• Palma de Mallorca Customs initiates an administrative procedure for smuggling for the circulation and possession of cannabis and hashish resin

July 9, 2024.- Officials from the Risk Analysis Unit of the Palma de Mallorca Customs, composed jointly of Customs Surveillance and the Civil Guard, seized on February 13 a package containing 60 grams of flowering tops and 10 grams of hashish resin purchased online by a person residing in Palma de Mallorca.

Following the opening of criminal proceedings for an alleged drug trafficking offence, the court agreed to provisionally dismiss the case, mainly due, according to the court, to the small quantity of the substance seized, compatible with personal consumption, and its low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. The Customs Office was informed of the dismissal, and a decision was issued to return the goods to the interested party.

However, in accordance with the provisions of Organic Law 12/1995 on the Suppression of Smuggling, and after consulting the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office and the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products, after their return within the framework of the judicial procedure, the narcotic substances were seized within the framework of an administrative smuggling offence.

It should be remembered that the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs defines the term cannabis as: “the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant (except the seeds and leaves not attached to the tops) from which the resin has not been extracted, by whatever name” and the term cannabis resin means “the separated resin, crude or purified, obtained from the cannabis plant”, regardless of its content of active ingredient THC or other substances, including these substances in Schedule I of that Convention.

For its part, Law 17/1967 of 8 April, which updates the current regulations on narcotics and adapts them to the provisions of the 1961 United Nations Convention, considers as narcotics the natural or synthetic substances included in lists I and II of the annexes to the 1961 United Nations Single Convention, among which are the seized substances.

According to the law, these substances are classified as sealed articles or goods, and their illegal trafficking is therefore punishable under the Organic Law on the Repression of Smuggling.

The penalties for these activities, according to the Organic Law on the Suppression of Smuggling, have a minimum fine of 1,000 euros, and can reach more than double the value of the goods seized.