June 2024
7 reports. Seizures 2 · Arrests 2 · Sentences 2 · Prosecutions 1
South Korea's 2023 drug arrests pass 20,000 for the first time
The prosecution service's yearly report recorded 27,611 people caught for drug offences in 2023, half as many again as the 18,395 of 2022. Teenagers numbered 1,477, three times the year before, and people in their twenties 8,368. The report as published did not break the figures down by drug.
Timor-Leste's drug police still send samples to Portugal for confirmatory testing
The scientific police said they lacked staff and equipment to confirm whether seized material was a controlled drug, so samples went to Portugal's judicial police and results took about two weeks. They described initial testing in Dili and a 2022 cannabis case that was still in court. The statement points to the laboratory gap the 2012 UN assessment had already identified.
Brunei arrests 27 in a Tutong drug sweep
Police arrested 27 people in Operasi Ursa Heal in Tutong on 16 and 19 June 2024, seizing 75.29 g of syabu and 37.21 g of cannabis. The operation was one of the year's street-level enforcement actions and did not change the law.
A Philippine court convicts four police for a drug-war killing
A Caloocan court found four policemen guilty of homicide for killing Luis and Gabriel Bonifacio during a September 2016 drug raid. The officers were sentenced to up to ten years in prison and ordered to pay damages to the family. It was only the fourth known conviction of police for a drug-war killing, out of thousands of deaths.
A Tahiti father who grew cannabis for his epileptic son is acquitted
The court in Papeete acquitted a father prosecuted for two years over about a hundred plants grown in Taravao to make oil for his son; the prosecutor had asked it to waive punishment. Growing for therapy remained prohibited.
Lebanon seizes 6.4 kg of hashish at Beirut airport
Customs seized 6.416 kg of hashish at Beirut airport from an Egyptian traveller, hidden in a shipping suitcase and bound for an Arab country. The case was one of the few cannabis-specific seizures reported in 2024.
Nauru fines two adults after a one-gram cannabis case
Two adults received fines of A$1,500 each, community service and one year’s probation after pleading guilty in a one-gram cannabis case. A teenager received a A$200 fine and one month’s community service, with no conviction recorded.[@1] The magistrate considered imprisonment disproportionate for the adults, months before parliament introduced mandatory custody for possession.[@1,2]