Burkina Faso separates personal drug possession from supply

Burkina Faso’s Penal Code, adopted on 13 November 1996, separated people holding or using narcotics for themselves from those supplying others. Personal possession, purchase or use carried three to six months in prison, a fine, or both, and courts could also order detoxification treatment.

Drug offences already appeared in the health code

The 1994 health code had punished possession without a legitimate reason with six days to six months, a fine, or both. It also targeted group use and helping others use narcotics, with one to five years, a fine, or both.

The new Penal Code placed drug offences within a broader system of criminal punishment. Parliament adopted it in November, and it was promulgated in December. Its drug section covered production, cross-border movement, possession, supply and use, while allowing exceptions provided elsewhere in law.

Personal users could receive a fine alone

For someone possessing, buying or using narcotics for their own consumption, the fine ranged from 150,000 to 300,000 CFA francs. The court could impose either that fine or imprisonment, or combine the two.

The personal-use rule contained no gram limit. Its distinction rested on the purpose of the possession or purchase. Courts could also order supervision, treatment or care, including hospitalisation, for detoxification.

The possibility of care was therefore part of the criminal response. It depended on a court handling the case and could accompany the punishment imposed.

Passing drugs to another person meant longer sentences

Giving or offering narcotics directly for another person’s consumption carried one to five years and a fine of 500,000–1.5 million francs. Supplying minors, or supplying in educational centres or administrative premises, brought five to ten years and a doubled fine.

General transport, possession, offering, supply or purchase carried five to ten years and a fine. Producing or manufacturing narcotics carried one to five years and a much larger fine, while directing a group organised to commit drug offences could bring life imprisonment.

These different penalties made the person’s role central to the case: personal user, direct supplier, producer or organiser.

The next law added small personal growing

The 1999 drug code introduced a more detailed distinction for small personal quantities. Its shorter penalty tiers expressly covered growing as well as buying and possession, and named cannabis oil and other cannabis derivatives separately.

Burkina Faso later replaced the 1996 code and the drug law’s main penalty provisions through the 2018 Penal Code. The sequence shows how Burkina Faso’s law developed separate rules for personal supplies while retaining prison terms for both users and suppliers.^[1][2][3]