Egypt countries/eg.yaml
Anti-Narcotics Law 182 of 1960, as amended, covers cannabis in every form — hashish, the local herbal 'bango', and extracts.[@law] Possession for personal use carries a minimum of one year in prison plus a fine; a newspaper summary of the law gives one to three years at the judge's discretion.[@law,watan19] Courts may send dependent users to treatment instead — a 1960 provision letting habitual users enter a sanatorium voluntarily, in place of the sentence.[@law] The 1960 law is traced in the [1960 entry](/history/egypt-law-182-1960/).
law, watan19
Cultivation is punished with life imprisonment, or death where trafficking intent is established.[@law] Growing bans date to an [1884 prohibition](/history/egypt-cultivation-ban-1884/).
Severe law, uneven enforcement: widespread use is tolerated in some settings while others are jailed, and high-profile arrests at the airport over small amounts are common.[@es] The [hashish in Egypt](/culture/traditions/hashish-in-egypt/) account traces both the custom and the six-century campaign against it.
Supply is trafficking. Under the narcotics law as amended in 1989, holding, buying or sell … fine of 100,000 to 500,000 pounds (Article 34), and importing carries death (Article 33).[@parl24,law] Even offering a drug to another person without payment brings life at hard labour and a fine of 50,000 to 200,000 pounds (Article 35).[@parl24]
parl24, law, es
Use is a crime, punished through possession for personal use. An Egyptian newspaper's summ … person caught with narcotics for their own use, with the exact sentence left to the judge.[@watan19,law]
No legal source.[@law]
Cultivation is punished with life imprisonment, or death where an intent to traffic is established. Importing for supply carries life imprisonment or the death penalty.[@law,es]
Reliable national information about lawful cannabisNo licensed production was notoperates: cultivation is punished with life imprisonment, or death where trafficking intent is established by the retained sources.[@law]
law
Reliable national information about legally available cannabis products was not established by the retained sources.
The retained sources do not establish whether aNo medical cannabis programme operates: use is a crime punished through possession, and the 1960 law's only medical route is sanatorium treatment for dependent users, not patient supply.[@law]
law
The retained sources do not establish collateral consequencesA conviction brings a criminal record and, beyond the penalties describedprison terms and fines above, the severest trafficking sentences in the region's law.[@law]
law
Law 182 of 1960 bans growing the plants on its Table V and says no one may import, possess … ables, so the entry assumes cannabis is on Table V, as the rest of this profile describes.[@l182]
No cannabis clubs are known, and the law leaves no room for them: growing cannabis and supplying it to another person are both prohibited, and the law provides for the death penalty for the most serious drug offences.[@law]
law, es
There is no legal recreational supply for anyone. Under the narcotics law a person caught with a drug for their own use faces one to three years in prison and a fine.[@watan19,law] Bringing narcotics into or out of the country falls under Article 33, which allows the dea … pounds, and dealing inside the country under Article 34, with life imprisonment or death.[@parl24,law]
watan19, law, parl24
Figures reported by the government to the UN drugs office record 39,411 kg of herbal canna … nd countries count seizures differently, so the figures are not comparable across borders.[@unodc_szr]
Amendments to the traffic law published in November 2014 made driving under the influence punishable by at least one year in prison.[@es_traffic14] If the driver injures someone the minimum is two years and a fine of 10,000 pounds; if someone is killed or permanently disabled, three to seven years and 20,000 pounds, with the licence revoked.[@es_traffic14] The report of the amendments does not distinguish drugs from alcohol.[@es_traffic14]
Transnational Institute — The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition, chapter 1 M. I. Soueif — The use of cannabis in Egypt: A behavioural study, Bulletin on Narcotics 23(4), 17–28 (1971) 7 unchanged
label Possession for personal use · treatment criminal · term Possession · prison min 1 year · prison 3 years · note Plus a fine; sanatorium treatment possible for dependent users
label Unlawful cultivation · treatment criminal · term Unlicensed cultivation · note Life imprisonment; death where trafficking intent is established
EGP
label Importing for supply (article 33) · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · death true · fine min 100000 · fine 500000 · note Death or life at hard labour; 100,000–500,000 pounds, label Dealing with intent to trade (article 34) · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · death true · fine min 100000 · fine 500000 · note Death or life at hard labour; 100,000–500,000 pounds, label Offering without payment (article 35) · treatment criminal · term Trafficking · fine min 50000 · fine 200000 · note Life at hard labour; 50,000–200,000 pounds
none
No hemp exception operates: Law 182 bans growing the Table V plants and bars handing over those plants or their seeds at any stage of growth.[@l182]
l182
High-profile cases make the news rather than statistics: an actress was released on bail in 2022 over suspected drug use, and airport arrests over small amounts are reported as routine.[@es]
es
Hashish use was associated with the Sufis, and after Napoleon's 1798 invasion the Emperor banned his soldiers from smoking or drinking cannabis extracts in 1800 — perhaps the first penal cannabis law.[@tni16] Egypt then banned and re-banned it for a century: cultivation, use and import first forbidden in 1868, taxed in 1874, confiscated in 1877, criminal to grow in 1884 — yet hashish stayed cheap, homegrown or smuggled from Greece, and the laws largely ineffectual.[@tni16] The bans are traced in [hashish in Egypt](/culture/traditions/hashish-in-egypt/) and the [1868 ban](/history/egypt-first-ban-1868/). A 1971 UN study of 850 imprisoned users and 839 controls documented the café pattern: heavy users took coffee alongside, and most stuck to smoking.[@soueif71]
tni16, soueif71