Cameroon drafts harsher cannabis penalties

Cameroon was preparing higher fines and tighter limits on judicial leniency for cannabis offences in August 2017. A justice ministry magistrate told the government’s cannabis committee that the proposed amendments would set sentencing floors and prevent suspended sentences for the offences covered.

A cannabis committee wanted stronger action

The government had created a committee against cannabis cultivation in 2014, and the committee adopted an action plan for 2017. Magistrate Bikele Noah Lambert presented the legal response at a meeting in Yaoundé on 23 August.

He described cannabis as one of the country’s most produced and consumed drugs and associated its cultivation and trade with violence and crime. He said the Prime Minister had instructed officials to strengthen the legislation against cultivation, trafficking and consumption.

The existing law already allowed long sentences

Under the 1997 drug law, the main cultivation and trafficking offences carried ten to twenty years in prison, a fine, or both. Supplying a high-risk drug directly for someone else’s consumption had a two-to-five-year prison range, also with a fine-only option.

Small quantities held, bought or grown for personal use had a separate, lighter penalty. For a high-risk plant or substance, including cannabis oil, that could mean two months to one year in prison, a fine, or both. A court could waive punishment after the person promised not to repeat the offence.

The proposal targeted sentencing discretion

The magistrate said the preliminary bill would raise fines and set minimum sentences below which judges could not go when accepting mitigating circumstances. It would also rule out suspended sentences for the offences concerned.

The proposed amendments covered provisions on production, supply, personal quantities, driving, additional penalties and treatment, among others. He described the draft as undergoing validation. His account gave the intended direction of the reform without specifying the new fine amounts or sentencing floors.

Police were expanding their methods too

At the same meeting, police commissioner Armand Abena described drug-dog seizures and crop-destruction operations. He reported nearly 200 kg of cannabis seized with dogs since the start of the year and raids on plantations in three western regions.

The presentations brought together demands for stronger punishment and accounts of enforcement under the existing law. For people using, growing or supplying cannabis in Cameroon, the proposal sought to narrow the room courts had when deciding how to punish an offence.^[1][2][3]