Correct São Tomé drug history and add enforcement articles

easingother

São Tomé and Príncipe's Penal Code reduces personal-use cuts user penalties and raises trafficking terms

TheA new Penal Code limited acquisitiontook effect on 6 November 2012, possession, use and cultivation for personal consumption within a three-day quantity toallowing up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 60 daysfor consuming cannabis and for acquiring, holding or growing a personal quantity within a three-day threshold.[@1] An occasional consumer within that limit could be excused from punishment. Giving cannabis to another person remained, but ordinary trafficking now carried two to twelve years, compared with the former two-to-eight-year range.[@1,3] A separate drug law signed in the same year created overlapping rules.[@2]

possession 0 · cultivation 1 · enforcement 2 · sharing 0 · consumption 10 · access 0

CEJ/Camões — Manual de Formação de Formadores, drug-law chapter Portugal — Decree-Law 420/70, original drug offences and penalties São Tomé and Príncipe — Penal Code consolidated through 2021 (FAOLEX PDF) 1 unchanged

thresholds, home-growing, sentencing, treatment

sao-tome-portuguese-drug-law-1970, sao-tome-overlapping-drug-laws-2012, sao-tome-port-cannabis-seizure-2017

Portugal extends its new drug law to São Tomé and Príncipe comes under Portugal’s wider drug ban

Portaria 537/70 extended Decree-Law 420/70Portugal published an order extending its drug law to the overseas provinces, including São Tomé and Príncipe, with local publication directed to follow. The decree listed cannabis[@1] Cannabis possession and cannabis resin, punishedcultivation for personal use, and non-profit supply withwithout profit, carried up to two years in prison plus a fine, and punished a broad set of other acts with; the ordinary trafficking range was two to eight years plus a fine.[@2] Authorised medicalindustrial, scientific and industrial usestherapeutic activities were exempt, with overseas prescription rules adapted by the extension order.[@1,2]

possession 10 · cultivation 10 · enforcement 410 · sharing 10 · consumption 110 · access 010

colonial, home-growing, trafficking, sentencing

sao-tome-cannabis-order-1958, sao-tome-penal-code-2012

tighteningban

São Tomé and Príncipe prohibitstargets medical cannabis productswith a colonial ban

Order 2574 prohibited importing and consumingGovernor Manuel Marques de Abrantes Amaral issued an order targeting cannabis products ofused as medicine, following a recommendation by the cannabis plantUN Economic and selling themSocial Council.[@1] Its preamble called for ending medical use, and its operative wording prohibited import, consumption and sale for medical purposes in the Portuguese colony. A violation carried a fine; breaches brought fines of 1,000 to –5,000 escudos.[@1] Portugal later extended a much broader drug law to the colony in 1970.[@2]

possession 10 · cultivation 10 · enforcement 10 · sharing 10 · consumption 10 · access 10

Portugal — Portaria 537/70, extending the drug law overseas 1 unchanged

colonial, patients, trade, sentencing

The order targets medical use; its translated wording does not support the former general-consumption and recreational-access score changes.

sao-tome-portuguese-drug-law-1970

Personal possession,Cannabis use or cultivation can bring up to three months in prison or, possession and personal growing are crimes. The Penal Code allows a fine. An instead of prison for a small personal quantity, and courts may excuse an occasional consumer may be spared punishment, but giving or selling. Giving cannabis isto another person falls under trafficking.

