Uzbekistan's hemp growers face up to five years in prison

On 22 June 1987 the Soviet Union wrote prison terms for growing hemp into its drug rules. Sowing or growing Indian hemp, or four named southern kinds, could bring up to five years.^[1] Hemp of any other kind started with a warning or a fine.^[1] Uzbekistan was a union republic, so the edict was union law there.

A ban without a stated sentence

In 1934 the Soviet Union prohibited unauthorised cultivation of Indian hemp and the opium poppy, and that prohibition covered Uzbekistan because it was a Soviet republic. That earlier step does not record a fine or a prison term. The 1987 edict supplied the sentences for named kinds of hemp and, on the same day, a lighter first step for every other kind.

Five years, or a fine

The edict rewrote the growing rule in the 1974 drug edict and added a separate rule for hemp left off that list.^[1]

Hemp	First time	If it happened again
Indian, southern Manchurian, southern Chui, southern Arkhonskaya, southern Krasnodar	Up to five years	Up to eight years
Any other kind	A warning, or a fine of 20 to 100 rubles	Up to three years, or up to two years of corrective labour

For the named kinds, the eight-year term also covered someone who had already been convicted of other crimes in the same edict: making or selling drugs, stealing them, keeping a place where they were used, or pushing someone else to use them.^[1] For any other hemp, prison came after an administrative penalty for the same act within the past year.^[1] Someone already sent to prison for growing that other hemp, or for those other drug crimes, could get up to eight years.^[1]

The same edict, rewritten that day, also set a fine first, and prison only after a repeat within a year, for using narcotic drugs without a doctor’s prescription and for keeping a small amount with no intent to sell.^[1] Those rules speak of narcotic drugs as a class. The growing rules are the ones that name hemp.

Republics had to match their own laws

The 1974 edict, the one this amendment rewrote, told the presidium of each union republic to change that republic’s laws so they matched.^[2] The growing penalties above are the union text of 22 June 1987.

After independence

On 24 August 1995 Uzbekistan joined the 1961 Single Convention and the 1988 trafficking convention. Cultivation is still a crime punished with prison. The country’s current account of the law is on its profile.