The story
Equatorial Guinea’s drug decree of 15 September 1993 expressly covered possession, cultivation, use and unpaid gifts. It is a useful historical source, but it cannot by itself establish every penalty applying today.
What the decree covered
Article 1 prohibited production, sale, use and trafficking. Article 4 included cultivation, manufacture, processing, transport, possession, donation and facilitating illegal use. It prescribed medium-term imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to 50,500,000 CFA francs. The English translation does not translate that prison category into a number of years. An unsupported one-to-twenty-year range should not be substituted for it.
Article 5 provided aggravated punishment for specified conduct involving minors, schools, military or prison facilities, adulterated drugs and people in rehabilitation. It also provided professional disqualification where a physician or public official abused their position.
A medical and scientific exception
Article 2 reserved authorisation of controlled-drug imports, exports, sales and medical or scientific use to the Health Ministry. Article 3 referred prescribing and dispensing requirements to the national pharmaceutical selection committee under Decree 7/1991.
Those powers do not demonstrate that patients could obtain cannabis flower or oil, or that a cannabis programme was operating. They also do not authorise recreational growing clubs.
Dates and the later code
The decree was signed on 15 September 1993. Its final provision made commencement depend on publication in national information media; the reviewed copy does not establish that publication date. The history entry therefore identifies the signing event explicitly.
The decree repealed article 433 of the then-applicable Penal Code. A later UN report states that Equatorial Guinea’s new Penal Code entered into force on 10 December 2022. Its relationship to the 1993 drug provisions still needs a verified, complete legislative comparison. The historical fine and prison category should not be represented as a confirmed 2026 tariff.
A newspaper account of open cannabis smoking in 2000 remains historical reporting. It cannot establish present enforcement, current arrest rates or permission to possess cannabis.[1][2]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Equatorial Guinea here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.