A brief summary of this page
Read the legal content of this page in seconds; the key points and specific details are gathered in a short summary.
The office of Av. Yakup Buğrahan SEVDİ and YBS Hukuk conducts the defence in drug trafficking and possession for personal use files in Adana. The page explains, in a table, the distinction between trafficking and use and its consequences (TCK Art. 188/3 and Art. 191/1), the aggravating circumstances in trafficking (Art. 188/4-5), the five-year postponement of the filing of the public prosecution (kamu davasının açılmasının ertelenmesi) in cases of use together with supervised release (denetimli serbestlik) (Art. 191/2-3), the prohibition of a second postponement (Art. 191/6), effective repentance (etkin pişmanlık, a statutory reduction of or exemption from penalty for an offender who assists in revealing the offence) (Art. 192) and the 2026 decision of the 10th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation reversing a conviction rendered without the intent to trade having been proven.
This summary is provided for general information purposes. Specific legal matters require individual assessment.
Which Files We Take On as a Drug Offences Lawyer in Adana
An Adana drug offences lawyer is a lawyer who defends the suspect and the defendant against charges of trafficking in narcotic or stimulant substances (TCK Art. 188) and of buying, accepting and possessing them for personal use, and using them (TCK Art. 191). In these files, the question that most affects the outcome is whether the act is trafficking or personal use; the penalties for the two offences and the courts that try them are entirely different.
On this page, we address issues specific to drug files: the facts on which the distinction between trafficking and use is based, how the two offences are set out in the law, the postponement of the filing of the public prosecution and supervised release, effective repentance, and the points to watch during a search. We have explained court and procedural matters on our Adana high criminal court lawyer page, and the general framework of criminal law on our Adana criminal lawyer page.
Types of Files We Take On as a Drug Offence Lawyer in Adana
- Defence before the High Criminal Court on a trafficking charge (TCK Art. 188/3).
- Examination of the evidence one by one in allegations of offering for sale and giving to others.
- Following the proceedings before the Criminal Court of First Instance on a charge of possession for personal use (TCK Art. 191/1).
- Following the decision to postpone the filing of the public prosecution at the criminal investigation stage and the supervised release obligations on a charge of use (TCK Art. 191/2).
- Review of the lawfulness of body and home searches.
Quantity and Intent to Trade: The Difference Between Drug Trafficking and Possession for Personal Use
The law regulates trafficking and personal use in two separate articles. No gram threshold for the distinction is written in the law; the Court of Cassation assesses together the nature and quantity of the substance seized, the manner in which it was packaged, any medical finding that the person uses the substance, and the other evidence in the file. This is also the question most frequently put to drug trafficking lawyers in Adana: is the quantity seized sufficient on its own for the act to be regarded as trafficking? The answer is determined by reading the quantity together with the other evidence.
| Criterion | Trafficking (TCK Art. 188/3) | Possession for personal use (TCK Art. 191/1) |
|---|---|---|
| Act | Selling, offering for sale, giving to another person, dispatching, transporting, storing, buying, accepting or possessing within the country | Buying, accepting or possessing for personal use, or using |
| Penalty | Imprisonment of not less than ten years and a judicial fine | Imprisonment from two to five years |
| Court | High Criminal Court | Criminal Court of First Instance |
| Special route at the criminal investigation stage | None; the conditions for effective repentance are separate (Art. 192/1, 192/3) | Postponement of the filing of the public prosecution for five years (Art. 191/2) |
The indictment may characterise the same act as trafficking, while the defence characterises it as personal use. For this reason, when we take over the file, our first task is to examine together the weighing and packaging records of the substance seized, the net quantity in the criminal laboratory report, any report or test result showing that the person uses the substance, and whether the examination of the telephone contains any correspondence pointing to sales.
Adana Drug Trafficking Lawyer and the Penalty under TCK Art. 188
The basic form of the trafficking offence consists of selling within the country and similar acts; manufacture, import and export, on the other hand, are regulated separately in the first paragraph of the article with a heavier penalty. For this reason, the first task of an Adana drug trafficking lawyer is to check which paragraph the indictment relies on.
"Uyuşturucu veya uyarıcı maddeleri ruhsatsız veya ruhsata aykırı olarak ülke içinde satan, satışa arz eden, başkalarına veren, sevk eden, nakleden, depolayan, satın alan, kabul eden, bulunduran kişi, on yıldan az olmamak üzere hapis ve bin günden yirmibin güne kadar adli para cezası ile cezalandırılır. Ancak, uyuşturucu veya uyarıcı madde verilen veya satılan kişinin çocuk olması halinde, veren veya satan kişiye verilecek hapis cezası on beş yıldan az olamaz."
