Rwanda sets prison plus a fine for illicit drug use

Rwanda’s replacement criminal code specified one to three years in prison and a fine for illicit drug use when it took effect on 14 June 2012. The drug-use clause combined imprisonment with a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 Rwandan francs. The older code had expressly allowed a fine alone.

The sentencing range changed in two directions

The 1977 code had set three months to five years for illicit use, alongside a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 francs, with either punishment available alone. The replacement raised the prison minimum to one year, lowered the maximum to three and raised the maximum fine fivefold.

Growing, selling, transporting, storing and consuming narcotics remained prohibited outside conditions allowed by law. Drug classification continued to depend on a health-ministry order. A separate drug-control law had set out authorisations for medical and research activities earlier that year.

Production and sale carried a separate sentence

Making, transforming, importing or selling drugs unlawfully carried three to five years and a fine of 500,000 to five million francs. Those penalties doubled where the acts were committed internationally.

Helping another person use drugs, including by providing premises, carried one to three years and a fine in the same higher range. Obtaining or supplying drugs through fraudulent prescriptions was also punishable. Inducing a child to use narcotics carried more than five years and up to seven years, plus a fine.

The government described imprisonment and youth campaigns

In its later report to the UN Human Rights Committee, the government described a campaign aimed particularly at young people in and outside school. Authorities enlisted former users and traffickers to help discourage drug use.

The same report said 1,910 people had been incarcerated in 2011 for smoking cannabis. That earlier figure showed imprisonment already formed part of the state’s response when the new code arrived. The report also recorded 2,402 arrests connected with banned substances across 2011–2012.

Community service appeared in the next rewrite

The 2018 law offered one to two years or community service for drug use while introducing much heavier supply penalties. The choice available to a person prosecuted for using drugs therefore changed again.

For Rwanda, these successive laws separated the punishment of users from increasingly severe rules governing production and supply.^[1][2][3][4]