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New Caledonia

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New Caledonia
Nouvelle-Calédonie
The ocean from Nouméa
The ocean from Nouméa
Capital Nouméa
Continent Oceania
Subregion Melanesia
Cannabis Status
Legal Status Illegal
Status Since 2022
Enforcement Gendarmerie and customs uproot fields and dismantle indoor grows
Documentation
Growing Regions 0
Growing Areas 0
Accessions 1
Conservation
Populations none documented yet


New Caledonia (Nouvelle-Calédonie) is a French territory in Melanesia governed under Title XIII of the French Constitution, which gives effect to the Nouméa Accord signed on 5 May 1998.[1] In three referendums held under the accord, a majority of the votes cast rejected full sovereignty: 56.7 per cent on 4 November 2018,[2] 53.3 per cent on 4 October 2020[3][4] and 96.5 per cent on 12 December 2021.[4] A draft agreement between the parties was signed at Bougival on 12 July 2025, followed in January 2026 by a complementary agreement, the Élysée-Oudinot agreement.[4]

Cannabis is grown illegally in fields and indoor rooms. Seizures have been made across Grande Terre and the Loyalty Islands.[5]: 115–116 In 2015, 13 per cent of adults aged 18 to 60 said they currently used it.[6] Criminal law is a competence of the French State;[7] the penalties for producing, holding and using cannabis come from the French Penal Code and Public Health Code.[8][9] New Caledonia, which holds the competence for health, keeps its own list of narcotic substances, on which cannabis appears.[10] In June 2026 the Congress adopted a plan to build a sector for hemp containing no more than 0.3 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol.[11]

Geography

Cannabis is easy to grow in New Caledonia because of the climate.[5]: 55 Seizure samples analysed for a doctoral thesis of 2011 came from Koné, Pouembout, Hienghène, Poindimié, Houaïlou, Kouaoua and Thio, from the Dzumac range, Dumbéa, Païta and Nouméa; and from Lifou, Maré, Ouvéa and the Isle of Pines.[5]: 115–116 Police and gendarmerie operations of 2017 to 2023 found plantations at Poum in the far north,[12] at Poindimié on the east coast[13] and at Boulouparis,[14] Dumbéa[15] and Mont-Dore in the south.[16]

The thesis, by Yann Barguil, found the rural brousse somewhat more exposed to cannabis use than Nouméa and suggested that the plant is more accessible and more easily grown there.[5]: 103, 105

Demographics

Communities with cannabis relationships

In the adult health survey of 2015, current use was higher among men (18 per cent) than among women (8 per cent) and higher in the North Province (18 per cent) and the Loyalty Islands (16 per cent) than in the South Province (12 per cent). Fifty-six per cent of adults aged 18 to 60 had smoked cannabis at least once; the mean age at first use was 19.8 years.[6]

The territory's Economic and Social Council, asked by the President of the North Province to report on cannabis, wrote in 2004 that regular use made the young people of the tribes, according to testimonies, "lazy and aggressive" and that cannabis was destabilising Kanak society. It warned of the combined use of kava, alcohol and cannabis and called the nakamals places that favoured the use of several substances together. It found that the trade supported many families while customary authorities seemed powerless against it. It proposed restoring their authority.[17] Barguil wrote in 2011 that cannabis was consumed by a large part of the population, sometimes alone but often with alcohol, kava and sometimes datura.[5]: 55 The sociologist Évelyne Barthou, who led a study of 1,200 young people by questionnaire between 2020 and 2024, said in 2025 that cannabis use was little correlated with community and that substance use by young Kanak, young men in particular, was sanctioned much more heavily than in other communities.[18]

Agriculture

The Economic and Social Council noted in 2004 that growing and trading cannabis was easier and more profitable than working in the fields or in other sectors; an envelope of 10 grams then sold for 5,000 CFP francs.[17] Trials of hemp, funded by the South Province, have been grown at Nessadiou in Bourail. The hemp plan of 2026 finds that the monoecious varieties used in the first trials cannot by themselves support a competitive cannabinoid sector. Among others it names the varieties FU750, FU830, MU760 and SA700, the last dominated by cannabigerol.[11][19]

Cannabis in New Caledonia

History

The earliest dated specimen of cannabis from New Caledonia is a herbarium sheet gathered in Nouméa by H. S. MacKee on 10 October 1977. Its label reads "Planté illégalement en terrain vague pour être employée comme drogue", "planted illegally on waste ground to be used as a drug".[20] A documentary of the public broadcaster NC la 1ère, Nouméa connection, traces how cannabis took root in the territory from the 1970s and how New Caledonia became a hub for traffickers in hashish and heroin in the 1970s and 1980s.[21]

France acceded to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs on 19 February 1969 and applied it to the whole territory of the French Republic.[22] It ratified the Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 28 January 1975, with a declaration that it applied throughout the French Republic, overseas territories included,[23] joined the Single Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol on 4 September 1975[24] and approved the 1988 Convention on 31 December 1990.[25] A local deliberation of 17 September 1969 regulated the sale and use of poisonous substances, narcotics among them.[17]

