DR Congo countries/cd.yaml
Article 2 ofGrowing, selling, transporting and holding cannabis for smoking have been prohibited since the 2022 order prohibits possession[1903 ban on growing and holding cannabis for purposes other than medicalsmoking](/history/congo-free-state-hemp-ordinance-1903/), whose article 1 states the prohibition.[@ord1903] A 1917 amendment extended it expressly to smoking and scientific useconsumption in any other form. It does not set[@ord1903] Breaches carry fifteen days to a small personal-use allowanceyear of penal servitude and a fine of 100 to 1,000 francs, with either punishment available alone.[@ord1903] Researchers describe the cannabis law as unchanged since 1917.[@laudati2019]
order2022ord1903, laudati2019
Article 97 requires health-ministry authorisation for medical or scientific cultivation. Non-industrial cultivation requires a prior derogationCultivation falls under the same 1903 prohibition, whose article 101; recreational1 bans growing remains prohibitedcannabis for smoking.[@ord1903] The ordinance orders crops destroyed and makes growers pay for the destruction.[@ord1903] Field studies describe growers hiding plots far from homes and roads for fear of discovery and uprooting.[@laudati2019]
order2022ord1903, laudati2019
Article 121The statute sets fifteen days to a year of penal servitude, a fine, or either alone; it sets no small personal-use allowance.[@ord1903] The 2022 order refers violationsbreaches to the Penal Code and pharmacy and health legislation rather than setting sentences itself. Those cross-references do[@order2022] How often users are jailed is not shown by themselves establishthe statutes, but field studies describe a precise cannabis sentence or actual enforcement frequencyworking fear of arrest and seizure that pushes growers to sell quickly and cheaply.[@laudati2019] Seized sacks are publicly burned, including in the eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu.[@laudati2019]
ord1903, order2022, laudati2019
Recreational commercialisation is prohibited by article 2Sale and transport fall under the same 1903 prohibition as holding.[@ord1903] The licensed cannabis sector remains subject2022 order reserves authorised activities to authorisationsmedical and controls. Noscientific purposes, leaving no personal gifting exemption was established.[@order2022]
ord1903, order2022
Article 72Consumption became an express offence with the [1917 amendment covering smoking and use in any other form](/history/belgian-congo-consumption-offence-1917/), which also ordered smoking equipment seized and confiscated.[@ord1903] The 2022 order separately prohibits use outside a medical prescription; article 2 reserves authorised activities to medical and scientific purposes.[@order2022]
ord1903, order2022
There is no recreational route. Article 112 requires express authorisation: the [2022 licensing controls](/history/dr-congo-cannabis-licensing-order-2022/) prohibit activities for importspurposes other than medical and scientific use.[@order2022] Imports of finished medical cannabis products; an need express authorisation under article 112.[@order2022] An operating patient supply service was not establishedverified, so access stays shut in practice.[@order2022]
The 2022 order regulates licensed medical and scientific cannabis cultivation and production. Industrial: industrial plots requireneed at least five hectares;, and smaller operations need a prior derogation.[@order2022] Imports and exports of semi-finished and finished products need authorisation, while raw cannabis exports are prohibited.[@order2022] The licences exist in the order, but no operating production for patients was verified.[@order2022] Alongside this licensed framework, smallholder cannabis feeds a large illicit trade, with cross-border sellers fetching up to three times more outside the country.[@laudati2019]
order2022, laudati2019
Article 112 restricts imports of finished medical cannabis products to express authorisation. Article 113 permits exports of semi-finished and finished products under authorisation, while prohibiting raw cannabis exports.
