Puerto Rico makes cannabis possession a felony carrying five to twenty years

Puerto Rico made cannabis possession a felony carrying five to twenty years in prison when its new narcotics law took effect on 18 June 1959. A possible fine of up to twenty thousand dollars came on top of imprisonment, replacing the earlier misdemeanor regime.

The earlier cannabis law already punished possession

Puerto Rico had adopted a cannabis law in 1932. A 1934 re-enactment punished growing, importing, holding, giving away and using cannabis with six months to two years in jail.

The Supreme Court later described the change in plain legal terms: the earlier offence was a misdemeanor, while the 1959 law made it a felony with a more burdensome penalty.

For someone carrying a small amount, the distinction therefore meant exposure to years of imprisonment under the new law.

The ban reached use and medical prescribing

The new law expressly prohibited cannabis possession, transfer, use, preparation, concealment and transportation. It covered mixtures and cigarettes containing any part or residue of cannabis.

Professionals otherwise authorised to prescribe narcotics could not prescribe or supply cannabis to a patient. Cannabis was placed alongside heroin and smoking opium in the section containing that prohibition.

Growing also required official permission. The permitted purpose was strictly supervised industrial production using stalk fibre stripped of the drug-containing substance or sterilised seeds incapable of germination.

A cigarette case showed why the change mattered

María Moreno Medina had been accused of carrying part of a cannabis cigarette in her handbag at the Bar El Cocodrilo in Ponce in May 1959. Her alleged conduct therefore preceded the new law.

When prosecutors later filed the formal charge, they used language from the new narcotics statute. In its 1961 decision, the Supreme Court explained that she could not be prosecuted under the harsher law for earlier conduct.

Her case remained dismissed because the formal prosecution had also been filed outside the applicable time limit.

Personal possession received a different rule in 1971

The 1971 controlled-substances law introduced a personal-possession penalty of one to three years and a probation route for eligible first offenders. Its immediate-effect rule extended those benefits to people convicted afterwards even if charged under previous legislation.

Decades later, the 2015 medical initiative began the administrative route towards lawful patient supply. The current Puerto Rico profile describes that medical programme alongside the continuing criminal prohibition outside it.^[1][2][3]