Burkina Faso keeps small-quantity tiers but raises drug fines

Burkina Faso’s new Penal Code, adopted on 31 May 2018, kept shorter sentences for small personal possession and growing while raising fines. It replaced the earlier drug-penalty clauses and removed their explicit option of a fine alone, although it lowered one cannabis-related minimum prison term.

Small personal supplies already had separate rules

The 1999 drug code had allowed a fine alone for small quantities bought, possessed or grown for personal consumption. Its cannabis-related prison ranges were two months to a year for high-risk plants and substances, including cannabis oil, and one to six months for other cannabis derivatives.

The replacement code carried those distinctions into a new national criminal law. It expressly repealed the 1996 Penal Code and the 1999 drug law’s main penalty provisions.

Fines rose while one minimum prison term fell

For small personal quantities of high-risk plants or substances, including cannabis oil, the new range was one month to one year and a fine of 250,000–600,000 CFA francs. The previous minimum prison term had been two months, and the fine had ranged from 100,000 to 500,000 francs.

For cannabis derivatives other than oil, the prison range stayed at one to six months. The fine rose from 50,000–250,000 to 250,000–600,000 francs.

Both clauses now joined imprisonment and a fine without repeating the earlier fine-only alternative. The quantity still had to be small enough to be considered intended for personal consumption, with no fixed gram or plant limit.

Supply and driving offences also carried combined penalties

Ordinary high-risk cultivation, production, international trafficking and local trafficking carried eleven to twenty-one years and a fine. Their earlier prison range had been ten to twenty years, with a fine-only option.

Giving a high-risk drug directly for someone else’s consumption retained a two-to-five-year range, now alongside a fine. Drug-impaired driving carried one to three years and a fine, with the same punishment for refusing the required tests.

The code also retained a court’s power to order treatment or care in place of or alongside punishment for a dependent person convicted of specified offences, including small personal quantities.

Treatment remained difficult to obtain

In 2025, Mainline reported that police and courts severely repressed drug use and that users were jailed. Its civil-society interviews described missing treatment protocols, facilities and clear responsibilities, leaving court-ordered care rarely implemented.

That gap between a treatment power in the law and access to services shaped the choices facing people caught with drugs in Burkina Faso.^[1][2][3]