debate โ
Guernsey asks for non-punitive options for small drug possession
The States voted 24 to 14 to have options drawn up for alternative, non-punitive approaches to possessing and using small quantities of illegal drugs, not limited to cannabis.
๐ฐ๐ท South Korea Hemp โ
South Korea creates a hemp zone in Andong
A government committee chaired by the prime minister designated two districts of Andong, in North Gyeongsang, as a regulation-free zone for industrial hemp: hemp with less than 0.3% THC may be grown there in smart farms and CBD extracted from it as a pharmaceutical raw material. The province said the food and drug ministry had been strongly against it. Hemp had been grown for cloth in every Korean province as late as the 1930s.
๐ป๐ฌ British Virgin Islands Debate โ Article
BVI lawmakers approve a bill to clear some old cannabis convictions
The BVI House of Assembly passed a companion bill offering removal of some historic cannabis convictions involving up to 50 g of cannabis or 10 g of resin. Health minister Carvin Malone had argued that old records could block police certificates and employment as medical reform moved forward. The bill required assent, and a July 2026 official legal review still reported it awaiting that step.
๐ธ๐จ Seychelles Medical โ Article
Seychelles allows cannabidiol medicines
Patients could apply for approval to obtain prescribed CBD medicines from 1 July 2020, after a specialist assessed their condition and the failure of earlier treatment. The rules followed litigation by Ralph Volcere seeking access for his mother, who had Alzheimerโs disease. They allowed only tightly defined CBD products through authorised pharmacies, with a 30-day supply limit; smoking and growing cannabis remained forbidden.
1112+1 point
๐ฌ๐ฆ Gabon Other law โ
Gabon keeps the previous year's drug penalties in its replacement code
Gabon's replacement Penal Code retained the 2019 distinction between illicit use, general possession and direct supply for another person's consumption. It kept up to a year for use, the ten-year general possession term and the option of treatment instead of the use penalty. The law replaced the previous code and renumbered the drug provisions.
๐ป๐ฌ British Virgin Islands Debate โ Article
BVI lawmakers approve a medical cannabis licensing bill
The BVI House of Assembly passed a bill to create a cannabis licensing authority and a regulated cultivation, processing and distribution system. The published proposal included dispensaries and different routes for medical documents and declarations of therapeutic use. Assent then depended on further BVIโUK work over licensing responsibilities and international obligations.
๐ฎ๐ฑ Israel Debate โ
Israeli bills to decriminalise up to 50 grams advance
Legislation to decriminalise possession of up to 50 grams began its passage through the Knesset.
๐ญ๐ณ Honduras Other law โ
Honduras's criminal code replaces the 1989 drug penalties
Decree 46-2020 set 25 June 2020 as the day the criminal code commenced. Article 632(6) repealed articles 16 to 30 and 41 of the 1989 drug law, including the personal-consumption security measure. Article 311 now punishes sowing, cultivation, trafficking and possession for those purposes. Article 321 treats cannabis as a drug that does not cause grave harm, so the basic sentence is four to seven years, or one to three years when the circumstances show lesser gravity. The repeal does not declare that holding cannabis for oneself is lawful.
๐น๐ผ Taiwan Hemp โ
Taiwan allows CBD with almost no THC, on prescription
The health ministry said cannabidiol is legal for medical and personal use if it contains no more than 10 parts per million of THC. It is classed as a pharmaceutical, so a prescription is needed, and since no Taiwanese company sells it, buyers must apply to import it; a seller said nine in ten applications without a prescription were refused.
๐ฎ๐ธ Iceland Easing โ
Iceland allows supervised drug consumption rooms
An amendment to the drug act let the Directorate of Health license municipalities to run consumption rooms where possessing and using drugs is permitted, and let police agree not to act against users in a set area around them.
๐ฒ๐ญ Marshall Islands Tightening โ
Marshall Islands expands drug-seizure powers to include cash
Cash used in drug transportation, import or export was added to property liable to seizure and forfeiture under a drug-law amendment effective on 4 June 2020. The law also renamed the narcotics act and added express controls on methamphetamine, MDMA and synthetic cathinones. It republished the separate marijuana penalty ladder and the extra penalties for supplying minors.