The territory's Economic and Social Committee took up the drug problem in 1993.[17] The International Narcotics Control Board reported in 2001 that illicit cultivation continued in New Caledonia.[26]: 68 From 2006 a flowering top from every seizure was sent to the biochemistry laboratory of the Territorial Hospital Centre for analysis. Seizures of plants by the gendarmerie, police and customs grew more numerous.[5]: 100 In January 2024 the Congress voted unanimously to ask the government to take cannabidiol off the list of narcotics.[27] The government removed it by an order of 9 April 2025.[28] The Congress adopted the hemp plan unanimously on 5 June 2026.[19]

Cultivation

Plants are grown outdoors in small fields. At Poum in March 2017 gendarmes uprooted 125 plants between one and 3.5 metres tall in two fields and burned them with the prosecutor's agreement.[12] At Poindimié in December 2023 they destroyed 404 plants in two fields that three brothers had grown for three years; the trail led there from 1.2 kilograms of cannabis found by customs in a car at Ducos in Nouméa.[13]

Indoor growing rooms have been found in and around Nouméa. A raid at Dumbéa in February 2021 found about a hundred plants with heating lamps and cannabis resin.[15] At Mont-Dore in December 2021 gendarmes found two growing rooms and more than three kilograms of herb, 930 grams of it packed for sale.[16] In October 2022 customs seized 31 plants weighing 12 kilograms in a house in Greater Nouméa.[29] At Boulouparis in October 2023 two indoor rooms held 62 plants; the grower selected different varieties.[14]

Preparations and consumption

Cannabis is smoked;[6] both herb and resin have been seized.[15][16] In a survey of 17-year-olds in March 2023, 51.2 per cent of those in New Caledonia had tried cannabis, against 29.9 per cent in mainland France; 29.2 per cent had used it in the previous month and 7.4 per cent used it regularly.[30] Among pupils aged 10 to 18, use in the previous 30 days fell from 16 per cent in 2019 to 9 per cent in 2025.[31] Barguil cites a survey published by INSERM in March 2008 in which 77 per cent of young people aged 22 to 25 had tried cannabis and 15 per cent smoked it daily.[5]: 55

Trade and commerce

The Economic and Social Council described in 2004 a parallel economy built on the cannabis trade.[17] Cannabis herb moves between the brousse and Greater Nouméa.[16] The grower arrested in Greater Nouméa in 2022 put his harvest at three kilograms of finished product a year and his earnings at 250,000 to 300,000 francs a month.[29] Customs seized 50.5 kilograms of cannabis in 2022, out of 52 kilograms of narcotics in all.[32]

The organic law of 1999 gives the French State competence for criminal law, the maintenance of order and the guarantees of public freedoms. It gives New Caledonia competence for social protection, public hygiene and health, external trade (except import and export prohibitions in matters of State competence) and the customs regime. The Congress may attach fines to breaches of its own laws and regulations. It may also attach prison sentences if a national law approves them.[7] The Constitutional Council applied this division in 2020, holding health to be a New Caledonian competence and public order a State one.[33]

Cannabis and cannabis resin are listed in Annex I of New Caledonia's narcotics list, which corresponds to Schedules I and IV of the Single Convention.[10] Books I to V of the French Penal Code apply in New Caledonia, with fines pronounced in local currency.[8] Illicit production of narcotics carries 20 years' criminal imprisonment and a fine of 7,500,000 euros; transporting, holding, offering, transferring, acquiring or using them carries ten years and the same fine.[8] Illicit use carries one year's imprisonment and a fine of 3,750 euros under the Public Health Code, whose provisions on narcotics extend to New Caledonia.[9] In 2004 the penalty for use was one year and 450,000 CFP francs.[17]

The hemp plan adopted in 2026 proposes defining hemp as Cannabis sativa with no more than 0.3 per cent THC in dry matter. It provides for a law of the country to set up an import monopoly and for local law to distinguish hemp, cannabis for therapeutic use and narcotic cannabis; under the plan a product above 0.3 per cent THC without traceability or a medical prescription falls under the penal and customs rules for narcotics.[11]

Enforcement

The police said in December 2023 that customs carried out road checks "almost daily" in Greater Nouméa and the brousse.[13] The four people charged in the Poindimié case were held in custody to await trial in January 2024.[13] At Boulouparis the gendarmes, called to a case of domestic violence, found nearly a kilogram of cannabis, the growing rooms and firearms held without authorisation.[14]

Growing Regions

Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki: No growing regions documented yet.

Growing Areas

Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki: No growing areas documented yet.

