Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 139

Summary: - The offence of cultivating Indian hemp with intent to traffic. Constituted by cultivating a plant among those listed in Schedule No. 5 to Law No. 74 of 1983 concerning the Control of Narcotics and Regulation of Their Use and Trafficking, as amended, at any stage of their growth, and their seeds, with intent to traffic, other than in cases legally authorised. - Criminal intent. Its nature: the cultivator’s knowledge that the plant he cultivates is among the plants whose cultivation is prohibited. The judgment need not address it separately. Sufficiency thereof. Rule: The offence of cultivating Indian hemp with intent to traffic, provided for in Article 31/C of Law No. 74 of 1983 concerning the Control of Narcotics and Regulation of Their Use and Trafficking, as amended by Law No. 13 of 1995, and item No. 1 of Schedule No. 5 annexed to the first Law, is constituted by cultivating a plant among those listed in Schedule No. 5 at any stage of their growth, and their seeds, with intent to traffic, other than in cases authorised by law. Criminal intent in the offence of cultivating a plant whose cultivation is prohibited is the cultivator’s knowledge that the plant he cultivates is among those whose cultivation is prohibited. The court is not, in principle, required to address separately the element of knowledge of the true nature of the seized plant if what it states in its judgment sufficiently indicates that the accused knew that what he cultivated was prohibited from cultivation. That being so, what the judgment stated in its account of the facts of the case and what it set out in response to the appellant’s defence in this respect—in the manner previously stated—establishes the elements of the offence of cultivating Indian hemp with intent to traffic. Accordingly, the challenge to the contested judgment in this regard is incorrect.