AcquiringUnder the Penal Code, acquiring or holding no more than the amount needed forup to a three days of-day personal consumptionquantity carries up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 60 days. Above that thresholdamount, the maximum rises tois one year or a fine of up to 100 days-day fine.[@code2021] A CEJ judicial training manual favours applying these criminal penalties where the code overlaps with the separate 2012 drug law.[@cej]

code2021, cej

Growing cannabis for personal use is punished onfalls under the same three-day basisrule as personal possession: up to three months or a 60-day fine, rising to one year or a 100-day fine above the threshold. Cultivation outside the personala three-use provision isday personal quantity. Other unauthorised cultivation falls under trafficking, normally carrying two to twelve years.[@code2021]

Prison remains availableThe Penal Code allows prison or a fine for a small personal amount, but the court may use a fine instead. Anand lets courts excuse an occasional consumer within the three-day threshold may be excused from punishment.[@code2021] Police arrested three men with cannabis and amphetamines in July 2025; judicial authorities imposed bail.[@park2025]

code2021, park2025

Offering, selling, distributing or giving cannabis to another person falls under the trafficking article, normally punishable by two to twelve years. A substantially less serious case carries one to five years; the code also has a separate rule for trafficking solely to obtain drugs for personal use.[@code2021]

Use itselfUsing cannabis is an offence. Up to the three-day personal quantity carriesitself a crime, carrying up to three months in prison or a fine, although an of up to 60 days under the Penal Code. An occasional consumer within the basic personal-use rule may receive nobe excused from punishment.[@code2021]

No lawful recreational sourceBuying or receiving cannabis for personal use remains an offence, and supplying it to another person falls under trafficking. The code providesPenal Code makes authorisation the dividing line for health-ministry authorisations involvinglawful controlled substances, but no operational cannabis access programme was confirmed-drug activities.[@code2021]

Unauthorised cultivation, production, manufacture, extraction or preparation of cannabis isfalls under trafficking, normally punishable bycarrying two to twelve years in prison. No lawful domestic cannabis production was confirmedDiverting drugs into illicit trade in the sources readbreach of an authorisation carries four to fifteen years.[@code2021]

ScheduleTable I-C lists cannabis leaves and flowering or fruiting tops, cannabis resin and cannabis oil. All remain controlled rather than available as legal consumerThese products are covered by the code’s controlled-drug offences.[@code2021]

Cannabis flower, resin and oil appear in the most tightlyare listed controlled scheduledrugs. The law allows the health ministry to authorisePenal Code recognises authorised controlled-drug activities for medical, veterinary, scientificand penalises doctors and pharmacists who prescribe or teaching needs, but the sources read establish no patient cannabis programme or available cannabis medicineprovide drugs for non-therapeutic purposes.[@code2021]

Someone who voluntarily seeks treatmenthelp from a public or private health service for personal drug use is guaranteed anonymity. HealthTreating health staff must preservekeep professional secrecy and generally need not testify or give police or courts information about the nature and progress of treatment.[@code2021]

The law leaves no route forSupplying cannabis clubs: providing cannabis to another person isfalls under trafficking, whileand growing it for personal cultivation remainsuse is also an offence. The code separately punishes operators of clubs and other venues who allow illicit drug use or trafficking there.[@code2021]

There is no legal recreationalVisitors face the same personal-use and supply offences. A court may also order a convicted foreign national’s expulsion for residents or visitorsup to ten years.[@code2021] British travel advice warns of severe penalties for all drug offences and tells travellers not to carryadvises against carrying anything through customs for another personsomeone else.[@fcdo]

fcdo, code2021, fcdo

CEJ/Camões — Manual de Formação de Formadores, drug-law chapter RSTP — PJ apreende 30 gramas de liamba e detém três homens em flagrante em São Tomé 2 unchanged