"A person who, without a licence or in breach of a licence, sells, offers for sale, gives to others, dispatches, transports, stores, buys, accepts or possesses narcotic or stimulant substances within the country shall be punished with imprisonment of not less than ten years and a judicial fine of one thousand to twenty thousand days. However, where the person to whom the narcotic or stimulant substance is given or sold is a child, the prison sentence to be imposed on the person giving or selling it may not be less than fifteen years." (Unofficial translation)
The circumstances that increase the penalty are also set out in the same article. The law provides that the penalty is increased by one half where the substance is heroin, cocaine, morphine, morphine base, synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones, synthetic opioids or amphetamine and its derivatives, and where the act is committed in public places less than two hundred metres from places such as schools, dormitories, hospitals, barracks or places of worship (Art. 188/4). The commission of the act together with three or more persons is a ground for increasing the penalty by one half, and its commission within the framework of the activities of an organisation is a ground for doubling it (Art. 188/5). Each of these aggravating circumstances must be proven by separate evidence; when handing over the file to a drug trafficking case lawyer in Adana, we recommend that you also bring the criminal laboratory report showing the type of the substance seized. On the trafficking charge, we also recommend that you read our information article: the offence of drug trafficking.
Adana Drug Use Lawyer and Postponement of the Public Prosecution under TCK Art. 191
Buying, accepting and possessing for personal use, and using, constitute a separate offence carrying imprisonment from two to five years (Art. 191/1). When the file reaches a lawyer handling cases of drug possession for personal use in Adana at the criminal investigation stage, the first issue to be examined is the postponement route that the law provides for this offence.
"Bu suçtan dolayı başlatılan soruşturmada şüpheli hakkında 4/12/2004 tarihli ve 5271 sayılı Ceza Muhakemesi Kanununun 171 inci maddesindeki şartlar aranmaksızın, beş yıl süreyle kamu davasının açılmasının ertelenmesine karar verilir."
"In the criminal investigation initiated for this offence, a decision shall be issued to postpone the filing of the public prosecution against the suspect for five years, without seeking the conditions in Article 171 of the Code of Criminal Procedure No. 5271 dated 4/12/2004." (Unofficial translation)
During the postponement period, the suspect remains subject to a supervised release measure for at least one year. This period may be extended by periods of six months each for up to two more years, and treatment may be applied where necessary; the issuing by the public prosecutor of a referral decision at least twice a year to detect use is also part of this process (Art. 191/3).
If the suspect persists in acting contrary to the obligations, or again acquires the substance for use or uses it, a public prosecution is filed (Art. 191/4); for a suspect who complies with the obligations, on the other hand, a decision of non-prosecution (kovuşturmaya yer olmadığına dair karar) is issued (Art. 191/7). Where the acts of use are committed in public places less than two hundred metres from places such as schools, dormitories or hospitals, the penalty is increased by one half (Art. 191/10). We recommend that you follow the conditions and obligations of the postponement decision throughout the criminal investigation stage together with your drug possession lawyer in Adana. After the postponement decision, the question most frequently put to drug use lawyers in Adana concerns the consequence of a missed test summons; the law regards persisting in failing to act in accordance with the obligations as a ground for filing a public prosecution (Art. 191/4-a). We have explained the details of the subject in our article the offence of drug use.
In a criminal investigation initiated on the allegation that the same offence has been committed again after a public prosecution has been filed, the law does not permit a postponement decision to be issued a second time (Art. 191/6). We recommend that you do not miss the supervised release obligations, in particular the test summonses.
Emergence of the Offence of Use in a Case Filed on a Trafficking Charge
If, in a prosecution stage conducted on a trafficking charge, it is understood that the offence falls exclusively within the scope of possession for personal use, the law orders that a decision of deferral of the announcement of the verdict (hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması, HAGB) be issued in respect of the defendant within the framework of TCK Art. 191 (Art. 191/8-a). This rule is the reason why we concentrate the defence on the legal characterisation; it is also often the first issue that a drug trafficking case lawyer in Adana will argue.
Effective Repentance in Drug Offences (TCK Art. 192)
Effective repentance results in exemption from penalty or a reduction depending on when and to whom the information is given:
- Where a person who participated in the manufacture and trade reports the other accomplices and the places where the substance is hidden or manufactured before the authorities learn of it, no penalty is imposed if the information has enabled the apprehension or the seizure of the substance (Art. 192/1).
- Where a person possessing for personal use reports, before the authorities learn of it, from whom, where and when the substance was obtained and thereby facilitates the apprehension or the seizure, no penalty is imposed (Art. 192/2).
