Guy Laliberté, the co-founder of the circus company Cirque du Soleil, was detained in French Polynesia over cannabis grown on his private island of Nukutepipi in the South Pacific.[1] The billionaire Canadian turned himself in to police in French Polynesia and was due to appear in court on Wednesday.[1] Papeete television reported that he was presented to an investigating judge at 11.30 on Wednesday 13 November after spending Tuesday and the night in police custody over cannabis cultivation on his atoll.[2]

The judge placed him under judicial investigation and released him under judicial supervision, and AFP reported he was formally charged with possession and cultivation of narcotics.[3] The supervision allowed him to leave for Canada but required him to answer the judge’s summons and to have no contact with another person also implicated in the case.[2] Papeete television reported that about 20 cannabis plants were growing in a fitted-out container locked with a keypad code on the atoll.[2] The case followed the earlier interception of the director of Laliberté’s Nukutepipi residence, found in possession of cannabis with photographs of plants grown on the atoll on his phone.[2]

Laliberté’s company Lune Rouge said he was a medical cannabis user growing the plant for strictly personal use and denied any sale or trafficking.[1] His lawyer, Yves Piriou, called the case a distressing banality and said the cannabis was for medical and personal consumption and nothing else.[3] AFP reported that under French law he faced up to 10 years in prison, though growers of pakalolo, the Polynesian name for cannabis, are rarely jailed over small quantities unless they are repeat offenders.[3]

An AFP report said his troubles followed the arrest the previous month of a worker on the atoll who was in possession of cannabis.[3]