On 29 May 1958, São Tomé and Príncipe acquired a’s colonial governor targeted cannabis rule that can be dated preciselyused as medicine on 29 May 1958. Order 2574 was published in the colony's official bulletinThe order followed a UN recommendation to discontinue medical use and dealt only with productsthreatened fines of the cannabis plant1,000–5,000 escudos for breaking its prohibition. Its short text makes it possible to replacepreamble placed the Cannabis Freedom Index's former estimate of an early-twentieth-century restriction with a documented eventdecision within health and pharmacy policy.[@1] ## WhatThe governor acted on health officials’ advice Governor Manuel Marques de Abrantes Amaral signed the order prohibited The first article prohibited three things: importing cannabis products, consuming them,after a proposal from the head of the provincial health and selling them for medical purposes hygiene department. The measurepermanent section of the Government Council had also been consulted. Cannabis therefore covered both non-entered this particular legal record through the colonial medical use and a route that might otherwise have supplied cannabis as medicineadministration.[@1] The wording matters because it was notpreamble cited a comprehensive modern drug coderecommendation of the UN Economic and Social Council. It did not expressly say that merely possessingdescribed prohibiting medical cannabis was an offence. It did not name domestic cultivationuse as advisable for the province, and it did not stateconnecting a general offence of giving cannabislocal pharmacy decision to another personthe international campaign against cannabis medicines. Those omissions should not be filled with assumptions about how officials may have treated conduct in practice.[@1] ## A short rule carried a financial penalty The secondoperative article prohibited the import, consumption and finalsale for medical purposes of products made from cannabis plants. A second article set the consequence. Anyone violating the prohibition faced a fine of between 1,000 and 5,000 escudosdirected officials to follow the procedure in the Pharmacy Regulations. The order itself prescribed no prison sentence. Governor Manuel Marques de Abrantes Amaral signed itappeared in São Tométhe colony’s official bulletin on 29 May 1958the day it was signed. This is a notably small legal instrument:[@1] For people supplying or using cannabis as medicine, the source reproducedorder announced a prohibition backed by a financial penalty. It put the UN Office on Drugs and Crime contains the operativehealth department’s recommendation into an enforceable rule, penalty and signature without a broader catalogue of drug offenceswith pharmacy procedures supplying the means to handle violations. Later legislation would be much wider.[@1] ## Why this date changes the record The earlier index history usedPortugal later extended a 1900–1920 estimate derived from a general account of African prohibition. Order 2574 supplies country-specific primary evidence and a definite date. It does not prove that no earlier restriction existedwider criminal law In October 1970, but it isPortugal published an order extending its new drug law to the earliestoverseas provinces, including São Tomé and Príncipe rule now documented. Overseas Minister Joaquim Moreira da Silva Cunha directed its publication in this historytheir official bulletins. The next major step came in 1970, when Portugal extension adapted the prescription requirements for therapeutic use to overseas pharmacy legislation.[extended a much broader@2] That [wider drug law to the colony](/history/sao-tome-portuguese-drug-law-1970/). That measure expressly reachedcovered possession, and cultivation. Conduct for personal use, and supply. In the index without profit, the 1958 order moves consumption from 10carried up to 1, enforcement from 10two years in prison plus a fine; ordinary trafficking carried two to 4,eight years plus a fine. Cannabis and access from 8 to 0cannabis resin appeared in its drug list. Possession, cultivation[@3] ## A national code eventually replaced colonial rules São Tomé and sharing remain at 10 for this step becausePríncipe’s 2012 Penal Code described the opened long survival of colonial criminal legislation after independence. Its [new personal-use rules](/history/sao-tome-penal-code-2012/) allowed a fine instead of prison for a small personal quantity and let courts excuse an occasional consumer.[@4] The [country profile](/country/st/) follows that later criminal code. The 1958 order does not expressly regulate themrecords an earlier moment when the colonial government specifically turned against cannabis medicines.[@1,4]

Portugal — Portaria 537/70, extending the drug law overseas Portugal — Decree-Law 420/70, original drug offences and penalties São Tomé and Príncipe — Penal Code approved by Law 6/2012 1 unchanged

