The story · written by gpt-6,
Ethiopia’s new penal code made unauthorised drug supply punishable with prison and a fine, and extended the same punishment to people who knowingly provided a place for others to use drugs. Approved in 1957, the code took effect on 5 May 1958.
A new code replaced the emperor’s earlier law
Emperor Haile Selassie approved the code after parliament passed it. Its opening proclamation said Ethiopia’s progress required replacing the penal code of 1930, and gave the new rules a later starting date.
The drug offence appeared among crimes against public health. It grouped poisons, drugs and narcotic substances together, treating their unauthorised production and circulation as a danger the criminal law should control. Ethiopia had already joined the amended international opium convention in 1947, placing cannabis within its international drug-control commitments.
Supply included receiving and storing drugs
The offence reached well beyond a completed sale. Producing, transforming, importing, exporting, transporting, acquiring, receiving and storing the substances without lawful authority were all covered. Offering them for sale, distributing them or obtaining them for someone else also fell within the rule.
The ordinary punishment combined at least three months of simple imprisonment with a fine of up to 20,000 Ethiopian dollars. The wording therefore reached the movement and keeping of drugs as well as the person who finally passed them to a customer.
A private gathering could expose the host
Someone who knowingly made premises available for taking drugs could receive the same punishment. The code expressly included private premises, bringing the person supplying a place into the reach of the drug offence alongside the person supplying the substance.
More serious cases could bring up to five years of rigorous imprisonment, the code’s heavier form of custody, and a fine of up to 30,000 dollars. These included organised or professional trafficking. The heavier punishment also covered knowingly supplying drugs or access to premises, for gain or an improper motive, to young people, people with mental disabilities or people dependent on drugs.
Later laws returned to the host and the user
The 1999 drug law set seven to fifteen years for allowing illicit narcotic drug use on one’s premises. The replacement criminal code then expressly separated trafficking from possession, growing and supply for private use. Those later distinctions became part of Ethiopia’s cannabis law long after the emperor’s code began punishing the supply chain and the host together.[1][2][3]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Ethiopia here.
References
- Penal Code of Ethiopia, Proclamation 158 of 1957Empire of Ethiopia · 1957 · Enacting proclamation, sections 2–3; article 510, printed pp. 155–156archived
- Drug Administration and Control Proclamation 176/1999, original gazetteFederal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia · 1999 · Articles 34 and 42, printed pp. 1114–1116archived
- Criminal Code of the Federal Democratic Republic of EthiopiaFederal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia · 2005 · Enacting proclamation, sections 2–4; article 525archived
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.