Ethiopia restricts cannabis imports and sales to a licensed medical trade

Ethiopia put cannabis imports and sales behind permits, pharmacy licences and medical prescriptions in September 1942. Someone breaking those rules could face up to two years in prison, a fine of up to 2,000 Ethiopian dollars, or both.

Importers needed approval from two offices

The short Dangerous Drugs Proclamation named cannabis indica alongside opium, coca, datura and heroin. Its import restriction also covered the listed plants’ alkaloids and derivatives, extending the control beyond the raw plants themselves.

An importer needed a permit issued by the Minister of Commerce and Industry. That decision depended on advice from the Director of Medical Services. The arrangement therefore put both commercial administration and medical oversight between an importer and a lawful shipment.

A shop licence alone did not authorise a sale

The law limited offers for sale to a pharmacy or drug store licensed under Ethiopian law. An ordinary trader could not offer the named drugs through a general shop.

Even an authorised pharmacy needed a prescription before selling them. The prescription had to come from a medical practitioner who was both registered and licensed. The importer, the premises and the practitioner thus each had a separate role in the legal route to supply.

For cannabis, this tied a lawful retail transaction to a medical order. The drug’s express inclusion matters: the restriction can be read directly from the list, without having to infer whether a general reference to narcotics covered the plant.

The same penalty covered each breach

The proclamation attached one penalty to contraventions of its rules. A court could impose imprisonment, a fine, or both together. The maximum prison term was two years, and the maximum fine was 2,000 dollars.

That meant the import permit, the licensed selling place and the prescription were backed by criminal punishment. Each was a condition that the people bringing in or selling the drug had to satisfy.

Later laws reached further along the supply chain

Ethiopia’s replacement penal code took effect in May 1958. It covered unauthorised production, transport, acquisition, storage and supply of narcotic substances, and knowingly providing premises for drug use.

The 1999 drug law returned to special licences, controlled prescriptions and locked storage. Those later rules continued the close supervision of importers, prescribers and dispensers already visible in Ethiopia’s history in 1942.^[1][2][3]