🇳🇵 Nepal
8 reports of cannabis enforcement.
Totals add up only what the reports state; most operations are never reported in numbers.
Layers
- Urgent
- At risk
- Secure
- Held in a genebank
- No data yet
- No seed lot recorded
From Landrace.wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0. Places offset by about 500 m.
- Seizure · 6
- Arrest · 2
Latest reports
Two Indian women held with 14 kg of Thai ganja at Kathmandu airport
Nepal's Narcotics Control Bureau arrested two women from Gujarat at Tribhuvan International Airport on 27 October 2026 with 14 kg of Thai ganja. They had flown in from Thailand via Malaysia on Batik Air flight OD-182.
Arrested 2Cannabis 14 kgNepal's drug arrests rise again
Narcotics Control Bureau data for the 2025/26 fiscal year showed 1,768 people arrested in anti-trafficking operations and 993 cases registered, with 1,325 charged and 1,113 remanded in custody. Police seized 1,603 kg of cannabis, 204 kg of Thai cannabis, 41.5 kg of hashish and 13.347 kg of cocaine, with a total market value of Rs 857.75 million.
Police seize 3.3 tonnes of cannabis in Saptari
On the night of 23 July 2026 police in Saptari stopped three vehicles at Tilathi Koiladi-5 and found 3,332 kg of cannabis packed in 100 sacks. The drivers fled and no arrests were reported. It was one of the largest single cannabis seizures in Nepal, in a period when police reported a record 51,439 kg seized in the previous fiscal year.
Nepal Police shoot more drug suspects as trafficking rises
A Kathmandu Post investigation counted 17 police shootings in drug operations in three years: six in 2023/24, two in 2024/25 and seven in 2025/26 by April. Two men were shot in Kathmandu and Rupandehi on 7 April 2026, and 11 of those shot or arrested in the cases were Indian nationals.
Thai cannabis turns Kathmandu airport into a transit route
In the year to mid-April 2025, police seized 114.8 kg of cannabis at Tribhuvan International Airport, up from 540 grams the year before and 36 grams in 2022. Most came in suitcases on flights from Thailand, where legalisation had made strong indoor-grown cannabis easy to buy, and investigators said the destination was India.
A US cable details the cannabis trade and Maoist taxes
A confidential US embassy cable from June 2003 reported that Nepal was a source country for cannabis sold in India and for hashish sent to North America, Europe and South-East Asia. The Narcotic Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit told the embassy that Maoist insurgents levied a tax of up to 35 percent on cannabis cultivation and transport, and that trucks could hide 500-700 kg.
Maoists tax cannabis as police leave Makwanpur
In the Maoist-held villages of north-western Makwanpur, police had stopped patrolling and farmers turned to cannabis as their main cash crop. A Nepali Times report said the Maoists had first declared the area a marijuana-free zone, then allowed the trade in exchange for a cut. Police had seized 8,000 kg of cannabis and destroyed the crop on 74.5 hectares the year before.
A Nepali Times investigation finds a Rs 6 billion ganja trade
A December 2000 investigation in Makwanpur, Bara, Parsa and Dhading found cannabis plantations worked openly, with Indian buyers supplying seed on credit and returning at harvest. The paper estimated Nepal grew 3 million kg of ganja and charas a year and exported Rs 6 billion worth to India, with police, local officials and Maoist cadres taking a share.
This country's reports as data: /api/country/np.json