The Satapuala village council has changed their village bylaws to enable it to hand down tougher penalties targeting residents found guilty of drug possession and peddling.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer on Thursday, village mayor Tiumalu Me'i Elia said they will continue to work with the Samoa Police to address the illegal drug trade issue and they have done so since a raid in 2020 netted 4,000 marijuana plants from the village. 

"Since then, we've seen a lot of improvement within the village, not that I'm saying we're completely clean of drugs but Satapuala is one of the villages known for marijuana given the raids but we've noticed some improvements," he said. "But this does not stop the village from working together with the police to tackle this issue and we're still doing our inspections within the village to monitor the use of marijuana, especially marijuana as there have been no meth cases or raids yet in the village.

"And in doing so, we've been very strict and made punishments stricter on people who disobey the bylaws on drugs."

For families or individuals who are found to be guilty of possession of any drugs, they are fined $10,000 and if they fail to pay the fine by 4 pm of the next day, they get banished. They are also reported by the village to the police on top of being slapped with a $10,000 fine.

According to the mayor, there was only one family who was slapped with a $10,000 fine last year during a police raid that netted a large number of marijuana plants from a plantation. The family managed to pay the $10,000 penalty but they were also reported to the police and were charged accordingly.

There were approximately two to three successful marijuana raids conducted by police in Satapuala last year which led to the discovery of substantial amounts of marijuana plants in the village. Samoa Observer understands that people were charged following these raids.

Tiumalu also stressed that there have been no meth discoveries in the village but the village is still on the lookout for hard drugs through their weekly inspections.