Türkiye raises cannabis-growing penalties and charges for crop destruction

Türkiye made people growing cannabis in breach of its drug-cultivation ban liable to at least a year in prison and a fine from 31 May 1979.^[1] The revised law also set out how officials would identify and destroy unauthorised drug-cannabis crops, with the grower charged for the destruction.^[1] It replaced a much shorter cultivation penalty in the original 1933 law.^[1][2]

The earlier law already required crops to be destroyed

The 1933 narcotics law prohibited growing Indian hemp described as serving exclusively to produce cannabis as a drug, and banned preparing, importing, exporting or selling the drug.^[2] Its cultivation penalty was one to six months in prison.^[2]

It also instructed police to destroy the plants on the highest local administrator’s order, following a joint report from health and agricultural officials.^[2] Cannabis found elsewhere was subject to immediate seizure and the law’s confiscation and destruction procedures.^[2]

The revised rule targeted growing for the drug

The 1979 amendment restated the ban as growing hemp exclusively to make cannabis as a drug, while retaining the prohibitions on preparation, import, export and sale.^[1] A person planting in breach of that rule faced at least one year in prison and a fine of 2,000 to 10,000 lira.^[1]

The amendment separately addressed hemp grown without agriculture-ministry permission to produce the drug.^[1] Wherever it was found, an agricultural engineer’s report, or a technician’s report where no engineer was available, could lead to an order from the highest local administrator for police to destroy it.^[1]

Growers could be charged for destroying their crop

The law placed the necessary funding for destruction equipment in the Gendarmerie General Command’s budget.^[1] Officials could then recover each grower’s share of the destruction costs through the public-debt collection system.^[1] Losing the crop therefore came alongside financial liability for removing it and the separate criminal penalty.^[1]

The amendment also linked informant and seizure-official rewards to the fines imposed for cultivation and other specified offences.^[1] These rules made crop destruction, cost recovery and enforcement rewards part of the same statutory system.^[1]

The May 1990 revision later expressly required permits for fibre, seed, stalk and similar hemp growing, while prohibiting unlicensed cultivation for any purpose.^[3] It retained crop destruction and recovery of the costs from unauthorised growers, carrying those controls into Türkiye’s later hemp regime.^[3]