Cannabis in Law (FOI)

Request

In what year was cannabis made illegal in Jersey?

The Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law 1954 refers to "Indian hemp" (as cannabis was then known) and repealed the Loi (1924) sur les Drogues Dangereuses.

Unfortunately the 1924 law and any subsequent amendments to it are not available online.
Please also provide the relevant legislation that illegalised cannabis in the Island.

Response

We have searched the records held at the Judicial Greffe and we do not hold the Order in Council for the Loi (1924) sur les Drogues Dangereuses in our active records. The 1924 Loi was long since spent and the Dangerous Drugs (Jersey) Law 1954 repealed when the Jersey Legal Information Board (JLIB) was established: unfortunately while the enacted version of the 1954 law is available on the JLIB site www.jerseylaw.je the 1924 Loi is not available and we do not hold it in our paper records at the Judicial Greffe.

The information you seek is publicly available and therefore absolutely exempt under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. The historic Recueil des Lois volumes are held at Jersey Archive and may be requested there.
Jersey Archive - Recueil des Lois

The Recueil des Lois was superseded in 2005: it contains details of all legislation passed by the States of Jersey from 1771 – 2002 and copies of laws that were still on the books in 1936.

Article applied

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(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2)     A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.