On 5 October, The Irish Times reported that An Garda Síochána had “officially revalued” a kilogram of herbal cannabis at €14,000, down from €20,000 “just months ago”. The report gave no date for the change. I could find no published notice of it from the Garda or from Revenue.

To date it, I went through every Revenue and Garda press release from January 2023 to 8 October 2026 that gives both a weight and a euro value for a cannabis seizure, 449 figures in all, and divided one by the other. In 444 of them, herbal cannabis was valued at €20,000 a kilo. The last individual seizure announced at that rate was at Dublin Airport on 9 August 2026 (29 kg, €584,000). The first at the new rate was in Dundalk on 27 August (119 kg, €1,666,000, exactly €14,000 a kilo). Every release on an individual seizure since then has used about €14,000. Revenue’s weekly round-ups of small parcel seizures changed later, so for a few weeks two rates were in use at once. Cannabis resin appears unchanged at €6,000 a kilo.

For most readers this only changes the headlines: a “€1 million seizure” now means about 71 kg rather than 50 kg. For criminal practitioners it matters more.

Section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 makes it an offence to possess controlled drugs for sale or supply where their market value is €13,000 or more. A conviction carries a presumptive minimum sentence of 10 years unless the court finds exceptional and specific circumstances. In DPP v. Glynn [2021] IECA 86, the Court of Appeal held that street value is the relevant market value for that test.

At the €20,000 rate, 650 g of herbal cannabis reached the €13,000 line. At €14,000 it takes about 929 g, an increase of about 43 per cent. A seizure of 800 g would have been valued at €16,000 under the old rate and €11,200 under the new one.

That is arithmetic, not a statement about any case. Market value is a matter of evidence in each prosecution, and I do not know whether the new figure is being used in Garda valuation evidence. But it raises questions that prosecution and defence alike may want answered. Where drugs were seized before August and valued at €20,000 a kilo, is that still the best evidence of their market value, now that the State’s own estimate has fallen by 30 per cent? And what is the basis for the new figure? The only public account is the Irish Times report that Garda research put the wholesale price at €3,500 to €4,000 a kilo and the street price at about €14,000. The research itself has not been published.

A valuation also depends on a certificate of analysis, and that is where many drug cases stall. On 8 October, the Irish Examiner reported that Judge David Waters, at Cork District Court, refused a State application to adjourn a €20,000 cannabis case to March 2027 for analysis, and put it back to 14 December instead. “If the State cannot inspect drugs between now and December 14 there is something seriously wrong with the system,” he said. The same court has heard a €400,000 cocaine case on its sixth or seventh appearance and a €329 possession case on its twelfth, with forensic delays among the reasons given.

Forensic Science Ireland’s (FSI) own annual reports show why. In 2024 the laboratory received 10,595 drugs and toxicology cases and reported on 7,180, so 3,415 more came in than went out. FSI linked the fall in output to its move to the new Backweston campus. In 2025 it recovered, reporting on 11,453 cases against 10,763 received, a net reduction of 690. FSI also reports that its cases involving sale or supply of drugs worth €13,000 or more rose from 45 in 2020 to 318 in 2024.

What is missing is the figure a court most needs: how many drug cases are waiting. As far as I can find, the last public count was 3,527, reported by the Irish Times in June 2023. Neither the 2024 nor the 2025 annual report gives a backlog figure, or a typical turnaround time for non-urgent drug cases. If intake and output stayed at 2025 levels, a queue of that size would take about five years to clear.

None of this needs new legislation. It needs the State to publish three things it already holds: the date and basis of the cannabis revaluation; the number of drug cases awaiting analysis, and the median time to certificate, at least once a year; and the number of drug prosecutions struck out or adjourned because analysis was not ready.

The €13,000 threshold has not moved in over two decades. Whether a given quantity of herbal cannabis crosses it now depends, in part, on an internal valuation that changed without notice. Practitioners and the courts are entitled to know when, and why.

Brian Cusack is managing director of Dr. Hemp Me and compiles Irish cannabis and drug-policy data at cannabidiol.ie, where the full datasets and sources are published.