São Tomé and Príncipe published a’s new Penal Code took effect on 6 AugustNovember 2012. Its final provision delayed commencement forFor cannabis users, it introduced a three months-month prison ceiling or a fine for a small personal quantity, puttingwith possible exemption from punishment for an occasional consumer. Acquiring, holding and growing cannabis for personal use fell within the same rule.[@1] ## Colonial criminal law had lasted for decades The code into’s preamble described replacing the criminal code inherited from Portugal, originally approved in 1886. Independence had left much colonial legislation in force on 6 November, subject to the constitution. The President Manuel Pinto da Costa promulgated the new code in July; publication in August began its three-month wait before commencement.[@1] Drug offences had also been governed by Portugal’s [1970 law](/history/sao-tome-portuguese-drug chapter kept cannabis illegal but created a more graduated response-law-1970/). That law allowed up to two years in prison plus a fine for personal-use conduct than the Portuguese law it replacedand supply without profit.[@2,3] ## A three-day threshold Article 283 grouped acquiring, holding, consuming and cultivating drugs forquantity divided personal-use. When penalties The new code set the amount did not exceed what one person would need forbasic personal-use penalty at up to three days, the maximum was three months in prison or a fine of up to 60 days. Above that quantityPossession, the maximum becameacquisition or cultivation above a three-day personal quantity carried up to one year or a fine of up to 100 days. The code did not define a fixed number of grams in Courts could excuse an occasional consumer within the openedbasic rule.[@1] These provisions gave judges alternatives to imprisonment while keeping personal cannabis conduct criminal. DescribingGiving cannabis to another person remained within the rule as a three-day quantity is therefore more faithful than inventing a numerical possession limittrafficking rules.[@1] ## Courts gained limited discretion An occasional consumer whose case fell withinTwo new laws covered the basic three-day provision could be excused from punishmentsame ground Parliament had approved a separate drug law in October 2011, but promulgation followed almost a year later. Someone who voluntarily sought treatment The Penal Code passed in the meantime, leaving partly different rules covering the same offences.[@2] A CEJ judicial training manual later argued that the code should govern criminal penalties, while the separate drug law should continue governing other matters, including special procedures. That interpretation explains why the code remains central to the [country profile](/country/st/).[@2] ## Treatment received a statutory guarantee ofprotection while supply stayed criminal The code guaranteed anonymity to people voluntarily seeking treatment. Health professionalsTreating health staff were bound by professional secrecy and generally did not have to disclose treatment information to policetestify or courts. These safeguards did not legalise cannabis use, but they distinguished a provide police with information about treatment request from ordinary criminal enforcement’s nature and progress. ## Supply remained trafficking[@4] The softer personal-use provision did not extendordinary trafficking ceiling rose from eight years under the colonial law to sharing. Article 278 treated offeringtwelve years under the code, selling, distributing or giving with a listed drug to another person as trafficking, normally punishable byminimum of two to twelve years. A substantially[@3,4] Substantially less serious casecases carried one to five years. Cannabis flowerleaves, flowering or fruiting tops, resin and oil appeared in schedule I-Cthe controlled tables.[@4] The present [São Tomé and Príncipe profileoverlapping drug law](/countryhistory/stsao-tome-overlapping-drug-laws-2012/) followsremained part of the code as consolidated through its 2021 amendmentlegal landscape. No later change found in that text removesThe 2021 republication of the three-day framework. In the index, the 2012 code moves possession from 0 to 1 because a smallretained its personal amount now has a fine as an alternative, a three-month ceiling, and possible exemption for an occasional user. The other five segment scores do not move: cultivation and consumption remainuse offences, prison remains possible, sharing is trafficking,treatment protections and no recreational access existstrafficking rules.[@2,4]

CEJ/Camões — Manual de Formação de Formadores, drug-law chapter Portugal — Decree-Law 420/70, original drug offences and penalties 2 unchanged