Accessions

Map

List

Accession IDNamePriorityCollectedArea
VIB-NCL-UNK-0100000001Caledonian General Population

Conservation status

MacKee's sheet of 1977 is in the herbarium of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris (P06780077). It is identified only to the genus Cannabis. Its field notes read "Herbe dure 50 cm", a tough herb 50 centimetres tall.[20] Barguil analysed seized cannabis for THC, CBD and CBN and for trace elements. He measured nickel and chromium in 40 seizure samples from across the territory and found that the plant did not behave as a hyperaccumulator of heavy metals.[5]: 111, 114–116

Recent news

No recent news items.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Texte intégral de la Constitution du 4 octobre 1958 en vigueur". Conseil constitutionnel (in français). Title XIII, arts. 76–77. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  2. ↑ Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie. "Résultats du référendum 2018". data.gouv.nc (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  3. ↑ Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie. "Résultats du référendum 2020". data.gouv.nc (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Canayer, Agnès (18 February 2026). Rapport n° 409 (2025–2026) sur le projet de loi constitutionnelle relatif à la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Report) (in français). Sénat, Commission des lois. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Barguil, Yann (2011). Etude de trois plantes psychotropes consommées en Nouvelle-Calédonie : kava, cannabis et datura : aspects médicaux et médico-légaux (PhD thesis) (in français). Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. doi:10.6098/2011NCAL0034.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Agence sanitaire et sociale de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (2015). Baromètre santé adulte 2015. Enquête sur la santé des Calédoniens de 18 à 60 ans. Résultats préliminaires (Report) (in français). Agence sanitaire et sociale de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Loi organique n° 99-209 du 19 mars 1999 relative à la Nouvelle-Calédonie(Loi organique No. 99-209), 19 March 1999, arts. 20–22, 86–87; Journal officiel de la République française, 21 March 1999, pp. 4197–4225.Parlement.France.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Code pénal, arts. 222-35, 222-37, 711-1, 711-3.France.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Code de la santé publique, arts. L3421-1, L3842-1.France.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Gouvernement de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. "Annexe 51-26 à l'article R. 5132-3 de l'ancien code de la santé publique applicable en Nouvelle-Calédonie (arrêté n° 2022-2981/GNC du 21 décembre 2022, mis à jour le 8 octobre 2025)" (PDF). Juridoc (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Délibération n° 562 du 5 juin 2026 relative au plan stratégique visant la structuration de la filière chanvre en Nouvelle-Calédonie(Délibération No. 562), 5 June 2026, art. 1 and annexed plan; Journal officiel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, 12 June 2026, p. 14119.Congrès de la Nouvelle-Calédonie.New Caledonia.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "125 pieds de cannabis arrachés à Poum". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). 7 March 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 A. T. (28 December 2023). "Le contrôle routier des douanes permet de démanteler un réseau de cannabis à Poindimié". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Tejero, Anthony (4 October 2023). "Trafic démantelé à Boulouparis : un million de francs de cannabis saisis par les gendarmes". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 T. G. (10 February 2021). "Une centaine de pieds de cannabis saisis par les gendarmes". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Gallien-Lamarche, Jean-Alexis (27 December 2021). "Plus de cinq kilos de cannabis saisis, des chambres de culture, trois interpellations : un trafic démantelé au Mont-Dore". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 Conseil économique et social de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (9 June 2004). Avis n° 07/2004 relatif à la problématique cannabique en Nouvelle-Calédonie (PDF) (Report) (in français). Nouméa. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  18. ↑ Tejero, Anthony (9 March 2025). "« Il y a beaucoup de colère contenue chez les jeunes qui peut entraîner à une consommation d'alcool et de stupéfiant »". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Pophillat, Anne-Claire (10 June 2026). "Le Congrès favorable à la structuration d'une filière chanvre en Nouvelle-Calédonie". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Occurrence 730907351: Cannabis L., P06780077". Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  21. ↑ "Nouméa connection (Les Chemins de l'Histoire)". FranceTvPro.fr (in français). NC la 1ère; France Télévisions. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  22. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  23. ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  24. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: status". United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  25. ↑ "United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 19. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  26. ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (2001). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2000 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. ISBN 92-1-148131-7. E/INCB/2000/1.
  27. ↑ Tejero, Anthony (19 January 2024). "Un pas de plus vers la légalisation du CBD sur le Caillou". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  28. ↑ Arrêté n° 2025-661/GNC du 9 avril 2025 portant modification de l'annexe 51-26 de l'article R. 5132-3(Arrêté No. 2025-661/GNC), 9 April 2025, art. 1.Gouvernement de la Nouvelle-Calédonie.New Caledonia.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Gallien-Lamarche, Jean-Alexis (12 October 2022). "Un site de culture de cannabis démantelé dans une maison du Grand Nouméa". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  30. ↑ Spilka, Stanislas; Le Nézet, Olivier; Janssen, Éric; Philippon, Antoine (July 2025). Usages de substances psychoactives à 17 ans en outre-mer. Analyse de l'enquête ESCAPAD 2023 (PDF) (Report). Notes de résultats (in français). Paris: Observatoire français des drogues et des tendances addictives. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  31. ↑ Mazzoni, Julien (31 March 2026). "Les ados calédoniens ont moins d'addictions, mais sont plus fragiles". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  32. ↑ "Benoît Godart : « Le Caillou est sur la route de la cocaïne entre l'Amérique du Sud et l'Australie »". Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes (in français). 14 March 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  33. ↑ Conseil constitutionnel (4 December 2020). "Décision n° 2020-869 QPC du 4 décembre 2020". Conseil constitutionnel (in français). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
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