Police in Keelung last week urged people to temper their curiosity about cannabis horticulture and not buy seeds of the category 2 drug online, as it remains illegal to use, grow, transport and distribute.
Keelung City Police Department Criminal Investigation Division Second Corp Captain Lin Hsueh-chih (林學志) on Monday last week said that while marijuana has medicinal uses, it remains illegal to import seeds and grow the plant in Taiwan.
Recently, several people have bought cannabis seeds online with the intent to grow, with a seller directly mailing packages to buyers to circumvent regulations, Lin said.
Photo copied by Wu Sheng-ju, Taipei Times
The police department said it last year pursued more than 20 cases of people seeking to grow cannabis, most of whom had purchased the seeds over the Internet.
Some of the buyers said they intended to grow the plants for personal use, but others said they bought the seeds to challenge their horticulture skills, as they heard it could be difficult to cultivate, it said.
The cannabis agriculture enthusiasts included office workers, engineers, foreign workers and students, it said.
After being alerted to graduate students seeking to buy cannabis seeds online, the police obtained a warrant to search one of the students’ apartments, it said.
Police said the student told them that they were just curious about what a cannabis plant looked like, adding that they did not expect to succeed at growing one.
Another incident involved a worker from Thailand, who told police that they grew cannabis for personal consumption — making a tea with the leaves, the police said.
While legal amendments in the past few years have adjusted the sentencing based on a person’s intent for growing cannabis — whether for sale or personal use — the act itself is still illegal, lawyer Ko Lin-hung (柯林宏) said.
Under article 13 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), people convicted of transporting or selling cannabis seeds with intent to provide for cultivation face a minimum of two years in prison and a fine of no more than NT$200,000 (US$6,361).
The Legislative Yuan in 2022 passed amendments to the act that changed the sentencing for people who grow cannabis for personal use, without intent to distribute, Ko said.
The sentence was reduced from the original five years in prison to a minimum of one year, up to a maximum of seven years, he added.
The amendment also reduced the fine from NT$5 million to a maximum of NT$1 million, he said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
RSS