Religion
Religious use of cannabis and religious rules on it.
37 entries, 1855–2026 · 5 moved a score · back to the whole history
World average score and Religion 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.
20262 entries0 score changes
🇰🇪 Kenya Other law ✓
Kenya's High Court upholds the cannabis ban against a Rastafari challenge
Justice Bahati Mwamuye dismissed in its entirety a petition by the Rastafari Society of Kenya against the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act that criminalise possessing, using and growing cannabis. The society had asked only for an exemption for private use in worship. The court found that the petitioners had not proved a violation of their rights, that any limit was justified by public health and safety, and that they had not first used other legal and administrative routes. The judge added that cannabis use is now widespread, questioned whether scarce enforcement resources should go on small amounts, and called for a full and frank conversation, while saying that a change of policy belongs to other institutions and not the courts.
🇳🇵 Nepal Culture & science ✓
Cannabis smoking continues at Nepal's Shivaratri gathering
Associated Press documented holy men and other devotees smoking cannabis at the Shivaratri gathering near Pashupatinath, despite the national prohibition.
20243 entries0 score changes
🇧🇸 Bahamas Other law ✓
The Bahamas enacts a cannabis framework
The Cannabis Act received assent on 26 July. It lays out medical and religious access, licences and a $250 fixed penalty for possession below 30 g, but allows different provisions to commence on dates appointed by the minister. Enactment alone therefore did not change the operative rules.
🇻🇮 US Virgin Islands Other law ✓
US Virgin Islands certify the rules for cannabis licences and patient cards
Lieutenant Governor Tregenza Roach certified and attested the cannabis rules on 13 May, following Governor Albert Bryan Jr.’s approval dated 4 May. The rules covered patient registration, business applications, testing and sacramental use, and distinguished conditional awards from permission to buy or sell cannabis. Conditional dispensary approvals followed in January 2026.
🇸🇽 Sint Maarten Debate ✓ Article
Sint Maarten forms a committee to prepare cannabis legalisation
Sint Maarten established a committee to prepare cannabis rules for medical, scientific, religious and recreational purposes. Its mandate covered research into the effects of prohibition, conditions for growing and selling cannabis, and changes to possession and use offences. The regulation cited people continuing to be punished for possession and cultivation, alongside the government’s interest in new revenue.
20232 entries0 score changes
🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis Easing ✓
Saint Kitts and Nevis recognises Rastafari rights and licenses personal growing
Parliament approved the Rastafari Rights Recognition Bill, which lets registered groups grow and use cannabis as a sacrament at their places of assembly, and the prime minister apologised to the Rastafari community. A companion Freedom of Conscience (Cannabis) Act lets adults apply for licences to grow up to five plants in a secured part of a private home, to carry limited amounts in permitted public places and to smoke in designated areas; the government made the application forms available in April 2026 and waived the fees until the end of that year.
🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda Easing ✓
Antigua and Barbuda grants three Rastafari communities sacramental authorizations
The Medicinal Cannabis Authority issued sacramental authorizations to Nyabinghi Theocracy Church Inc., Rasfreeman Foundation for Unification of Rastafari and Wan Love Chant, allowing religious cultivation and use under the Cannabis Act framework. The authorizations were for sacramental purposes, not commercial business.
20212 entries0 score changes
🇳🇦 Namibia Debate ✓
Namibian cannabis users challenge the ban in the High Court
Brian Jaftha, president of Ganja Users of Namibia and of the Rastafari United Front, and the group's secretary general Borro Ndungula asked the Windhoek High Court to declare the prohibition on adult possession and use of cannabis unconstitutional. They argued that the ban rests on outdated views and was partly motivated by a racist political agenda against the Rastafari religion. The government answered that the justice minister had approved a review of the cannabis laws by the Law Reform and Development Commission, so the claim was premature.
🇬🇩 Grenada Debate ✓
Grenada's first decriminalisation bill is tabled and lapses
Agriculture minister Peter David laid a bill before the House that would have let anyone over 18 hold 28 g and each homeowner grow five plants, and allowed Rastafarian use in places of worship. It died when Parliament was dissolved before the June 2022 election.
