Basutoland brings cannabis under its habit-forming drugs law

Lesotho’s first dated restriction on cannabis is a colonial proclamation of 1922. The Basutoland Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Regulation Proclamation put the plant, known locally as dagga or matekoane, under a permit system that in practice was never used.

What the proclamation did

A United Nations survey of 1955, compiled with the Basutoland government, sets out the law as it then stood. The proclamation applied to the cannabis plant, to cannabis and its resin, and to their preparations. Growing the plant or producing the drug needed a licence authorised by the Resident Commissioner, and a licence could be issued only where there was a medical demand. None had been issued in recent years. Possession was confined to permit holders, chemists, doctors, dentists, veterinary surgeons and their patients, and keeping or frequenting a place for smoking was an offence.

By the time of the survey, after an amendment of 1951, any narcotics offence carried a fine of up to £500 or up to three years in prison, or both. Seized plants and drugs were forfeited and burned in front of a police officer.

How it was enforced

Chiefs and headmen were held responsible for destroying the plant in their areas, whether or not the police had reported it. The law made no distinction between smoker and dealer; the courts judged by quantity. A very small amount could mean a fine of five shillings, a large one the heaviest sentence the court could give.

Year	Cannabis seized	People prosecuted
1946	68 kg	46
1948	1,324 kg	111
1951	6,545 kg	355
1952	2,155 kg	294

The survey says the plant was grown in small patches hidden among wheat, maize and sorghum, mostly for buyers in South Africa. It was carried over the border in the luggage of mine workers, in bales of wool and mohair, and across mountain passes; the price was about £10 for a hundred pounds. Smoking, the survey says, had become largely a habit of older men who took it up before the ban.

Why the index moved

The 1922 proclamation is the first step in Lesotho’s score, from the unregulated state to prohibition. The index reads the law through the 1955 survey, since the original wording has not been read. Later steps are the Dangerous Medicines Act of 1973 and the Drugs of Abuse Act of 2008, under which Lesotho began licensing medical cannabis growers in 2017. The country’s present total is 11.^[1]