Burundi lowers the minimum for drug use but toughens production penalties

Burundi’s 2009 criminal-code revision lowered the minimum prison term for illicit drug use from three years to one. It also made production offences more severe and required judges to place people convicted of consumption under supervision. Someone who used cannabis remained exposed to criminal punishment and additional obligations after conviction.

Drug use kept a possible fine instead of prison

The 1981 code had set three to five years for illicit use. The replacement, dated 22 April 2009, set one to five years for illicit consumption or possession, alongside a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 Burundian francs.

The judge could impose prison, the fine, or both. Holding a drug and actually using it appeared together in this clause, while growing, sale and transport remained prohibited elsewhere in the narcotics section. The health minister continued to determine drug classifications and authorised exceptions.

Production brought a heavier prison sentence

Illicit production, import, manufacture or export now carried ten to fifteen years and a fine up to one million francs. The older code had allowed the general maximum of five years to be doubled for these activities. The replacement also doubled its new penalties when an organised group committed the offence.

Helping another person use drugs, including by providing premises, carried one to five years and a fine of 50,000 to one million francs. Free assistance was covered. The law set ten to twenty years where the use or supply involved a child under 18.

Supervision could include compulsory care

For consumption offences, judges had to add supervision intended to prevent repeat offending. This meant court-directed monitoring and assistance under a prosecutor’s control.

The general supervision rules allowed an order to undertake treatment or training. Treatment required medical assessment, and refusing ordered care or training could activate a further prison term fixed by the court. Assistance therefore came with obligations backed by the threat of imprisonment.

The rules outlasted the revision

The 2017 code retained these core prison ranges, fines and compulsory supervision for consumption. Mainline’s later briefing reported that supervision was rarely implemented because institutions lacked staff, money and capacity.

For people facing prosecution in Burundi, the 2009 revision combined a lower minimum for use with heavier production penalties and an additional sentence whose promised assistance proved difficult to deliver.^[1][2][3][4]