Transnistria’s top court tells judges to treat drug gifts as supply

Giving cannabis away counted as supply under the guidance Transnistria’s Supreme Court issued to judges in December 2004. The court listed gifts and loans alongside sales and exchanges. It also explained how gathering wild hemp, sowing seeds and tending plants could fall within drug offences.^[1]

Payment was unnecessary for supply

The court’s explanation covered both paid and unpaid transfers to another person. Its examples included selling, giving, exchanging, repaying a debt and lending drugs. For someone passing cannabis to another adult, the absence of money offered no general exemption from the supply offence.^[1]

The guidance also told judges to examine evidence of an intention to supply. An agreement with consumers, the amount held and packaging suitable for distribution could all matter. The court was explaining how to assess the facts of a case and distinguish possession for oneself from conduct connected with supply.^[1]

The consequences could be substantial. By the criminal code’s April 2012 consolidation, the ordinary supply offence carried seven to fifteen years in prison, with higher exposure for aggravated cases. That made the court’s interpretation of an unpaid transfer important for an ordinary user as well as a commercial seller.^[2]

Wild hemp and garden plants raised different questions

Gathering wild drug plants could amount to acquiring drugs, the court said. Its examples included collecting cannabis from places where it grew naturally. The legal question therefore extended beyond buying a packet from another person.^[1]

For growing, the court relied on the 2002 narcotics law. It described unauthorised sowing as placing seeds or seedlings on any land, including vacant land. Sowing was complete at that point, even if nothing later sprouted.^[1]

Tending seedlings to bring them to a stage of maturity counted as growing. The court also understood cultivation to include improving growing methods, breeding varieties and increasing yield or resistance to bad weather. Those explanations reached the work done around a crop, as well as the initial act of planting it.^[1]

Later legislation changed the penalties

The 2012 reform limited the criminal cultivation offence to a legally defined large scale. It also introduced alternatives to prison for ordinary large personal possession and cut the ordinary supply range to four to eight years.^[3]

The Transnistria profile separates those later penalties from the court’s explanation of conduct. The guidance’s practical message about sharing remains clear: a gift or loan was among the transfers judges were told to treat as supply.^[1]