Talk:Costa Rica

Talk

Discussion for: Costa Rica • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Costa Rica is about cannabis in Costa Rica. It covers where cannabis has been grown, as the State Department, the United Nations and the Costa Rican press have reported it since 1985; the study of long-term users in San José begun in 1973 and its follow-ups of 1985–1986 and 1990; the treaties; Ley 8204 of 2001 and the medical cannabis and hemp law, Ley 10113 of 2022; eradication and seizures; and the herbarium sheets held by the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. The tables of growing regions, growing areas, accessions and news fill from pages that name Costa Rica as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

• Costa Rican laws are cited from their official texts. Ley 8204 is cited from the Sistema Costarricense de Información Jurídica (SCIJ, now SINALEVI), version 3 of the norm, which is the text of 26 December 2001; articles 58, 79 and 95 read the same in the consolidated version of 2026. Ley 10113 is cited from a print of the SCIJ full text held by FAOLEX, which also carries article 5 as reformed by Ley 10244 of 5 May 2022. The penalty of six to twelve years is article 371 of the Ley General de Salud (Ley 5395), as reformed by article 45 of Ley 10113, and is cited from that article.
• The San José study. The report of 1976 to the National Institute on Drug Abuse is known from its library catalogue entry only (Open Library, OCLC 2527470); it is cited for its sponsor and investigators. The account of the study comes from the full text of Fletcher and others (1996) and from the published abstracts of Satz, Fletcher and Sutker (1976) and of Page, Fletcher and True (1988).
• United States and United Nations reports. The State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report is cited for the years 1985, 1989, 1994, 1996 to 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2011 (Costa Rica chapters), from the scans of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service and the web archives of the University of North Texas. Also cited are the UNODC threat assessment of 2012, the statistical annex of the World Drug Report 2026 (table 6.3.1), the INCB reports for 2009, 2010, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and the treaty status pages of the United Nations Treaty Collection.
• The drug institute's report of 2019 (the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas' report on the national drug situation) is cited through Diario Extra of 30 November 2019, which reported its figures.
• Press. The Tico Times of 17 June 2013 reports La Nación; the La Nación article itself is not cited. The press reports name some of the people arrested or threatened; the page does not.
• Specimens. The five sheets of the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica are known from their GBIF occurrence entries, which carry no images.

Where the sources differ

• Where Talamanca lies. The UNODC threat assessment of 2012 calls Talamanca "a remote area at the border with Nicaragua"; Talamanca is on the border with Panama. The page cites the report only for its figure of 80 per cent.
• Seizures of 21.7 tonnes. The INCB report for 2022 gives 21.7 tonnes of cannabis herb seized in 2021; the report for 2024 gives 21.7 tonnes for 2023. The page gives both, each attributed.
• Exports. The State Department's view changed over the years: about three-quarters exported (1985, the estimate of local officials); a minor enterprise (1989); a tendency towards export (1996); packing implements suggesting export (1998); no evidence of export (1999, 2000); not exported to the United States because of its low quality (2005); a surplus for export (2011). The page gives each with its year.
• Talamanca and Osa. Diario Extra reports the drug institute's figures as "más del 60%" of plantations eradicated in Talamanca and Osa, then gives 78.3 and 19.5 per cent. The page gives the two figures.

Other reports

• Carter (ed.), Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marihuana Use (1980), the book of the San José study: not read, so not cited.
• Further papers of the San José study: Carter and Coggins (1975, in Cannabis and Culture), Carter and Doughty (1976), Coggins and others (1976), True and True (1978) and Page (1983). Their bibliographic details are confirmed; their texts are not read.
• A map of 1989 of drug-crop areas in Central America marks cultivation with symbols but names no places; not used.
• Seed-seller listings of Costa Rican seed lines: not admissible for country facts.
• The OAS (CICAD) evaluations of Costa Rica: not cited.
• The hemp regulation (Decreto 43689 of 2022): not cited.

Open questions

• Local names. The press names a purple kind of marijuana ("marihuana morada") in Pérez Zeledón and a short plant found in Telire in 2017. The sources cited report no laboratory result for the Telire plant.
• Before 1973. The sources cited do not cover cannabis in Costa Rica before the herbarium sheets of 1935 and 1946; the book of 1980 has not been read.