Congo creates a committee to coordinate prevention and drug treatment

The Republic of the Congo created an interministerial drug committee on 25 October 1994 to support government decisions and promote prevention, care and social integration. Its later history exposed a gap between those responsibilities and the resources available to carry them out.

Police work preceded the committee

A national drug service within the judicial police had been created in 1992. The government later described it maintaining information about drug users and their addresses, with records updated between 1998 and 2003.

Drug enforcement also drew on older legislation. In its 2010 report on children’s rights, the government traced poisonous-substance controls to the colonial period and described penal-code rules against possessing and consuming cannabis.

The 1994 committee brought a wider set of responsibilities into that system. Its stated objectives included information and research alongside prevention, treatment and helping people return to social life.

Research reached three cities

A 2004 survey examined 239 people encountered through police, customs, prisons and psychiatric services in Brazzaville, Dolisie and Ouesso. The government used this work in its later discussion of children and drug use.

That report named cannabis, cocaine and heroin among the main drugs accessible in the country. It described concerns involving children living in the street, young people and former combatants, placing drug policy within a wider discussion of social vulnerability and the consequences of conflict.

The government described serious resource shortages

By 2010, the committee faced severe operating difficulties. The government reported that the national anti-drug project had stopped operating and that police and customs lacked training and detection equipment.

The judicial-police drug service was described as staffed by two officers and lacking the means to operate more effectively. The report called for the committee to be reactivated and for the people carrying out drug-policy work to receive stronger support.

Other organisations continued prevention activities. The health ministry worked with groups including Caritas, while school anti-drug clubs and awareness projects involved local associations and UN agencies.

New child protections followed

The 2010 child-protection law prohibited encouraging children to use drugs or using them in production and trafficking. It supplied specific penalties within a broader programme of children’s rights.

The government’s report still described a general drug bill awaiting adoption. Much later, the 2025 drug law set out personal-quantity and trafficking penalties for Congo, extending the legal history beyond the committee’s original coordinating role.^[1]