San Marino punishes simple possession like supply

Signed at the Captains Regent’s residence on 10 March 1988 and in force fifteen days after official publication, Law No. 32 stopped treating simple cannabis possession as a lesser matter. Law No. 32 put unauthorised production, introduction, possession for sale and supply under second-degree imprisonment — and punished simple possession exactly the same, annulling the lighter treatment the 1956 law had given it along with every other 1956 provision.^[1]

Closing the 1956 gap

The 1956 narcotics law had been built on the 1931 convention and did not name cannabis, though it pointed to other decrees that probably did. By 1988 the republic wrote its own answer: a decree table listing marijuana, hashish, THC, hashish oil and sinsemilla as the cannabis group, and a statute punishing the whole chain from production to simple holding.^[1]

Procedure around the punishment

The law also regulated how judges use their discretion. Substances merely equated with narcotics counted as such only for profit-driven offences presenting a particularly serious health risk; judges had to give reasons for every discretionary choice and order expert opinions on drug dependency, including whenever consumption had shaped an offence.^[1] The statute applied retroactively whenever that favoured the offender, unless the sentence was already irrevocable.^[1]

Punish, but treat

The law paired severity with exits. A minor offence for declared personal use could drop a degree; judges could order treatment probation with health examinations, therapy and even hospitalisation instead of prison; and a successful probation could end in a judicial pardon.^[1] Aggravation ran the other way: particular gravity, profit motive, exploiting another’s dependence or supplying the young raised punishment by one or two degrees.^[1]

Nine years, then rewritten

The 1988 additions stood until Law No. 139 of November 1997 repealed both the 1956 law and the 1988 one, re-enacting the same cannabis core with fuller procedure, alcohol provisions and an exemption for institute-recognised medical use.^[2] The 1988 statute is thus the hinge of modern Sammarinese drug law: the moment simple possession joined supply at the top of the penalty scale. The San Marino profile shows the regime that grew out of it.