On Portugal published an order on 26 October 1970, Portugal extended Decree-Law 420/70 to extending its drug law to São Tomé and Príncipe and the other overseas provinces, with Macau excepted. Cannabis possession and growing for personal use could bring up to two years in prison plus a fine. The extension also adapted the stated exception rules for authorised medical prescriptions. Portaria 537/70 therefore brought[@1,2] ## Lisbon extended the metropolitan drug law to colonial São Toméoverseas Overseas Minister Joaquim Moreira da Silva Cunha signed the extension and Príncipedirected publication in the provinces’ official bulletins. The change replacedIts scope covered the narrow reach of the territory'drug law’s offences while changing references to the pharmacy rules used overseas.[1958 cannabis order@1](/history/sao-tome-cannabis-order-1958/) The metropolitan decree’s preamble argued that drug consumption threatened physical and moral health and was connected with a far broaderdelinquency. It described Portugal’s earlier legislation as outdated and presented the new criminal regimerules as a response to foreign experience and international recommendations.[@2] ## Cannabis was expressly listedPersonal possession could mean prison The decree's drug list included the listed cannabis flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant, excluding seeds and detached leaves when those tops were absent. It separately named cannabis resin and the concentrated preparations commonly known as hashish. Article 2 Its main offence covered activities ranging from importing and growing to holding, exporting, buying, obtaining, producing, preparing, cultivating, prescribing, administering, possessing, storing, transporting, selling and offering listedselling controlled drugs. The ordinary penalty was imprisonment for two to eight years in prison plus a fine of 510,000 to 500–100,000 escudos. ## A separate rule[@2] When the conduct was for personal use Conduct intended only for the offender's own use, and supply toor another person’s use without profit, carried a lower ceiling: imprisonment for up to the maximum was two years andplus a fine of 500 to 5,000–50,000 escudos, subject to the law’s condition concerning sexual crimes. That was still Cannabis users and people sharing it without payment thus faced a sharp change from the 1958 orderprison sentence under an express criminal rule.[@2] ## Medical prescriptions followed separate rules The law exempted authorised industrial, which specified only a finescientific and did not expressly create offences for possession or cultivationtherapeutic activities. The decree was not an absolute bar to everyoverseas extension defined therapeutic use. Article 3 preserved activities authorised for through a medical, therapeutic, scientific or industrial purposes prescription under the applicable rulespharmacy decree. That exception did not create open patient accessA prescription could ordinarily be dispensed once; it placed lawful activity behind authorisationa doctor could authorise repeats by handwriting the number of dispensings in full.[@1,2] This sat alongside the territory’s earlier [1958 cannabis order](/history/sao-tome-cannabis-order-1958/), which had targeted cannabis medicines.[@5] The 1970 extension expressly supplied prescription rules for the broader controlled-drug regime.[@1] ## AThe colonial law with a long afterlife The National Assembly's explanatory material forsurvived into independence A later judicial training manual described the Portuguese decree as the drug law in force before São Tomé and Príncipe'’s later Penal Code said that courts had continued using Decree-Law 420/70 against2012 reforms. Parliament then approved a separate drug possessionlaw and traffickinga new Penal Code in overlapping legislative processes.[@3] The 1970 extension thus provides the identifiable legal bridge between the short colonial cannabis order and the country's modern national [code took effect in November 2012](/history/sao-tome-penal legislation after independence-code-2012/). In It reduced the index, this event moves possession from 10ceiling for a small personal quantity to 0, cultivation from 10 to 1, enforcement from 4 to 2,three months in prison or a fine and sharing from 10allowed courts to 0excuse an occasional consumer. Consumption and access remain at 1 and 0. Those scores reflect provisions underpin the express personal-use prison exposure, the cultivation offence and the severe treatment of supply—not an inference from the earlier orderaccount in today’s [country profile](/country/st/).[@4]

CEJ/Camões — Manual de Formação de Formadores, drug-law chapter São Tomé and Príncipe — Penal Code approved by Law 6/2012 São Tomé and Príncipe — Governor in Council Order 2574, 29 May 1958 National Assembly of São Tomé and Príncipe — Penal Code bill and explanatory memorandum 2 unchanged