Amnesty and pardons
Pardons, amnesties, resentencing and clearing records.
41 entries, 1969–2026 · 9 moved a score · back to the whole history
World average score and Amnesty and pardons entries per decade
13.2 today, from 99.1 in 1860
World average score, every country counted the same Entries that moved a score Context only
No entries for the chosen countries here.
20265 entries1 score change
🇬🇩 Grenada Legalisation ✓ Article
Grenada legalises possession and home growing
From February 2026 adults aged 21 and over may possess 56 g of cannabis, and four plants at a household are outside the growing offence. The agriculture ministry says a grower registers with the Cannabis Secretariat before planting, and that the rules for signing up would follow. Parliament passed the bill with support from both sides. Past convictions for those amounts are wiped, and sale remains an offence.
1139+28 points
🇿🇦 South Africa Debate ✓
South Africa publishes draft limits for private cannabis
The justice department gazetted draft regulations under the 2024 Cannabis for Private Purposes Act and invited comments until 5 March 2026. They would cap an adult's possession at 750 grams, in private or in public, and private growing at five plants of any size or strain, and set rules for carrying cannabis in a vehicle out of sight and for expunging old convictions. Until they are made final the Act is not in force.
20253 entries0 score changes
🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda Easing ✓
Antigua and Barbuda plans to wipe old cannabis convictions
After its weekly meeting the Cabinet said it would bring a bill to the next sitting of Parliament to pardon people convicted of possessing less than 15 grams of marijuana and to expunge their records. The attorney general was asked to draft it. Whether the bill has passed was not confirmed.
🇧🇾 Belarus Easing ✓ Article
Belarus widens amnesty eligibility for first-time drug offenders
People with no previous convictions became eligible for amnesty consideration across the principal personal-possession and supply offences, subject to the law’s conditions. The anniversary amnesty included a one-year reduction route for eligible prison and restriction-of-liberty sentences. It followed March’s sentencing reform; the first-conviction exception did not extend to supply causing death.
🇧🇾 Belarus Debate ✓
Belarus’s lower house backs sentence cuts for first-time drug offenders
Belarus’s lower house approved an amnesty bill that would cut a year from eligible first-time drug sentences. The proposal accompanied the eightieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War and still needed to complete the legislative process. The final law took effect on 8 May, widening eligibility while retaining exclusions and individual conditions.
20242 entries0 score changes
🇲🇦 Morocco Easing ✓ Article
Morocco's king pardons more than 4,800 cannabis growers
King Mohammed VI pardoned 4,831 people convicted, prosecuted or wanted in cases tied to growing cannabis, on the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People. The justice ministry said it would let them join the regions' new strategy for legal cannabis.
🇿🇦 South Africa Legalisation ✓
South Africa signs the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act
The president signed the law Parliament wrote in response to the 2018 court ruling. It removes cannabis from the drugs act and provides for old convictions to be expunged, but it has not been brought into force: regulations setting the limits are still in draft.
20234 entries1 score change
🇻🇮 US Virgin Islands Other law ✓
US Virgin Islands ask people with cannabis convictions to seek record relief
Government House asked people convicted in cases involving two ounces or less of cannabis to come forward for potential expungement. It said gaps in judicial data complicated the automatic process and identified Positive Nelson as head of the task force. Earlier that year, Governor Bryan had announced possession pardons and explained that clearing a conviction from the record required expungement.
🇧🇲 Bermuda Easing ✓ Article
Bermuda helps clear cannabis records that omit the amount possessed
Bermuda allowed qualifying old possession records with no cannabis weight recorded to be treated as involving seven grams or less, where the penalty did not exceed a $1,000 fine or twelve months’ conditional discharge. The change followed a government report that roughly forty of fifty-one applications could not be processed because the records omitted the amount. The new rules also clarified that additional elements of a qualifying sentence were cleared with the conviction.
20221 entry0 score changes
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🇧🇧 Barbados Easing ✓ Article
Barbados decriminalises 14 g
Possession of up to 14 g became a fixed-penalty matter: a $200 penalty payable within 30 days, which discharges any liability to conviction. Not paying is an offence with a $1,000 fine. People under 18 must also attend the National Council on Substance Abuse, and earlier convictions for up to 14 g are deemed expunged.
1222+10 points
🇧🇲 Bermuda Easing ✓ Article
Bermuda lets people apply to clear old cannabis possession convictions
Bermuda brought into force a process for people convicted of possessing seven grams of cannabis or less before 20 December 2017 to apply for an order clearing the conviction. The government launched online applications the next day, arguing that people convicted before decriminalisation should also benefit from reform. Old records that omitted the amount later blocked many applications, prompting new rules in 2023.
20202 entries0 score changes
🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands Debate ✓
BVI’s governor sets conditions before cannabis bills can receive assent
Governor Augustus Jaspert said a BVI cannabis licensing authority required preparatory work and an agreement with the UK Home Office before the licensing bill could receive assent. The UK Foreign Secretary also requested the separate record-clearing bill for further consideration, citing trafficking and security concerns. A July 2026 legal review still recorded both bills as unassented.
🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands Debate ✓ Article
BVI lawmakers approve a bill to clear some old cannabis convictions
The BVI House of Assembly passed a companion bill offering removal of some historic cannabis convictions involving up to 50 g of cannabis or 10 g of resin. Health minister Carvin Malone had argued that old records could block police certificates and employment as medical reform moved forward. The bill required assent, and a July 2026 official legal review still reported it awaiting that step.
20191 entry0 score changes
20182 entries1 score change
🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Medical ✓
Saint Vincent legalises a medical cannabis industry
Parliament passed laws licensing cultivation for medical use and export, with an amnesty meant to bring the island's traditional growers into the legal system.
🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda Legalisation ✓ Article
Antigua and Barbuda legalises 15 g and four plants
The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2018 (No. 3 of 2018) says a person holding up to 15 g of cannabis or resin is not guilty of an offence, lets each household grow up to four plants on its property and expunges earlier convictions for 15 g or less. Smoking in a public place brings a warning, then a $500 ticket, then a fine of up to $1,500. Assented on 1 March 2018 and gazetted on 5 March.
1136+25 points
20172 entries0 score changes
🇹🇳 Tunisia Easing ✓
Tunisia lets judges pardon first-time cannabis users
With a wider reform of Law 52 blocked in parliament, the National Security Council under President Beji Caid Essebsi let judges grant a pardon as soon as a first cannabis-use conviction is pronounced, so the person avoids prison. Trials under the law had risen from 732 in 2011 to 5,744 in 2016.
🇰🇪 Kenya Debate ✓ Article
Kenya's Senate hears a cannabis legalisation petition
The Senate presented Gwada Ogot's petition seeking cannabis decriminalisation, a regulator and amnesty for prisoners. A further presentation is recorded on November 29. This date follows the examined February Hansard; Carrier places the broader initiative in 2015. Presentation and committee referral did not change the law.
20162 entries0 score changes
🇸🇨 Seychelles Easing ✓
Seychelles invites drug prisoners to seek shorter remaining sentences
Prisoners sentenced under the old drug law could apply to a new tribunal to review the time they still had to serve. The judiciary’s public notice set an August deadline for people already convicted when the replacement law began, and a three-month application period for people convicted later on old charges. The tribunal could change a sentence while leaving the conviction intact, considering rehabilitation, the new sentencing range and the risk of reoffending.
🇸🇨 Seychelles Other law ✓ Article
Seychelles gives judges more discretion over cannabis sentences
Seychelles replaced its 1990 drug law, allowing courts to sentence cannabis offenders without the old mandatory minimum and letting prisoners apply for a review of their remaining terms. Home Affairs Minister Charles Bastienne promoted the replacement as a response to rising drug imprisonment and dependence, combining enforcement with treatment and rehabilitation. Later that year, a judge gave a first offender a suspended sentence for 115 grams of cannabis instead of the former 16-year minimum.
20141 entry0 score changes
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20091 entry1 score change
20082 entries1 score change
🇪🇨 Ecuador Easing ✓
Ecuador approves a conditional pardon for small-scale drug couriers
The Constituent Assembly approved a pardon for a defined group of people convicted of drug offences, including first offenders caught with no more than two kilograms, subject to sentence and time-served requirements. It covered controlled drugs generally, rather than cannabis alone. The measure relieved existing sentences; it did not legalise drug transport or possession and was separate from the new constitution adopted later that year. A contemporary report documented the release of a man sentenced to eight years after being caught with 61 grams of cannabis.
🇺🇦 Ukraine Easing ✓ Article
Ukraine moves the ordinary growing crime above 100 plants
From 7 May 2008, the ordinary criminal offence of unlawful cannabis or opium-poppy growing applied only above 100 plants, narrowing the offence in the 2001 code. The reform also added a fine and other sentencing options for ordinary possession without intent to sell. Its final provisions ordered release and case closures for conduct whose criminal liability it removed, while aggravated growing remained separately punishable. Parliament lowered the cannabis thresholds again in 2009.
1719+2 points
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19952 entries1 score change
🇺🇦 Ukraine Other law ✓ Article
Ukraine eases growing penalties but criminalises public drug use
Parliament’s 1995 drug-law overhaul put ordinary first unlawful grows under an administrative fine and confiscation, while retaining crimes for repetition and aggravated growing. It also made open or group drug use at educational, sporting and cultural venues, and other crowded places, punishable by up to four years in prison or a fine, rising to three to five years in aggravated cases. The changes followed the 1991 removal of general penalties for non-prescribed use. The law was adopted in February and took effect on publication under a companion resolution that ordered releases and case closures for specified growers.
1317+4 points
🇺🇦 Ukraine Easing ✓
Ukraine orders releases for specified cannabis-growing convictions
Parliament ordered release from punishment for people convicted of ordinary prohibited cultivation, or its repeat-offence form, when it adopted the drug-law implementation resolution on 15 February 1995. Pending cases in those categories were to be closed, including cases whose sentences were not yet final or being served. The new law gave ordinary first cultivation an administrative fine and confiscation, while retaining criminal penalties for repetition and aggravated growing. The resolution expressly excluded specified other cultivation convictions from release.
19912 entries1 score change
🇺🇦 Ukraine Easing ✓ Article
Ukraine removes penalties for drug use itself
A decree issued on 28 January 1991 removed drug use without a prescription from both the administrative offence and the repeat-offence crime introduced in 1987. It also narrowed compulsory treatment, set ordinary stays at six months to one year and ordered the release of people already confined for more than a year. People serving longer treatment orders were to have them shortened to one year, while courts could still extend confinement for specified misconduct up to a total of two years. Possession remained separately punishable, and parliament introduced a specific public-use crime in 1995.
1013+3 points
🇫🇲 Micronesia Other law ✓ Article
Pohnpei establishes a distinct state controlled-substances framework
The Pohnpei Code attributes its controlled-substances framework to State Law 2L-198-91, dated 27 June 1991. Its possession provision allows up to one month, $100 or both for an ounce or less, including small unpaid transfers treated as possession. It also provides a once-only conditional-discharge and expungement route for qualifying first offenders. These state provisions differ from the national code’s $50 fine; the 2012 edition is not proof of every subsequent amendment or typical sentencing.