๐จ๐ฆ Canada ยท Nunavut Other law โ
Nunavut limits a person to 150 grams of dried cannabis
The Cannabis Regulations, in force on 1 June 2020, provide that a person shall not possess more than 150 grams of dried cannabis or its equivalent. The limit does not apply to cannabis held for sale by the Commission, an Agent, a licensee or a registered supplier, including their authorised employees and a person delivering cannabis to them or a purchase for a remote sales store. The federal limit of 30 grams in public remains. On 12 October 2018 the territorial government described the same split as 30 grams on the person and 150 grams at home.
๐ฆ๐ผ Aruba Other law โ Article
Aruba creates an agency to oversee medicinal cannabis production
Aruba created a medicinal-cannabis agency within the health ministry, with effect from 1 June 2020, to oversee a controlled cultivation, manufacturing and trading system. Its tasks included permits, quality controls, records and coordination of stocks and exports to meet international treaty requirements. A later government call invited cultivation and processing proposals, with awards contingent on legislative changes and agreements.
๐ฎ๐ฑ Israel Culture & science โ
Burnt cannabis is found on an altar of a biblical-era shrine at Arad
Chemists re-examining the two altars from the Judahite shrine at Tel Arad, excavated in the 1960s and in use only around 760โ715 BC, found THC, CBD and CBN in the residue on the smaller one: cannabis flowers mixed with animal dung so that they would burn slowly. The larger altar held frankincense. The authors, writing in the journal Tel Aviv, called it the earliest evidence for the use of cannabis in the Ancient Near East and suggested it was burnt for its effect, not its smell.
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Hemp โ
Northern Mariana Islands move hemp oversight to agriculture officials
A new hemp law put production under the Division of Agriculture and removed hemp from the cannabis commissionโs remit. It used a 0.3% THC ceiling and required licensing rules consistent with the federal hemp framework, following the US farm law passed in 2018. Negligent breaches generally led to a correction plan; wilful violations could bring up to a year in prison, a $2,500 fine, or both.
๐ฐ๐ญ Cambodia Debate โ Article
Amnesty calls for Cambodia to end punishment for personal drug use
Amnesty International called for decriminalising personal drug use, possession and growing after investigating Cambodia's anti-drug campaign. Its research, based on 51 interviews, documented allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and abuses in prisons and detention centres, with poor communities especially exposed. It urged the government to replace compulsory detention with voluntary, evidence-based health services; its findings concerned the wider drug campaign rather than a cannabis-only sample.
๐ฌ๐ญ Ghana Easing โ Article
Ghana treats drug use as a health issue
The Narcotics Control Commission Act was assented to on 11 May 2020 and notified in the Gazette the same day. It replaced prison for possession for personal use with a fine of 200 to 500 penalty units. Buying a narcotic drug or plant for personal use remained a separate offence, with a fine of 2,000 to 10,000 penalty units or four to ten years. Before the Act, possession carried a minimum of ten years.
216+14 points
๐ฎ๐ณ India Tightening โ
India's Supreme Court counts the whole mixture when weighing drugs
A three-judge bench ruled in Hira Singh v. Union of India that where a drug is mixed with neutral substances, their weight is included in deciding whether the quantity is small or commercial. It overruled an earlier decision that had counted only the actual drug content, so more seizures now reach the bands with the heaviest sentences.
๐ฑ๐ง Lebanon Medical โ
Lebanon legalises growing cannabis for medicine
Parliament made Lebanon the first Arab country to permit cannabis cultivation, for medical and industrial use and for export. Recreational use stayed illegal.
๐ณ๐ฟ New Zealand Medical โ
New Zealand opens its medicinal cannabis scheme
Doctors may prescribe cannabis products that meet a national quality standard, dispensed by pharmacies. A referendum on full legalisation failed narrowly later the same year.
1820+2 points
๐น๐ผ Taiwan Easing โ
Taiwan's top court rejects the five-year minimum for growing cannabis
In Interpretation No. 790 the Council of Grand Justices found the mandatory minimum of five years for growing cannabis disproportionate, in the case of a Tainan man sentenced for six potted plants grown for his own use, and gave lawmakers a year to amend the law.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Death penalty โ
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 Courtโs 2025 guidance expressly barred life or death where mitigation existed and explained further sentencing reductions for specified cooperation circumstances.
๐บ๐ฟ Uzbekistan Hemp โ Article
Uzbekistan licenses industrial cannabis below 0.2% THC
Law ZRU-612 added Article 21ยน to the 1999 narcotics law, allowing licensed legal entities to cultivate, import, export, process, store, sell, acquire and transport cannabis containing no more than 0.2% THC for industrial purposes unrelated to producing narcotic or psychotropic substances.
