Weed in Romania: Cannabis Legal Status Guide
- 1. Personal use and possession
- 1. a. Decriminalization of buying for personal use
- 1. b. Driving while intoxicated
- 1. c. Mandatory treatment for drug-using offenders
- 1. d. Large-scale drug offenses
- 2. Cannabis cultivation
- 2. a. Cannabis seeds in romania
- 3. Medical cannabis
- 3. a. Is cbd legal in romania?
- 4. In conclusion
If you’re a cannabis enthusiast on your way to Romania, we’re afraid we don’t have very good news for you: smoking weed is illegal in the country, and the situation isn’t likely to change soon. An exception for medical marijuana patients may probably be made, as a bill allowing therapeutic use of cannabis was passed here in 2013, but the law remains largely on paper. The only real good news is a step to decriminalization of cannabis (and in fact any other psychoactive substance) that was made in 2018. Read on for all the do’s and don’ts (well, mostly don’ts) of marijuana use in Romania.
Personal Use and Possession
Recreational use of cannabis is illegal in Romania, and the possession of any amount is a criminal offense. According to Article 387 paragraph 1 of the country’s Penal Code, it’s punishable by a prison sentence of 2 to 5 years. The same paragraph prohibits any other ‘operations’ with illicit substances, be it cultivation, production, transport, or distribution.
Since drugs are mostly used in social settings, one must also be aware of what happens when you share a joint with other people, peer pressure them, or let them use your house for smoking. The relevant penalties are compiled in the table below.
| Offense | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Making a house or any other place available for drug use | 3-10 years |
| Administering a high-risk drug to another person | 1-5 years |
| Urging someone to use a drug | 1-5 years |
Decriminalization of Buying for Personal Use
In 2018, the Romanian Supreme Court passed a decision that protects those consumers who buy a small amount of a psychoactive substance clearly intended for personal use.
In the original case, the offender bought less than 0.5 grams of herbs spiked with a synthetic cannabinoid – something that would normally send him to jail for a period of 6 months to 2 years. The first-instance court convicted the offender but waived the charges because the amount was so insignificant. It was the prosecutor who didn’t like the result and appealed, but the appellate court presented the matter to the Supreme Court and the latter took the side of the defendant. This ruling sets a precedent to all future court decisions.
Driving While Intoxicated
Driving a vehicle for which one needs a license while having cannabis in your system will result in a prison sentence of 1-5 years or a fine. And before you think you can avoid the punishment by refusing to provide blood or urine samples, think twice, as the punishment would be more severe – 1-5 years in prison and no option of a fine. For driving a public transportation vehicle or one that carries dangerous cargo under the influence of marijuana, the penalty is a prison term of 2-7 years.
Mandatory Treatment for Drug-Using Offenders
If the court decides that drug use is making an offender a danger to society, they may be required to undergo mandatory treatment. If they refuse, they will be hospitalized forcibly, and if they leave the medical facility without authorization, the police will force them to return.
Large-Scale Drug Offenses
If the punishments for personal possession of cannabis and other drugs in Romania seemed draconian to you, wait till we move on to the commercial side of things. By the way, THC, the plant’s main psychoactive substance is considered a high-risk drug, which means that the harshest possible penalties apply to marijuana. The table below will show you exactly how much trouble you can get into if you’re suspected of handling more weed than could be thought of as a personal amount.
| Offense | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Cultivation, processing, transport, sale | 15-20 years |
| Smuggling cannabis into or from the country | 15-25 years |
Cannabis Cultivation
Romania allows cultivation of hemp, marijuana’s non-intoxicating cousin. Hemp is defined in the country as anywhere else in the European Union as Cannabis Sativa L. plants whose THC content is less than 0.2%. Romania does grow hemp but does it strictly for industrial purposes – fiber, oil, seeds, etc.
Interestingly, it’s forbidden to use whole-plant hemp extracts, even if they are low in THC, in foods, drinks, and other consumer products. The 0.2% THC limit rule applies to the plant only and not to its products. To be legal, the products in question should contain zero THC.
The Romanian law also allows (at least theoretically) the cultivation of high-THC cannabis for medicinal purposes under strict government supervision. Growing of non-hemp cannabis varieties for recreational purposes is illegal, and the punishments are harsh (as we have shown in the sections above).
Cannabis Seeds in Romania
You can buy cannabis seeds In Romania the same as in most other countries in the world, but you’ll probably need to do it online and have your order delivered to your doorstep. In addition to big international seed shops, such as Fast Buds, there are seed resellers that operate from Romania itself and do it quite openly, hiding neither their phone (with the local area code) nor the street address of their store.
They probably do it with the same legend as one finds on a pack of seeds – that the seeds serve as collectibles or gifts and aren’t intended for cultivation. As a reminder to you: home cultivation of cannabis is illegal in Romania and can result in a severe punishment (see the tables above).
Medical Cannabis
Technically, Romania legalized medical marijuana derivatives in 2013, becoming the 10th EU country to do so. The law was supposed to give access to cannabis-based medicines to patients with:
- cancer,
- multiple sclerosis,
- epilepsy,
- equally serious conditions.
The problem with the law was that it didn’t reclassify THC, and the substance remained in the most restrictive Table I of the High-Risk Drugs list. This, and the illegality of smokable products, severely limits the scope of the medical marijuana program in Romania. Basically, doctors have been given the right to prescribe their seriously ill patients high-CBD medications that contain less than 0.2% THC. Cannabis-based medicine can be in the form of an extract, tincture, or pill, but natural flowers or edibles are still illegal.
Is CBD Legal in Romania?
As we said before, Romanian law has zero tolerance for THC (apart from the medical marijuana products that can contain no more than 0.2% of the substance and must be prescribed by a physician according to the rules applied to narcotic drugs). So, any consumable product made from hemp must conform to this zero-THC policy.
However, CBD isn’t forbidden, and any pure CBD extract can be sold over the counter, put in foods, drinks, pet snacks, etc. All these things are openly sold in Romania, both online and in brick-and-mortar shops.
In Conclusion
Despite having made some steps to a less hardline cannabis policy in recent decades, Romania still has laws in place that discourage cannabis use through disproportionately harsh punishments for even minor offenses. With this in mind, we would strongly advise the traveler going to Romania to treat the trip like a tolerance break that you always wanted but were afraid to take.
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