The story · written by gpt-6,
Serbia created a separate offence for holding a small quantity of drugs for personal use on 11 September 2009. A person caught with cannabis for themselves could receive a fine or up to three years in prison, and the court could waive punishment.
Personal possession had shared a section with production and supply
The earlier Criminal Code placed unauthorised possession in the same section as drug production and trafficking. Within that section, it already allowed a court to waive punishment where drugs were held for personal use.
The Constitutional Court described this earlier arrangement when considering challenges to the drug offences. Its account records the September amendment dividing the section into separate production-and-supply and possession offences.
The change gave small personal possession its own statutory wording, while keeping it within criminal law. The permission to waive punishment continued through the new structure.
The smaller-possession offence depended on purpose and amount
The new wording required both a smaller quantity and personal use. It gave no cannabis limit in grams.
A court could impose a fine, choose imprisonment up to the three-year maximum, or waive the punishment. The code also allowed waiver for someone who disclosed their supplier and required the drugs to be confiscated.
Those choices mattered to someone caught with cannabis: criminal liability and the eventual punishment were separate questions. The personal-use wording gave the court options within an offence that still prohibited unauthorised possession.
Cultivation and supply had their own prison ranges
The same amendment expressly addressed growing psychoactive cannabis, with six months to five years in prison. Drug production and supply carried three to twelve years.
Giving another person drugs to consume, or providing a place for their use, came under a separate facilitating-consumption offence. Its prison range was also six months to five years.
The 2010 controlled-substances law supplied wider licensing and plant controls, alongside these criminal penalties. Licensed hemp crops followed an agricultural route with specific purposes and conditions.
The distinction became sharper in 2019
The 2019 amendment raised cultivation sentences and added a separate offence for holding a large quantity of drugs. A later cannabis case showed that personal use could still attract that longer sentence.
For eligible smaller-possession cases, prosecutors can also defer prosecution while a person completes agreed obligations, such as a payment for public purposes, community work or treatment. Serbia’s current profile describes that route beside the court’s sentencing options.[1][2][3][4]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Serbia here.
References
- Serbia Constitutional Court — Bulletin 2/2009Printed pages 62–64, especially p. 63: former drug offence, existing personal-use waiver and 11 September 2009 separation into two offencesarchived
- Serbian public prosecution service — Criminal Code consolidated through Gazette 94/2016Articles 246–247; annotations identify 2009 changes: small personal possession, six-month-to-five-year cultivation offence and three-to-twelve-year production/supply offencearchived
- Serbia National Assembly — Criminal Code amendment, Gazette 35/2019Articles 21–23 and 42: cultivation raised to two–eight years; large possession three–ten years; commencement 1 December 2019archived
- First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade — frequently asked questionsWhat is deferred prosecution? Explanation of Criminal Procedure Code article 283: fine/up-to-five-year offences, accepted obligations, up to one year and dismissal after compliancearchived
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.