Research and Data
2CB.com publishes three datasets. Each is built from primary sources, each states its own size and method, and each says what it does not cover. If you want to cite one, the methodology page tells you how it was verified and where it is weak.
What the internet gets wrong about drug law
Each entry below is a thing widely repeated online that the statute does not say. Every one names the instrument that settles it and the date the change took effect, read from the primary text rather than from coverage of it. Where our own published data was wrong, the report says so and says how many entries were affected.
- Thailand did not put cannabis back on the narcotics list
Cannabis flower has been a controlled herb rather than a narcotic since 2022. The June 2025 notification changed who may sell it, not what it is.
Ministry of Public Health notification on the controlled herb cannabis. Five states in four years. Checked 2026-09-16 - Vietnam did not abolish the death penalty for drugs
One drug offence lost the death penalty on 1 July 2025 and two kept it. Which article a person is charged under decides whether they can be sentenced to death.
Criminal Code arts. 248 to 252, as amended by Law 86/2025/QH15. In force 1 July 2025 - Nitrous oxide is a controlled drug in the United KingdomIn preparation
It stopped being a legal high on 8 November 2023. Possession is an offence, and a great deal of writing about balloons and festivals still describes the law as it was before that date.
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2023, S.I. 2023/1091, made under section 2(2). In force 8 November 2023 - Portugal did not legalise drugsIn preparation
Possession for personal use stopped being a crime in 2001 and became an administrative offence, capped at ten days' average personal supply. Supply and trafficking remained crimes throughout.
Lei n.º 30/2000, de 29 de Novembro, art. 2.º. Decriminalised, not legalised. In force 1 July 2001 - Germany legalised cannabis and kept most of the rulesIn preparation
Adults may hold 25 grams in public, 50 grams at home and three living plants. There is no commercial shop, and everything above those figures is still an offence.
Konsumcannabisgesetz (KCanG), § 3. In force 1 April 2024 - Oregon: what is the law now?In preparation
Oregon decriminalised possession by ballot measure and later changed course. We have not read the current statute, so we do not yet say what it holds.
Not yet read. See the note below this list. Not sourced. The Oregon Legislature's site refused every connection from our network on 16 September 2026 - What a verified drug-sentencing record set actually shows
What a small hand verified set of sentencing outcomes can support, and the much larger set of questions it cannot answer.
Our own published court records. Counted from the published records at build time
An entry marked in preparation has been read and dated but does not yet have a page of its own. The Oregon entry is different and says so: we have not read that statute, because the source we would read it from refused every connection from our network on the day this was written. We would rather publish the gap than publish a recollection.
Verified drug-sentencing record set
69 records across 5 countries, on 21 pages. Hong Kong, Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore, United States.
Each record is a single sentencing outcome read from an official judgment, anonymised, and tied to the substance and provision the court actually named. Records are gated on 28 automated checks before publication and are withdrawn when they turn out to be wrong.
What this is not. It is not a global sentencing database and it is not a representative sample. 69 records across 5 countries is a small, hand-verified set, built where official judgments are published in a form we can read and cite. It cannot tell you a national average sentence, and any use of it to estimate one would be wrong.
Corrections are part of the record. On 3 September 2026 ten published records were withdrawn after each was re-read against its source: three were sentencing decisions in cases that were not drug cases at all, three were applications the court dismissed rather than convictions, three duplicated a record already published, and one was a preventive-detention appeal. They were removed rather than reworded.
Jurisdictional legality reference
9,711 individually confirmed substance-and-country statuses, covering 88 substances across 225 jurisdictions.
A status is published only where a specific primary source was found for that exact substance in that exact jurisdiction. Where no such source was found, the page says so plainly and is excluded from search indexing and from our sitemap rather than presented as an answer. That is why the published count is far smaller than the number of possible combinations.
What this is not. Enforcement varies within a country and law changes. These pages record what a cited source stated on a stated date. They are a research reference, not legal advice.
When a statute moves, we publish the reading and the correction together. Vietnam amended its Criminal Code on 1 July 2025 and removed the death penalty from one drug offence while keeping it for two others. Thailand moved cannabis between two different Acts across five states in four years. Our own entries were wrong in both countries. Each report sets out what the primary text says, how it was verified, and exactly how many of our entries were wrong before they were fixed. Both are in the findings list at the top of this page.
Drug-checking composition data
470 samples sold as tusi, analysed 2020 to 2024: ketamine in 93.2%, MDMA in 92.1%, 2C-B in 3.6%.
We did not generate this data and we do not claim it. It was produced by Energy Control, the Spanish drug-checking service, and reported in Abukahok N, Fitzgerald ND, Palamar JJ, “An Update on the Epidemiology of Tusi (pink cocaine)”, Current Addiction Reports 2025;12:90, doi:10.1007/s40429-025-00706-y. Cite the producers and the review, not us.
Using this data
All three datasets may be quoted with attribution to 2CB.com and a link to the page carrying the figure. For the composition data, cite Energy Control and the review above as the primary source. If you need the underlying judgments, the record pages link to each official source.
For data requests, corrections, or the underlying records in bulk, use the press and research contact. We would rather be told we are wrong than be cited while wrong.