20202 entries1 score change
🇮🇱 Israel Culture & science ✓
Burnt cannabis is found on an altar of a biblical-era shrine at Arad
Chemists re-examining the two altars from the Judahite shrine at Tel Arad, excavated in the 1960s and in use only around 760–715 BC, found THC, CBD and CBN in the residue on the smaller one: cannabis flowers mixed with animal dung so that they would burn slowly. The larger altar held frankincense. The authors, writing in the journal Tel Aviv, called it the earliest evidence for the use of cannabis in the Ancient Near East and suggested it was burnt for its effect, not its smell.
🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis Easing ✓
Saint Kitts and Nevis raises the limit to 56 g
Parliament raised the amount treated as a ticketable infraction from 15 g to 56 g and passed a Cannabis Act for medical and religious use. The medicinal licensing parts were brought fully into force in 2023.
2932+3 points
20192 entries2 score changes
🇧🇧 Barbados Medical ✓ Article
Barbados legalises medical and sacramental cannabis
Two laws set up a licensed medical cannabis industry and allowed Rastafari to use cannabis as a sacrament at their places of worship.
1112+1 point
🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda Easing ✓ Article
Antigua and Barbuda passes its Cannabis Act
The Cannabis Act, 2018 (No. 28 of 2018) regulates cannabis for medicinal and scientific use through an Antigua and Barbuda Medicinal Cannabis Authority. It lets adherents of religious bodies, including Rastafari, register to cultivate more than four plants and possess more than 15 grams for sacramental use. The Governor-General assented on 22 January 2019 and it was gazetted on 24 January 2019. The four-plant household limit and the 15 g decriminalisation came earlier, in the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2018.
3637+1 point
20183 entries0 score changes
🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Debate ✓
Rastafari reject a religious-use cannabis law
The government withdrew its Permitted Use of Cannabis for Religious Purposes Bill before the debate on the medical cannabis laws. Rastafari representatives had told the select committee that the state cannot grant a right to their sacrament, and that a law would expose their worship to scrutiny by international drug control bodies.
🇮🇷 Iran Culture & science ✓ Article
Most of Iran's senior clerics tell researchers cannabis is not forbidden outright
Researchers sent eight questions on cannabis to nineteen of the leading Shia authorities and published the answers of the eight who replied. Six treated its lawfulness as conditional. Grand Ayatollah Sistani answered that using cannabis is not forbidden in itself, though intoxicating or harmful derivatives are, and that growing and exporting it are allowed; Makarem Shirazi accepted pharmaceutical quantities under strict supervision. All eight held that hashish is not ritually impure. Most favoured supervised medical use.
🇳🇵 Nepal Tightening ✓
Nepal's police say they will arrest cannabis users at Shivaratri
Ahead of Mahashivaratri the Pashupatinath trust and police announced that visitors caught smoking or holding cannabis at the temple would be arrested, ending the tolerance long shown on the festival day. Sadhus stayed exempt but were told not to sell or offer it to visitors. Police said they had rounded up about 300 people for cannabis in the five months before.
20172 entries0 score changes
🇻🇺 Vanuatu Enforcement ✓
Vanuatu gives eight villagers community work for cannabis offences
Eight first offenders from Bankir village on Malekula each received fifty hours of community work and six months’ probation for cannabis cultivation or possession. The case concerned conduct dating to 2009, with several defendants describing single small plants. The judge applied the 2013 personal-growing guidance and warned one defendant that his church belief did not permit him to continue growing cannabis.
🇮🇳 India Easing ✓
Gujarat takes bhang off its list of intoxicating drugs
Gujarat, a state with alcohol prohibition, removed bhang from the intoxicating drugs covered by its Prohibition Act. The minister of state for home said bhang is consumed only as an offering of Lord Shiva, and that the government had decided to exempt it in view of public sentiment.