Cannabis Freedom Index

Visitors

Rules for tourists and foreigners.

25 entries, 1961–2026 · 4 moved a score · back to the whole history

World average score and Visitors 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

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20261 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇹🇭 Thailand Tightening ✓

    Thailand lets foreigners be deported without a conviction

    An Office of the Prime Minister regulation on deportation took effect, allowing foreigners to be deported for conduct considered contrary to public order, good morals or the wellbeing of the public, without a criminal conviction, and introducing the possibility of re-entry bans. The regulation is not specific to drugs.

20254 entries0 score changes

  1. December10
  2. August10
  3. July10
  4. May10

    1. 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates Tightening ✓

      The UAE brings back mandatory deportation for drug offences

      Amendments to the drug decree-law require courts to deport foreigners convicted of narcotics offences once they have served their sentence, except the spouse or close relative of a citizen, or a member of a resident family that deportation would seriously harm. Doctors and dispensers who supply drugs without a valid prescription face at least five years in prison. A new National Anti-Narcotics Authority takes over from the interior ministry.

    1. 🇨🇬 Congo Other law ✓ Article

      Congo separates small personal quantities from wider drug trafficking

      Small personal possession, purchase or growing carried one to six months for a cannabis derivative other than oil, and two months to one year for high-risk drugs including cannabis oil; a fine alone was possible in either tier. Wider high-risk trafficking carried two to ten years, a fine, or both. President Denis Sassou-N'Guesso signed the law after parliament debated the need to replace an outdated drug-control system.

    1. 🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe Enforcement ✓ Article

      São Tomé police arrest three in a park with cannabis and amphetamines

      Judicial police arrested three men in Parque Popular with about 30 grams of liamba, or cannabis, and three doses of amphetamines. Two were São Toméan and one Portuguese; all were suspected of trafficking, and the judicial authorities imposed bail. RSTP’s August report quoted a police announcement and recalled the previous year’s raids on cannabis fields and sales points.

    1. 🇹🇭 Thailand Enforcement ✓

      Thailand warns tourists against taking cannabis out of the country

      As cases of travellers smuggling cannabis rose, the health minister, Somsak Thepsutin, said it was against Thai law to take cannabis out of the country without permission from the authorities, and that shops would soon be allowed to sell only to customers with a prescription. In March 375 kg had been seized in 22 suitcases at Samui airport and 13 foreigners arrested.

20231 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇱🇷 Liberia Tightening ✓ Article

    Liberia adds prison minimums for cannabis use and bars trafficking bail

    President George Weah signed a drug law setting four months to one year for first-time Schedule I drug use, including cannabis, and raising repeat use to a second-degree felony. Cannabis trafficking became non-bailable; personal possession and cultivation remained separate second-degree felonies with cash bail set at twice the bond. After a dispute over bail in the Senate, the signed law also required deportation of non-Liberians convicted under it and drug clearance for institutional admission or employment.

20221 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇶🇦 Qatar Enforcement ✓

    World Cup visitors are warned that Qatar arrests for the smallest amounts

    Ahead of the football World Cup, a news agency's guide for fans described Qatar as one of the most restrictive countries in the world on drugs: cannabis is prohibited, as are some common medicines; bags and passengers are scanned at Hamad International Airport, and travellers carrying even very small quantities have been arrested. Smuggling charges can carry the death penalty.

20211 entry1 score change

  1. 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates Easing ✓ Article

    The UAE reduces penalties for drug offences

    Federal Decree-Law 30 of 2021, in force from 2 January 2022, lowered the penalties for use and possession: three months in prison or a fine of 20,000 to 100,000 dirhams for a first offence, six months for a second within three years, and two years for a third. A court may send a first offender to a treatment centre instead, for up to a year. Deportation of foreigners convicted of use stopped being automatic, and a first-time visitor carrying food or products containing drugs has them confiscated without being charged.

