On 12 November 2024 the São Paulo Court of Justice allowed an appeal and acquitted a 31-year-old man from Limeira who had grown cannabis at home.[1] At first instance he had been sentenced to 6 years, 9 months and 20 days of imprisonment in an initially closed regime.[1] He obtained habeas corpus and appealed to the Court of Justice in liberty.[1] The 12th Criminal Chamber granted the appeal to acquit him for atypical conduct, subject to further appeal.[1]
The case dates to 16 February 2024 in Parque Abílio Pedro, after a complaint led military police to go to the house to check for drugs.[1] The man received the officers, allowed them to enter and said there was a marijuana plant at the back of the yard.[1] Military police found two cannabis plants in his residence, which he said were grown for his own consumption.[1] During the inspection the officers found the plant and a pot with a small seedling.[1] Behind the washing machine they found drug-packaging materials: 136 empty vials, 2 packs of packaging and a precision scale.[1] He admitted the plants but denied any connection to those materials.[1]
The court found no illegality in the officers’ entry into the property.[1] The defence had sought reclassification from cultivation of marijuana as raw material for drug preparation to personal possession, the subject of recent decriminalisation by the Supreme Court.[1] The reporting judge reasoned that the accused admitted the cultivation was for his own consumption and recreation and that there had been no prior investigation.[1] The decision held that the two plants were not significant enough to indicate cultivation destined for third parties and fell within the six-female-plant limit set by the Supreme Court.[1]
