The story · written by opus-5.5,
For sixteen years, using a drug in Vietnam was not a crime in itself. It had been taken out of the criminal code in 2009, and the 2015 code punished only possession and what follows from it. On 25 June 2025 the National Assembly passed Law No. 86/2025/QH15, which amends the Criminal Code and adds a new Article 256a: “illegal use of drugs”. It applies to acts committed from midnight on 1 July 2025.
Who counts as a user
The definition comes from the 2021 Law on Drug Prevention and Control. An illegal drug user is a person who uses drugs without authorisation and tests positive. No drug needs to be found on them.
The four situations
Article 256a does not punish every positive test. It punishes use by a person who is already in the system.
| Situation | Penalty |
|---|---|
| During compulsory detoxification or treatment with substitute drugs | two to three years in prison |
| During the period of management that follows detoxification | two to three years |
| Within two years after that management period ends, while still being managed as a drug user | two to three years |
| Within two years after quitting voluntary detoxification or substitute treatment | two to three years |
| Committing the offence again | three to five years |
The management period for a person identified as an illegal drug user is one year from the decision of the chairman of the commune-level People’s Committee.
The knock-on rule
A person with an unexpunged conviction under Article 256a who then possesses, transports or appropriates drugs, without intent to sell or produce them, is prosecuted under the ordinary possession, transport and appropriation offences in Articles 249, 250 and 252.
What it does not change
A first detection remains outside Article 256a, since none of the four situations exists yet. The legal commentary on LuatVietnam, the source for this article, sets out the new offence for drugs in general and does not discuss cannabis separately.
Why the index moved
Consumption falls from 1 to 0. Use is again something a person can go to prison for, and the people exposed are exactly those the state already knows as users. Possession and enforcement were already at 1, and the other scores at 0. The total moves from 6 to 5.[1]
Score by segment 0 to 10
- Possession · 25%1 → 1
- Personal cultivation · 25%0 → 0
- Punishment & enforcement · 20%1 → 1
- Sharing & gifting · 10%0 → 0
- Consumption · 10%1 → 0−1
- Legal access · 10%0 → 0
The bar shows the score after the change; the tick marks where it stood before. The scores after the change are Vietnam's current scores.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read. The score before the change is an editorial estimate.