The story · written by opus-5.5,
Seven years after Trinidad and Tobago stopped punishing adults for cannabis, its Senate voted to decide again who counts as an adult. For cannabis the answer would be 25.
The law it changes
Trinidad banned ganja in 1925, ten years after putting it under licence. The ban lasted until December 2019, when adults were allowed to hold up to 30 g and grow four plants each, with a ticket instead of prosecution for up to 60 g. No shops were created.
The bill
The Miscellaneous Provisions (Alcohol, Cannabis, Dangerous Drugs, Gambling and Tobacco) Bill, 2026 resets four age limits at once.
| Activity | New minimum age |
|---|---|
| Drinking alcohol | 21 |
| Smoking tobacco | 21 |
| Gambling | 25 |
| Using cannabis | 25 |
Breaches carry a fine of 50,000 dollars.
A vote on party lines
The Senate passed it early on 7 October 2026 by 15 votes to 12, with three abstentions. All fifteen government senators voted for it. No opposition senator did, and of the independents three abstained and the rest voted against.
The attorney general, John Jeremie, called the limits regulatory measures backed by medical evidence and pointed to similar rules in the United States, Canada, Sri Lanka, Lithuania and Singapore. The penalties, he said, were “proportionate” beside the 25 years to life already in the Dangerous Drugs Act. “No piece of legislation is perfect.”
His critics asked why someone who can vote, marry, sign a contract and join the protective services at 18 should be barred from buying a drink, and asked for local figures on road deaths and harm among young people instead of foreign studies.
What happens next
The bill goes to President Christine Kangaloo and becomes law when she signs it.
If it does, Trinidad and Tobago will set the bar higher than the two countries that legalised possession this year: Grenada and Czechia both chose 21.
The index has not moved the score. It records what the law is, and until assent the law is still the 2019 one.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Trinidad and Tobago here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.