Ireland quietly cut the value of a kilo of herbal cannabis by 30% in August. Here is when it happened, and what seizure headlines mean now

On 5 October the Irish Times reported that "the Garda has now officially revalued a kilogram of cannabis herb at €14,000, down from €20,000 just months ago". The article did not say when. We could find no published notice of the change from Revenue or An Garda Síochána.

That matters because almost every seizure story in Ireland leads with a euro figure, not a weight. If the price behind the figure moves, the headlines stop being comparable. So we went back through the public record: every Revenue and Garda press release on cannabis seizures from January 2023 to 8 October 2026 that gives both a weight and a value: 449 figures in all (some seizures appear in both agencies' releases). For each one we divided the euro value by the kilos.

What was published, and what wasn't

The switch, release by release

Each dot below is one press release, showing the euro value divided by the weight seized. Through 2025 and most of 2026 the dots sit on €20,000, as they did in 2023 and 2024. In late August they drop to €14,000 and stay there.

Between those two dates, Revenue's weekly round-ups of small parcel seizures (10, 17 and 24 August) still used about €20,000 a kilo, and the only Garda release, from Galway on 16 August, gives values without weights. The round-ups changed later than the one-off releases: the 31 August round-up still used the old rate, and the first at the new rate was on 25 September. So for releases on individual seizures, the narrowest window the public record allows is 10 to 26 August 2026.

Since 27 August every release on an individual seizure has used about €14,000 a kilo. Two Revenue weekly round-ups don't fit: 31 August (still about €20,000) and 7 September (about €25,000, which matches neither rate).

Cannabis resin appears unchanged. The only resin figure released since August, in a Revenue round-up on 5 October 2026, values 1.4 kg at "over €8,400", the same €6,000 a kilo as before. Garda annual reports also value herbal cannabis at €20 a gram in 2024 and 2025 (1,640,003 g at €32,800,054 in 2025).

Was the "tenfold rise" real?

The Irish Times also reported a "10-fold increase in the value of cannabis seized by Revenue's Customs officers since 2019". Because the price per kilo did not change between 2019 and 2025, the euro rise and the weight rise should match. They do.

Weight went up 10.7 times (515 kg to 5,507 kg). Value went up 10.5 times (€10.0m to €104.8m). The rise was in the amount seized, not in how it was priced. Revenue's annual reports combine herbal cannabis and resin, so they cannot be split further.

What a seizure headline means now

Two examples, restated at the new rate:

• The Louth seizure in January 2026, reported as €10.12 million, was 506 kg. At €14,000 a kilo it would be reported as about €7.08 million.
• The Garda annual report for 2025 records 1,640 kg of herbal cannabis, valued at €32.8 million. At the new rate the same weight is worth €22.96 million. The €9.84 million difference is the change in price alone.

Why the rate matters beyond headlines

The value put on drugs is not only a headline number. Under Section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, possession of controlled drugs with a market value of €13,000 or more for sale or supply is a more serious offence. On conviction it carries a minimum sentence of 10 years, unless the court finds exceptional circumstances. The Court of Appeal has held that "street value" is the relevant market value for this test.

At the rates used in press releases, the weight of herbal cannabis needed to reach the €13,000 figure has gone up by about 43%. For example, 800 g would be valued at €16,000 at the old rate and €11,200 at the new one. In court, market value is a matter of evidence in each case, and we don't know whether the new figure is used there. This is an illustration of the arithmetic, not legal advice.

Why the price fell

The Irish Times reported that Garda research put the wholesale price of herbal cannabis in Ireland at €3,500 to €4,000 a kilo, against about €14,000 on the street. It linked the change to cannabis from legal markets: it reported that 60% of cannabis seized at Irish ports, airports and parcel centres last year came from the US, Canada and Thailand, often in parcels of under 5 kg. We have not found those origin figures in Revenue's published reports, so we cite them to the Irish Times.

What to watch next

When Revenue publishes its 2026 annual report, any herbal cannabis seized from late August onwards will be valued 30% lower than the same weight a year earlier. If the euro total falls, check the kilograms before reading it as a drop in seizures.

For comparison, the UK's National Crime Agency valued a 510 kg seizure at £13.8 million in November 2025, about £27,000 a kilo. The EU drugs agency reported typical retail prices for herbal cannabis of €8 to €12 a gram in 2021, which is €8,000 to €12,000 a kilo. Ireland's new figure sits closer to the EU retail range than before.

Common questions

Is the "street value" what the drugs were sold for?

It is an estimate set by the authorities. According to the Irish Times, Garda research put the wholesale price at €3,500 to €4,000 a kilo and the street price at about €14,000. The figure in a press release is the street estimate applied to the weight seized.

Why not just use the euro figures?

Because the price behind them has just changed by 30%. Weight is the only measure that compares across years.

Does the Irish Times "almost €110 million" match Revenue's figure?

Revenue's 2025 annual report gives €104.8 million for cannabis (herbal and resin) seized in 2025. The Irish Times may be using a different or provisional series. We use the annual report figure.

How we did this

We collected every Revenue and Garda press release from January 2023 to 8 October 2026 that reports a cannabis seizure with both a weight in kilograms and a euro value (449 figures for herbal or unspecified cannabis; a seizure announced by both agencies appears twice). For each we divided value by weight. We excluded releases that give one value for cannabis and another drug combined. Weekly Revenue round-ups say "over" or "almost", so their implied values scatter slightly around the true rate. 444 of the 449 figures fit the rates described here; the five that don't are flagged in the dataset. Annual figures come from Revenue annual reports (2019–2025) and Garda annual reports (2024–2025). The full dataset, with a link and the exact wording of each release, is available below.

Download the dataset (CSV)