Ukraine rewrites penalties for small possession and home growing

Ukraine’s new criminal code took effect on 1 September 2001, changing the treatment of people who grew cannabis or kept small amounts for themselves. Ordinary unlawful growing became a crime without a plant-count minimum, while the old code’s separate crime for repeated small personal possession disappeared.^[1][2]

A first grow could bring a criminal charge

The 1995 overhaul had given ordinary first unlawful cultivation an administrative fine and confiscation of the plants. Its ordinary criminal-growing offence depended on repetition within a year after an administrative penalty; aggravated growing remained separately punishable.^[3]

The new code removed that repetition requirement from the ordinary growing offence. It offered a fine of up to fifty non-taxable minimum incomes, up to six months’ arrest or up to three years of restriction of liberty. The financial unit set the fine; arrest and restriction of liberty were separate sentencing options.^[1]

The ordinary offence named unlawful sowing or growing of cannabis and opium poppy without setting a minimum number of plants. A person could therefore face a criminal growing charge before reaching the much larger crop size used for the aggravated offence.^[1]

Larger grows and specified prior crimes carried prison

Growing 500 or more plants brought the aggravated tier, with three to seven years in prison. That tier also covered specified earlier drug crimes and growing by a group acting together for sale. Plant count was one route to the heavier charge, alongside those other circumstances.^[1]

For people keeping drugs, the code drew a different distinction. The old law had expressly made repeated small personal possession a crime when it followed an administrative penalty within a year, with up to two years in prison or a fine.^[2]

The replacement code contained no equivalent small-quantity repeat offence. In its original 2002 guidance, the Supreme Court told judges that small personal production, acquisition, possession, transport or sending attracted administrative liability. Its separate guidance described the conditions for surrender and treatment exemptions from specified criminal offences.^[1][4]

Parliament later narrowed the growing offence

The new code expressly repealed its predecessor when it commenced. Its drug offences became the basis for later amendments, including the 2008 reform that moved the ordinary criminal-growing threshold above 100 plants.^[1][5]

The 2009 amendment then lowered the cannabis threshold again. The Ukraine profile follows those later plant limits and the subsequent changes to sentencing options.