    02+2 points

20202 entries1 score change

  1. 🇲🇰 North Macedonia Debate ✓

    North Macedonia's prime minister floats cannabis for tourists

    Zoran Zaev said the government was considering legalising recreational use in hospitality venues and tourist areas, among them Skopje and Ohrid. He left office in 2022 and the plan was never carried out.

  2. 🇸🇨 Seychelles Medical ✓ Article

    Seychelles allows cannabidiol medicines

    Patients could apply for approval to obtain prescribed CBD medicines from 1 July 2020, after a specialist assessed their condition and the failure of earlier treatment. The rules followed litigation by Ralph Volcere seeking access for his mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. They allowed only tightly defined CBD products through authorised pharmacies, with a 30-day supply limit; smoking and growing cannabis remained forbidden.

    1112+1 point

20161 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇰🇮 Kiribati Enforcement ✓ Article

    Kiribati fines a sailor whose prescribed marijuana was a prohibited import

    Portuguese sailor Joao Afonso was fined A$1,600 on a marijuana charge after the court accepted that it was part of his prescribed treatment but held it was a prohibited import in Kiribati. The sentence records 0.03 grams on his yacht. Chief Justice John Muria took his health and cooperation into account, imposed a fine with three months in prison for default, and declined to confiscate the yacht.

20151 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇰🇮 Kiribati Enforcement ✓

    Kiribati jails a sailor and confiscates his yacht in a cannabis case

    Lyderic Morlier received nine months in prison and total fines of A$4,400 after admitting drug cultivation, prohibited import and immigration offences. The prison terms ran together, with credit for time already spent in custody. The court also confiscated his yacht, two engines, vessel-monitoring equipment and radios under the drug law.

20141 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇱🇷 Liberia Other law ✓ Article

    Liberia makes personal possession a felony and offers users treatment

    People holding Schedule I drugs for themselves faced a second-degree felony under the new law, replacing the public-health law’s misdemeanor for unauthorised possession. Growing for personal use became a lower-grade felony than growing for trafficking. Use was a separate offence, and courts could order treatment, education or rehabilitation instead of conviction or punishment. The law took effect on publication on 21 October 2014.

20121 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇳🇱 Netherlands Tightening ✓ Article

    The Netherlands restricts coffeeshops to residents

    Private-club and residence criteria were enforced in Limburg, North Brabant and Zeeland from May 2012. Access depended on residence in the Netherlands, rather than nationality. In November the government dropped the club requirement while retaining the residence criterion, with local discretion over enforcement.

20051 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇻🇺 Vanuatu Medical ✓

    Vanuatu’s revised drug rules exempt travellers’ labelled medicines

    The drug law’s exemption, revised in 2005, covered a personal-use preparation in a reasonable amount, correctly labelled and accompanied by a doctor’s letter from the traveller’s country of origin. The same law separately provided medical or scientific import permits and exemptions for medicines properly prescribed and supplied by qualified practitioners or pharmacists. Cannabis and resin remained listed drugs, with cultivation prohibited outside the later licensed industry route.

19952 entries1 score change

  1. 🇰🇼 Kuwait Death penalty ✓ Article

    Kuwait expands death penalties for drug trafficking and repeat offences

    An amendment expanded capital punishment for drug importation and trafficking, with a contemporary Philippine government notice reporting commencement in August. That notice warned departing workers that repeated smuggling, manufacture and growing drug plants attracted mandatory death. Kuwait’s judicial institute also records the amendment’s three-month transition and the rule that harsher penalties could apply only to later conduct.

    20−2 points

  2. 🇩🇯 Djibouti Other law ✓ Article

    Djibouti's new penal code sets separate penalties for use and supply

    Illicit drug use carried up to one year and a fine, possession up to ten years, and production or import up to twenty under the penal code that took effect on 16 April. Courts could impose just one of the listed penalties under its general sentencing rules. The code followed French drug legislation used before independence and Djibouti's approval of accession to UN drug conventions in 1992.

19941 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso Other law ✓

    Burkina Faso punishes drug possession and group use in its health code

    Holding narcotics without a legitimate reason carried six days to six months in prison, a fine, or both under the health code adopted by parliament. Group use and helping someone else use drugs carried one to five years, a fine, or both, with doubled penalties for illicit growing or manufacture. These national health-law offences preceded the 1996 Penal Code and the more detailed drug code adopted in 1999.