- The penalty of a person who, after the offence has come to the knowledge of the authorities, voluntarily helps to reveal the offence and to apprehend the accomplices is reduced by one quarter to one half depending on the nature of the assistance (Art. 192/3).
- Where a person using the substance applies to the authorities or to health institutions and requests treatment before a criminal investigation begins, no penalty is imposed (Art. 192/4).
The timing and content of a statement of effective repentance may have irreversible consequences; we recommend that you consult your lawyer before giving a statement. Whether the application for treatment was made before the criminal investigation began (Art. 192/4) is shown by the application documents; we recommend that you hand these documents to your lawyer for the offence of drug use in Adana at the first meeting.
Points to Watch at the Police Custody, Search and Pre-trial Detention Stage
Most drug files begin with a body or home search; this is why the first document that a drug dealing lawyer in Adana will examine is the search record. Whether there is a search warrant or a written order, the scope of the search and how the substance seized was entered in the record determine the lawfulness of the evidence. The right to benefit from defence counsel during the statement is reserved at every stage (CMK Art. 149/1); since the lower limit of the penalty for the trafficking charge exceeds five years, defence counsel is appointed without a request being required (CMK Art. 150/3).
The time limit for appeal and appeal to the Court of Cassation against the judgment is two weeks from service of the reasoned judgment; we recommend that you monitor the date of service from the first day of the file together with your drug case lawyer in Adana. We have also explained the legal remedy stages separately on our Adana high criminal court lawyer page. One of the requests that a lawyer for drug dealing offences in Adana most frequently encounters in these files is pre-trial detention. For the conditions of pre-trial detention, we recommend that you refer to our article conditions for pre-trial detention, for the route of objection to our article objection to pre-trial detention, and for alternative measures to our article judicial control decision (adli kontrol kararı, measures imposed on the suspect or defendant instead of detention).
Court of Cassation Decision on Possession for Personal Use
In its decision dated 10.09.2026, numbered E. 2023/15455, K. 2026/11164, the 10th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation found it unlawful to render a conviction for drug trafficking without the intent to trade having been proven by evidence going beyond the limits of doubt, and reversed the judgment as follows:
"... sanığın üzerinde ve ikametinde yapılan aramada ele geçirilen suç konusu uyuşturucu maddenin niteliği, miktarı ve paket sayısı dikkate alınarak aynı tür uyuşturucu madde kullandığı teknik yöntemle de tespit edilen sanığın uyuşturucu maddeyi kullanma dışında bir amaçla bulundurduğuna ilişkin savunmasının aksine, kuşku sınırlarını aşan kesin ve yeterli delil bulunmadığı, sabit olan fiilinin kullanmak için uyuşturucu madde bulundurma suçunu oluşturduğu ... sanığın atılı suçtan beraati yerine yazılı şekilde mahkumiyetine karar verilmesi hukuka aykırı görülmüştür. ... 5271 sayılı CMK'nın 302/2. maddesi gereği, Tebliğname'ye aykırı olarak, oy birliğiyle BOZULMASINA, ... 10.09.2026 tarihinde karar verildi."Unofficial translation
"... taking into account the nature and quantity of the narcotic substance forming the subject of the offence seized in the search conducted on the defendant's person and at the defendant's residence, and the number of packages, that, contrary to the defence of the defendant, whose use of the same type of narcotic substance was also established by a technical method, there is no conclusive and sufficient evidence going beyond the limits of doubt that the defendant possessed the narcotic substance for a purpose other than use, and that the established act of the defendant constitutes the offence of possessing narcotic substances for personal use ... the decision on the conviction of the defendant as written, instead of the acquittal of the defendant of the imputed offence, was found to be unlawful. ... REVERSAL, pursuant to Article 302/2 of CMK No. 5271, contrary to the written opinion (Tebliğname), unanimously, ... the decision was rendered on 10.09.2026."
The Chamber assessed the nature and quantity of the substance and the number of packages together with the technical finding that the defendant uses the substance, and emphasised that the intent to trade must be proven in a manner leaving no room for doubt. The reason why the Chamber reversed the judgment in the direction of acquittal is, as shown by the wording "ve bu suçtan ayrıca soruşturma yapılarak dava açıldığı gözetilmeden" ("without taking into account that a separate criminal investigation had been conducted and a case filed for this offence", unofficial translation) in the reasoning, that a separate case had been filed against the defendant for the offence of use; the ellipsis in the quotation shows the place of this wording. If there is no such case and it is understood that the offence remains exclusively within the scope of use, a decision of deferral of the announcement of the verdict under TCK Art. 191/8-a comes into consideration. In files arriving on a trafficking charge, we build the defence on these criteria and request at an early stage that the medical finding concerning use be entered in the file.
