Fifty years after Nepal banned all cannabis cultivation, Supreme Court has directed govt to frame regulations within three months to allow its controlled cultivation for medicinal, scientific and industrial purposes, potentially opening the door to a legal cannabis industry in the Himalayan nation. The court held that successive govts had failed to implement provisions of a law enacted in 1976 that already allowed limited cultivation under regulation.The verdict, delivered on May 18, 2025, remained unpublished for nearly 18 months after court records were destroyed during the violent Gen Z protests. Its full text emerged only last week, bringing attention to a ban Nepal imposed under international pressure.The court criticised successive govts for failing to implement provisions of the Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act, 1976, which permits certain forms of regulated cultivation and medicinal use.“The failure to do so amounts to a refusal or neglect by govt to discharge its legal obligations,” the court observed. The order did not permit recreational use, which remains illegal.Rajiv Kafle, a prominent cannabis legalisation campaigner, has long called for Nepal to replace prohibition with regulation. “In fact, regulation is a better policy option,” he told TOI, pointing to the economic opportunities that countries with legal cannabis industries had already begun exploiting.How the ban came aboutDuring the 1960s and early 1970s, Kathmandu’s Freak Street became a major stop on the hippie trail, drawing Western backpackers and Americans avoiding Vietnam War conscription. Govt-licensed shops openly sold marijuana and hashish, but pressure mounted on Nepal as then US President Richard Nixon intensified the ‘War on Drugs’.Nepal revoked cannabis trading licences in 1973.The Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act, 1976, later criminalised cultivation, sale and consumption, while retaining limited regulated exceptions that successive govts failed to implement. Several US states have since legalised recreational marijuana.