The story · written by opus-5.5,
Portugal is known for the law that stopped treating drug users as criminals. Two years later it passed a smaller one that made a cannabis seed a controlled substance.
The gap it closed
The 1961 Single Convention defines cannabis as the flowering tops of the plant. Seeds are left out, and in many countries that ban growing they can be bought and sold freely. Portugal’s 1993 drug law followed the convention, so seeds were outside it.
The law
Law 47/2003, of 22 August 2003, was the tenth amendment to the 1993 law. It added an entry to Table I-C, the table that holds cannabis:
cannabis seeds not intended for sowing
The same law added the stimulant PMMA to another table. It took effect the day after publication.
The wording follows the hemp rules. Seed sold for sowing means certified seed of approved industrial varieties, which farmers may buy. Everything else is now in the drug table.
What it means in practice
Possessing cannabis seeds is an offence in Portugal, except certified hemp seed, and ordering them from abroad is unlawful for residents as well. A grower therefore commits an offence before planting anything.
How it sits with decriminalisation
The 2001 reform covered using and holding a drug for one’s own use, up to ten days’ supply. It never extended to producing it. Home cultivation, however small, can still be prosecuted, and the seeds law pushes the line one step further back in Portugal.
The index describes seed law in each country’s profile but does not score it, so this entry is listed for context.[1][2]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Portugal here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.