Adana Drug Offences Lawyers and How Our Office Works
As the office of Av. Yakup Buğrahan SEVDİ and YBS Hukuk, we conduct the defence in Adana before the High Criminal Court in drug trafficking files, and at the criminal investigation stage and before the Criminal Court of First Instance in possession for personal use files. The drug offences lawyer you choose should be able to assess your file, which will be heard at the Adana Courthouse (Adana Adliyesi), at the first meeting together with the search record and the criminal laboratory report; since these two documents often show at first sight whether the file concerns trafficking or use, we recommend that you bring them to the first meeting. At the first meeting, we read these two documents together with you; the answer to the first question put to a lawyer for the offence of drug possession in Adana is also often found in these documents. We also recommend that you check that your lawyer is registered on the roll of a bar association by searching the bar association's roll (baro levhası).
If a weapon was also seized together with the drugs during the search, we recommend that you read our weapons offences page; if there is an allegation of a fight or wounding during the incident, our wounding offences page; and if money transfers and account movements have entered the file, our fraud offences page. We have prepared our Adana homicide lawyer page for intentional homicide files and our Adana cybercrime lawyer page for charges arising from the internet and accounts. For the deferral of the announcement of the verdict, we recommend that you refer to our article conditions for HAGB, for general questions to our criminal law frequently asked questions page, and for a meeting to our contact details page.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Adana Drug Offences Lawyer
Which court hears a drug trafficking case?
Since the penalty for drug trafficking within the country is imprisonment of not less than ten years (TCK Art. 188/3), the case is heard by the High Criminal Court. For the offence of possession for personal use, the penalty is imprisonment from two to five years (TCK Art. 191/1), and the case is heard by the Criminal Court of First Instance. We have explained the details of the court and the procedure on our Adana high criminal court lawyer page.
What is the penalty for using drugs?
Buying, accepting, possessing for personal use and using carry imprisonment from two to five years (TCK Art. 191/1). At the criminal investigation stage, a decision is issued to postpone the filing of the public prosecution against the suspect for five years (Art. 191/2); a decision of non-prosecution is issued in respect of a person who complies with the obligations during this period (Art. 191/7).
How many grams of drugs count as trafficking?
The law contains no gram threshold between trafficking and use. The Court of Cassation assesses together the nature and quantity of the substance, the number of packages, the technical finding that the person uses the substance, and the other evidence in the file. The intent to trade must be proven by evidence going beyond the limit of doubt; the 2026 decision of the 10th Criminal Chamber applies this criterion.
What happens if drugs are found in a car?
For a substance seized in a vehicle as well, the decisive question is to whom the substance belongs and whether it was possessed for the purpose of use or of trafficking. The acts of transporting and dispatching are counted within the scope of TCK Art. 188/3; a claim of personal use, on the other hand, is assessed within the scope of Art. 191/1. The search record and the legal basis of the search are the first documents we examine in these files.
How much of a drug sentence is actually served?
The period to be served is calculated under the provisions of the legislation on the execution of sentences according to the sentence imposed, the date of the offence and the person's circumstances; giving a single rate would be misleading. In a final judgment, we recommend that the calculation of conditional release and supervised release be made on the basis of your file.
Is a lawyer appointed free of charge for a drug case?
In offences carrying a prison sentence with a lower limit of more than five years, defence counsel is appointed to the suspect or defendant without a request being required (CMK Art. 150/3); drug trafficking falls within this scope. For the offence of use, on the other hand, the appointment of defence counsel depends on a request; the right to defence counsel of one's own choice is reserved at every stage (CMK Art. 149/1).
How is the lawyer's fee determined in a drug file?
The lawyer's fee is the subject of a written agreement between the lawyer and the client; the fee may not be agreed below the Minimum Attorneyship Fee Tariff (avukatlık asgari ücret tarifesi) (Law No. 1136, Art. 164). At our office, we set the scope and the fee in writing before the work begins.
What does an Adana drug case lawyer examine at the first meeting?
When you apply to a drug dealing case lawyer in Adana, at the first meeting we examine together the search warrant or written order, the search and seizure record and the net quantity in the criminal laboratory report. In an allegation of possession for personal use, the medical finding concerning use is the first document that a drug use case lawyer in Adana will read. The distinction between trafficking and use is established on the basis of these documents.
Which court handles a possession for personal use file?
A lawyer for drug possession for personal use follows these files before the Criminal Court of First Instance at the Adana Courthouse; the penalty for the offence is imprisonment from two to five years (TCK Art. 191/1). We recommend that you check that your lawyer is registered on the roll of a bar association by searching the bar association's roll.
