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Cannabis in Portugal

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Cannabis in Portugal is illegal but decriminalized, having been decriminalized in 2001 when all drugs were decriminalized for possession in the nation, with criminal penalties replaced with civil penalties and drug diversion programs.

Contents

Goa

Following the Portuguese seizure of Goa in 1510, the Portuguese became familiar with the cannabis customs and trade in India. Garcia da Orta, a botanist and doctor, wrote about the uses of cannabis in his 1534 work Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs and Medicinal Matters of India and of a Few Fruits. Fifteen years later Cristobal Acosta produced the work A Tract about the Drugs and Medicines of the East Indies, outlining recipes for bhang.

The 1919 work Glossário luso-asiatico noted the use of cannabis in Portugal's Indian colony of Goa:

O bangue é formado por folhas secas e hastes tentras de cânhamo (Canabis sativa, Lin.) que se fumam o mascam e que embriaga como o ópio.
(Bangue is made of dry leaves and tender stemps of hemp, which they smoke or chew, and it intoxicates like opium.)

Brazil

Cannabis was introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese colonists in the early 1800s. Their intent may have been to cultivate hemp fiber, but the slaves the Portuguese imported from Africa were familiar with cannabis and used it psychoactively, leading the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro in 1830 to prohibit bringing cannabis into the city, and punishing its use by any slave.

References

Cannabis in Portugal Wikipedia