๐ธ๐ฒ San Marino Debate โ
San Marino shelves a plan to regulate recreational cannabis
In 2019 the Grand and General Council approved a citizens' proposal that would have allowed 30 grams and four plants. In March 2020 it backed away, saying it would wait to follow Italy.
๐ฒ๐ต Northern Mariana Islands Other law โ
Northern Mariana Islands adopt rules to start licensing cannabis businesses
The cannabis commission approved emergency rules for producers, retailers, processors, wholesalers and lounges, preparing the industry for business applications. Its chair linked the accelerated timetable to the COVID-19 revenue shortfall and economic diversification. The commission reserved medical, laboratory and edible-processing rules for later work; it began accepting applications that August.
๐ป๐จ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Easing โ Article
Saint Vincent's two-ounce reform enters force
Act No. 10 of 2019 took effect by proclamation. Possession of up to 56 g remained an offence but ceased to be arrestable or detainable, with a fine capped at EC$500 and a procedure that can discharge liability without court proceedings or a criminal record.
1122+11 points
๐ณ๐ต Nepal Debate โ
A former law minister registers a bill to legalise cannabis farming in Nepal
Sher Bahadur Tamang's private bill would have licensed farmers to grow cannabis, let them export it, and allowed sale to patients on a doctor's prescription and to drug makers. The draft also let a household grow six plants without a licence. It was never put to a vote.
๐ณ๏ธ Abkhazia Death penalty โ Article
Abkhazia allows life or death for the most serious drug dealing
Abkhaziaโs 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.
51โ4 points
๐ง๐ฒ Bermuda Debate โ
Bermuda expands its cannabis plan beyond medical use
Bermudaโs government announced a broader licensing proposal covering adult use, personal and commercial cultivation, and retail sales. Attorney-General Kathy Lynn Simmons said feedback on the earlier medical-only proposal had questioned its complexity and asked for wider reform. The resulting licensing bill reached the governor in 2022, when the UK instructed her not to assent to it as drafted.
๐ฒ๐ฑ Mali Hemp โ
Mali withdraws its hemp-growing authorisation
Mali withdrew the industrial-hemp authorisation granted in 2017 for a supervised production project. Central drug office director Adama Tounkara said the producers had sought to change the agreed terms, leading to a new decision cancelling permission. He confirmed the withdrawal at a May press conference as claims that the project was still operating circulated on social media.
๐จ๐ป Cabo Verde Debate โ
Cabo Verde's president vetoes authorisation to rewrite the 1993 drug law
Parliament had authorised the government to draft a new drug law that included suspended sentences with compulsory treatment. President Jorge Carlos Fonseca vetoed it after the Constitutional Court found the delegation too broad and indeterminate.
๐ธ๐ฆ Saudi Arabia Easing โ
Saudi Arabia abolishes discretionary flogging
Decree M/40, issued by the Supreme Court sitting in full session on 18 February 2020, abolished the ta'zir penalty of flogging and said that courts should impose imprisonment and/or a fine, or an alternative penalty, in ta'zir cases. The source does not say which offences are ta'zir, so it does not link the change to drug offences.
๐ท๐บ Russia Hemp โ
Russia sets a 0.1% THC limit for industrial hemp
Government Resolution 101 of 6 February allowed registered varieties of hemp to be grown for industry if the leaves and flowering tops hold no more than 0.1% THC, and barred seed of the fourth and later generations. It replaced a 2007 resolution on hemp varieties. For medicine it allowed the opium poppy, not cannabis. The hemp area had grown to 10,200 hectares in 2019.
๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar Easing โ
Qatar lowers the personal-use drug sentence
Law 3 of 2020, published in Official Gazette issue 4 of 18 February 2020, amended article 37 of the 1987 narcotics law. Personal-use possession, cultivation and use now carry six months to three years and a fine of QR10,000 to QR20,000. The English consolidation, marked as amended only by Law 1 of 2006, still shows the earlier range of two to five years and QR50,000 to QR100,000.
๐ฐ๐ณ Saint Kitts and Nevis Medical โ
Saint Kitts and Nevis tables a medicinal cannabis law
The Cannabis Bill 2020 provided for a Medicinal Cannabis Authority to regulate and license the cultivation, supply, possession, production and use of medicinal cannabis. It became the Cannabis Act, No. 8 of 2020, which a 2023 bill proposed to amend.
