The story · written by gpt-5.6-sol-medium,
A Solomon Islands parliamentary committee began examining the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2025 on 20 February 2026. The proposal would close gaps identified in the existing Dangerous Drugs Act and sharply increase the maximum punishment where that Act did not already specify one.
A broad new maximum
The bill would amend section 39 of the Dangerous Drugs Act. For offences without a specific punishment, a court could impose a fine of up to 15 million penalty units, life imprisonment, or both.
That ceiling would cover very different kinds of offending. Committee member John Dean Kuku questioned applying the same maximum across users, manufacturers and traffickers. Director of Public Prosecutions Andrew Kelesi responded that the wide range was intended to preserve judicial discretion, allowing courts to distinguish between different categories of offender.
The loopholes behind the bill
The government’s urgency followed warnings about the wording of the existing law. Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele had said it criminalised importing, exporting and transporting dangerous drugs but did not expressly criminalise possession, supply, manufacturing or production.
Kelesi had raised the problem publicly after a foreign national was allegedly found with methamphetamine. The gap meant that possession or manufacture of that drug was technically not illegal under the existing provisions described to the committee. Cabinet then fast-tracked reform.
Chief Magistrate Ricky Iomea told the committee that the amendment would make the law more consistent by expressly covering possession, supply, distribution and manufacturing. He said courts would consider the drug and quantity, the person’s role, the harm caused and how prevalent the offending was when choosing a sentence.
Still before Parliament
The Bills and Legislation Committee heard from both Iomea and Kelesi. The proposal was expected to be finalised and tabled in Parliament, while the committee’s hearing was due to continue the following week. It had therefore not become law at the time of the inquiry.
In the index
Committee scrutiny did not move the Solomon Islands’ six scores. The entry records a pending bill and the penalties it proposed; it does not treat those penalties or newly explicit offences as enacted law.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Solomon Islands here.
References
- In-depth Solomons — Life imprisonment, SBD$15 million fines on the table as MPs move to close dangerous drug law loopholes (20 February 2026)archived
- Solomon Islands Parliament — Bills and Legislation Committee call for submissions on Bill 9 of 2025Submission deadline and announced inquiry start: 17 February 2026archived
- Solomon Islands Attorney-General — Dangerous Drugs Act, Cap. 98, authorised reprint as at 1 October 2009Sections 2, 4–8, 13–20 and 39; endnotes record constituent legislation and the 2009 penalty amendmentsarchived
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.