Marijuana decriminalised in some cases
By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, October 4
Georgia’s Constitutional Court has established that former convicts or those who earlier faced administrative punishment for drug consumption will not be sent to prison if found again under the influence of cannabis.
However, it concerned only consumption rather than possession with intent to supply.
In October last year, the same court provided a verdict which said if a person was caught with up to 70 gr dried marijuana he/she mustn’t be sent to prison, as it previously happened.
The court said the amount of marijuana must be only for personal consumption rather than supply.
Consequently, the Court said that legal norm of sending people to prison for repeated consumption was also unconstitutional and inhumane.
However, possessing more than 70g of marijuana will be perceived as possession with intent to supply, and will result in a prison sentence.
Georgian marijuana laws before October 2015 resulted in a jail sentence for seven to fourteen years if he/she was found with a large amount of marijuana. The same law determined 50 to 500 grams of marijuana as "a large amount”.
It was one of the last solutions made by four members of the Constitutional Court, among them Constitutional Court Chairperson Giorgi Papuashvili, before their 10-year terms in the nine-member court expired in September.
Georgia’s ex Secretary of the State Security Council, Irine Imerlishvili and the President’s ex-Parliamentary Secretary Giorgi Kverenchkhiladze, replaced Papuashvili and Judge Konstantine Vardzelashvili in the court.
Both Papuashvili and Vardzelashvili were appointed by the President’s quota under the previous United National Movement authorities.
Two other judges of the Court, whose term also expired on September 30, will be replaced by candidates named by Parliament and the Constitutional Court’s Plenum.