๐ฐ๐ณ Saint Kitts and Nevis Easing โ
Saint Kitts and Nevis raises the limit to 56 g
Parliament raised the amount treated as a ticketable infraction from 15 g to 56 g and passed a Cannabis Act for medical and religious use. The medicinal licensing parts were brought fully into force in 2023.
2932+3 points
๐ฒ๐ผ Malawi Medical โ
Malawi legalises cannabis for medicine and industry
Parliament allowed cannabis to be grown and processed under licence for medical and industrial use, as an alternative to tobacco. Recreational use stayed illegal.
๐ฆ๐บ Australia ยท Australian Capital Territory Legalisation โ
The Australian Capital Territory legalises possession and growing
Adults in Canberra may possess 50 g and grow two plants each, four per household. Selling remains illegal, and so does buying seeds. No other state or territory has followed.
๐ฆ๐ผ Aruba Tightening โ
Aruba withdraws the CBD exemption for supplements and other products
Aruba withdrew the rule that exempted specified low-THC CBD products, including supplements, foods and external-use preparations, from medicinal classification. Health minister Dangui Oduber said the December rule did not fully match the intended CBD policy. The health inspectorateโs current guidance treats CBD products with no more than 0.2% THC as medicines requiring permission for commercial import, storage and distribution.
๐บ๐ฌ Uganda Medical โ
Uganda approves cannabis exports for medicine
The health ministry approved exports of medicinal cannabis, requiring exporters to hold at least $1 million in capital and a $5 million reserve.
๐ณ๐ต Nepal Debate โ
Nepali lawmakers ask for cannabis to be legalised
A ruling-party MP and 47 other lawmakers filed a motion in parliament seeking legalisation. A private bill followed in March 2020, and in May 2024 the finance minister announced plans to allow medicinal cannabis; none has become law.
๐ฒ๐ณ Mongolia Tightening โ Article
Mongolia raises the organised-group drug penalty
Amendments recorded in Article 20.7 add acquisition without a selling purpose and a separate organised-criminal-group provision carrying twelve to twenty years or life imprisonment. The ordinary non-sale range remains one to five years of travel restriction or imprisonment. This records the dated amendment, not a new personal-use allowance or an ordinary life sentence.
๐ฒ๐ญ Marshall Islands Enforcement โ
Marshall Islands reports suspended jail term for a personal cannabis import
A January newspaper report described a six-month suspended sentence and a $1,000 fine for Gandhi Heine after he pleaded guilty to importing marijuana. His lawyer said the cannabis was for personal use to relieve back pain. Chief Justice Carl Ingram approved the plea agreement, which included probation conditions restricting travel outside Majuro.
๐จ๐ฟ Czechia Medical โ Article
Czech health insurers start paying for medical cannabis
Patients had been paying the full price since 2013, which kept the programme tiny. Insurers now cover 90% of the cost for up to 30 g a month, and the number of patients grew quickly.
๐ฒ๐ฌ Madagascar Enforcement โ
Madagascar's gendarmerie seizes 53 tonnes of cannabis in a year
The Gendarmerie Nationale seized close to 53 tonnes of cannabis during 2020. An Antsiranana operation in May and June seized more than 16 tonnes, destroyed over 80,000 plants and led to 80 arrests; another operation burned more than 100 hectares at Analabe in July. A GI-TOC investigation found that cannabis supplied rural livelihoods and domestic markets while officers described difficulties policing armed trafficking groups in remote growing areas.
๐ฎ๐ถ Iraq Easing โ
Iraqi Kurdistan's new drug law treats users as patients
The Kurdistan Region replaced Iraq's Law 68 of 1965 with a narcotics law of its own that treats addicts and users as patients. In 2023 the head of the region's judicial council called for it to be made harsher, with at least five years in prison for users and life or death for traffickers.
๐ธ๐ฟ Eswatini Debate โ
Eswatini's health ministry tables a medical cannabis bill
The bill would amend the 1922 drugs act to allow cannabis for medicine and research, and create a Medicines Regulatory Authority able to import, export and trade cannabis wholesale. Growers in the Hhohho region and the Eswatini Cannabis Association opposed it, saying the regulator would be both referee and player. An MP moved that it be withdrawn for more consultation.
๐ง๐ท Brazil Medical โ
A court lets Apepi grow and supply cannabis oil nationwide
In a case against the health regulator Anvisa and the federal government, the Rio de Janeiro association Apepi, founded by parents of children with epilepsy, won authorisation to grow, transport, handle, research and supply cannabis oil to families across the country. By August 2023 it had about eight thousand members.
Read on from here in the whole history โ