order2022
The order provides a regulatedpublic-health law of 13 December 2018 allows narcotics cultivation, production, possession and sale for medical and scientific frameworkpurposes under authorisation, and tasked the health minister with setting the conditions. Article 100 specifies[@law2018] The [2021 ministerial order](/history/dr-congo-medical-2021/) set five-year authorisations for Congolese organisations operating at mostindustrial scale, with medical varieties capped at 0.2% THC for and high CBD content.[@order2021] A [revised order in 2022](/history/dr-congo-cannabis-licensing-order-2022/) kept every non-medical cultivationpurpose prohibited and no THC ceiling for scientific cultivationbarred prescribing or dispensing narcotics in kind. This does not verify[@order2022] No operating patient availabilitysupply was verified, so the framework licenses production without reaching patients.[@order2022]
law2018, order2021, order2022
Article 119 permitsLicence holders face withdrawal of a cannabis-sector licencetheir authorisation for breaches, illicit trafficking, recreational diversion or refusal ofrefusing inspection. Article, under articles 119 and 120 provides, which also provide a corrective-measures process.[@order2022] Beyond the licensed sector, the ordinance-law punishes breaches with prison, a fine, or both.[@ord1903]
order2022, ord1903
The reviewed order establishesprovides for medical and scientific licensing, not recreational social clubs.[@order2022] Article 97 excludes non-profit associations from its ordinary agricultural-operator provision.[@order2022]
There is no legal recreational supply for anyone, so a visitor has no lawful way to buy cannabis.[@order2022] The sources behind this profile describereviewed state no separate rule for visitors.[@order2022]
wikiorder2022
Figures reported by the government to the UN drugs office record 1,800 kg of herbal cannabis seized in 2024, against 1,200 kg in 2023. The UN publishes them as kilogram equivalents, andwith the usual warning that countries count seizures differently.[@unodc_szr] Seized sacks are publicly burned, soas in Goma and Bukavu in the figures are not comparable across borderseast.[@laudati2019] Researchers describe an active cross-border trade, with sellers fetching up to three times more by carrying cannabis into neighbouring Burundi.[@laudati2019]
unodc_szr, laudati2019
Leganet.cd — Ordonnance-loi du 22 janvier 1903, mesures contre l'usage de fumer le chanvre
Ann Laudati — Living Dangerously (EchoGéo 48, 2019)
Agence Congolaise de Presse — Kasaï Oriental, interdiction de vente et consommation de cannabis (25 May 2026)
Law 18/035 of 13 December 2018 on the organisation of public health
Ministerial Order 1250/CAB/MIN/S/0002/DC/OWE/2021 of 27 February 2021
The African Roots of Marijuana
Wikipedia — Cannabis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
2 unchanged
label Holding cannabis for smoking · treatment criminal · term Infraction · prison min 15 days · prison 1 year · note Prison or a fine, or both
label Growing cannabis for smoking · treatment criminal · term Infraction · prison min 15 days · prison 1 year · note Crops ordered destroyed. Prison or a fine, or both
label Selling or transporting cannabis for smoking · treatment criminal · term Infraction · prison min 15 days · prison 1 year · note Prison or a fine, or both
label Smoking or otherwise consuming cannabis · treatment criminal · term Infraction · prison min 15 days · prison 1 year · note Equipment seized and confiscated. Prison or a fine, or both
Cannabis is prohibited, yet the DR Congo counts among Africa's most significant producers, mostly for local consumption.[@order2022,laudati2019] In the east, researchers found households for whom cannabis is the most important cash crop, with close to 90% of households in some producing areas relying on trade income and growers earning roughly 200 to 1,000 US dollars a year.[@laudati2019] A Kinshasa anti-drug association study in the late 1990s already recorded rising production, with average cannabis plots growing from one to three hectares.[@laudati2019] Smoking houses feature in daily life: in 2026 the government of Kasaï Oriental [formally banned selling and using cannabis](/history/dr-congo-kasai-oriental-ban-2026/) across the province, calling late-night smoking houses meeting places for criminals.[@acp2026kasai]
order2022, laudati2019, acp2026kasai
none
The reviewed laws provide no general hemp exception: the 2022 order prohibits every activity for purposes other than medical and scientific use.[@order2022] The law's THC ceiling applies to licensed medical cultivation, not to hemp as a crop.[@order2022] Fibre or food uses of hemp have no separate regime in the sources reviewed.[@order2022]
order2022
Cannabis smoking in the basin predates the colonial ban: in the Lulua Valley of the 1870s and 1880s, the [Bena Riamba](/culture/traditions/bena-riamba/) movement made sacramental smoking a bond of its society of friendship, and the theology fell to the religious leader [Sangula Meta](/culture/people/sangula-meta/).[@duvall19] Their encounter with the German travellers Pogge and Wissmann in 1881 is recorded as a [history entry](/history/dr-congo-bena-riamba-1881/), and the [1903 ban](/history/congo-free-state-hemp-ordinance-1903/) wrote prohibition over these customs.[@ord1903,laudati2019] Smoking technology travelled with the custom: calabash-based water pipes, earliest documented in Angola in 1832, were widespread from Sierra Leone to South Africa by the late 1800s, a history kept in [the calabash water pipe](/culture/traditions/the-calabash-water-pipe/).[@duvall19] So did its sounds: nineteenth-century travellers often suspected the loud coughing that followed a pipe, heard by Burton on the lower Congo in 1874, was put on, and the atlas keeps these accounts in [the smoker's cough](/culture/traditions/the-smokers-cough/).[@duvall19] Colonial campaigns had pushed use almost entirely underground by 1940, and today many Congolese view participants as delinquent, with churches often a barrier to the trade.[@laudati2019]
duvall19, ord1903, laudati2019