Niger gives small personal supplies and growing a separate penalty

Niger’s replacement drug ordinance, signed on 23 September 1999, gave small personal possession, purchase and growing a separate penalty. Its cannabis-related prison ranges ran from one month to a year, and a court could impose a fine alone.

Earlier rules came from the 1970s

The new ordinance expressly repealed the 1974 national drug rules and their 1977 implementing decree. Those earlier controls had also supplied schedules used by the 1997 pharmacy law.

Daouda Malam Wanké, president of the National Reconciliation Council, signed the replacement during the transition described in its preamble. The ordinance combined rules for controlled medicines with offences involving illicit drugs.

Its annex placed cannabis and cannabis resin in the high-risk category. The law also explicitly prohibited growing cannabis and required landowners, operators and occupiers to destroy plants growing on their land.

A small personal quantity could mean a fine alone

For a small personal quantity of a high-risk plant or substance, including cannabis oil, the penalty was two months to one year, a fine of 500,000–1 million CFA francs, or both. A cannabis derivative other than oil carried one to six months, a fine of 250,000–500,000 francs, or both.

The rule expressly covered buying, possession and cultivation. The quantity had to be small enough to be considered intended for personal consumption, without a numerical limit in grams or plants.

This put the purpose of holding or growing the drug at the centre of the personal-quantity rule. Using controlled drugs remained prohibited outside a medical prescription.

Supply had longer prison ranges

General high-risk trafficking carried ten to twenty years, a fine of 1–20 million francs, or both. Giving or offering a high-risk drug directly for another person’s consumption carried one to five years, a fine of 100,000–500,000 francs, or both.

These clauses distinguished direct supply to a user from wider trafficking. They also retained the possibility of a fine alone alongside the prison ranges written into the law.

Treatment could replace or accompany punishment

For a dependent person convicted of specified drug offences, including small personal quantities, a court could order treatment or care instead of or alongside punishment. Evading those measures carried one to five years, a fine, or both.

The ordinance also allowed additional penalties for specified trafficking offences, including exclusion of convicted foreigners. Personal quantities and ordinary trafficking therefore had different consequences within Niger’s drug legislation.^[1][2]