French Cameroon restricts hashish supplies and punishes group use

French-administered Cameroon placed hashish and its preparations under pharmacy controls in a decree dated 9 October 1926. Using the drug together, helping others use it or possessing it without a legitimate reason could bring three months to two years in prison, a fine, or both.

France adapted its pharmacy controls

The decree accompanied another law regulating the pharmacy profession in the territory. Colonial ministers Léon Perrier and Louis Barthou presented the two as connected: regulating pharmacists also required rules for the poisonous substances they handled.

France’s annual report to the League of Nations described the decrees as adaptations of rules already applied in metropolitan France. Cameroon was administered under a French mandate, and the government treated the sale of toxic substances and the practice of medicine and pharmacy as matters requiring close state supervision.

Hashish appeared in the narcotics list

The rules divided controlled substances into three lists. Hashish and its preparations appeared in Schedule B alongside opium, morphine and cocaine. That explicit listing brought cannabis products within the decree’s narcotics controls.

Authorised importing, possession, processing and sale of Schedule B substances were reserved mainly for qualified pharmacists with an open pharmacy. The administration could also designate laboratories and other establishments allowed to receive specified quantities.

Supplies on prescription were an exception to the restriction on selling to people outside the pharmacy profession. Pharmacists had to record purchases and transfers, including transfers made free of charge. Records identified the substance, quantity and supplier or recipient.

Sharing a place to use drugs carried penalties

Breaches of the narcotics rules carried three months to two years in prison and a fine of 1,000 to 10,000 francs, with either punishment available alone. The same range applied to using the listed drugs together and facilitating another person’s use, whether paid or free.

Providing premises was expressly included. People obtaining substances through false prescriptions, knowingly supplying against such prescriptions or carrying drugs without a legitimate reason also faced punishment. Courts could order confiscation, and premises used for group consumption faced closure and seizure of their contents.

Inspectors followed the stock

Pharmacists had to keep controlled substances in locked cupboards, and quantities found outside them could be seized. Inspection powers extended to pharmacies, medicine stores, wholesalers and other businesses handling medicinal products. Inspectors checked records against the quantities present and sent reports of offences to the prosecutor.

French authorities later extended pharmacy-code drug rules in 1955. The colonial controls form part of the history behind Cameroon’s later national drug legislation.^[1]