19931 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇲🇷 Mauritania Death penalty ✓ Article

    Mauritania sets death penalties for repeat and aggravated drug offences

    Producing, growing or trafficking high-risk drugs carried fifteen to thirty years in prison and a fine, with death for repeat offences; organised crime, violence, weapons or a death caused by the drugs could also bring capital punishment. Simple illicit use carried up to two years, a fine alone, or both, with treatment routes that could prevent prosecution. President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya signed the law nineteen days after Mauritania joined the UN convention against drug trafficking.

19711 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇩🇯 Djibouti Other law ✓ Article

    Djibouti publishes French drug penalties and treatment rules

    The local official journal published French rules punishing illicit drug use with two months to one year, a fine alone, or both, and providing treatment routes away from prosecution. Ordinary trafficking carried two to ten years, while production, import and export carried ten to twenty. The law expressly applied its criminal rules to overseas territories, with local assemblies setting treatment arrangements in the French Territory of the Afars and Issas.

19703 entries0 score changes

  1. 🇲🇿 Mozambique Tightening ✓ Article

    Mozambique receives Portugal's prison terms for cannabis offences

    Portugal extended its new drug law to Mozambique, exposing people who possessed or obtained cannabis for themselves, or supplied it without profit, to up to two years in prison plus a fine. Other unauthorised dealings, including cultivation and sales, carried two to eight years plus a fine; convicted foreigners faced expulsion after their sentence. The law followed earlier colonial cannabis bans and was explicitly repealed by Mozambique's 1997 drug law.

  2. 🇦🇴 Angola Other law ✓

    Angola receives Portugal's prison terms for cannabis offences

    Portugal extended its new drug law to Angola, with up to two years in prison plus a fine for personal possession or supply without profit, and two to eight years plus a fine for other unauthorised dealings. Convicted foreigners faced expulsion after their sentences, while authorised medical, scientific and industrial activities were exempt. Angola's 1999 drug law later explicitly repealed this colonial legislation.

  3. 🇦🇫 Afghanistan Enforcement ✓ Article

    Afghanistan arrests thirteen foreigners in a Kabul hotel drug raid

    A raid on Kabul's Shak-Foladi Hotel led to the arrest of thirteen foreign nationals and the seizure of 200 grams of hashish and 100 grams of opium. Their involvement sharpened American concern that travellers were buying Afghan drugs for export. A US narcotics agent was stationed in Kabul later that year, as the hashish trade became more closely connected to Western markets.

19681 entry0 score changes

  1. 🇯🇵 Japan Enforcement ✓

    A UN report finds most of Japan's cannabis offenders are foreigners

    The report said those who broke the cannabis law were mainly foreign sailors and soldiers on leave from the Vietnam war. In 1972 there were 853 violations; by 2006 there were 2,423, and in 2019 4,570 after six years of increases.

19611 entry1 score change

  1. 🇳🇵 Nepal Tightening ✓

    Nepal starts taxing and licensing cannabis shops

    Nepal began licensing and taxing the sale of cannabis, and licensed shops in Kathmandu, along Freak Street above all, became famous on the hippie trail. The trade lasted until the king revoked every licence in 1973 under pressure from the United States.

    10049−51 points

Most entries

  1. 🇺🇸 United States170
  2. 🇮🇳 India53
  3. 🇧🇷 Brazil51
  4. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom45
  5. 🇨🇦 Canada44
  6. 🇮🇹 Italy39
  7. 🇲🇽 Mexico39
  8. 🇩🇪 Germany34

Fewest entries

  1. 🇰🇵 North Korea3
  2. 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau4
  3. 🇹🇻 Tuvalu4
  4. 🇾🇪 Yemen4
  5. 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea5
  6. 🇪🇷 Eritrea5
  7. 🇲🇻 Maldives5
  8. 🇵🇼 Palau5
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