Sierra Leone identifies diamba as cannabis in its official drug report

Sierra Leone’s official drug report identified diamba as cannabis in 1933 and described it as the only dangerous drug known to be used illegally in the colony.^[1] The plant was already covered by colonial drug controls, although people had been growing and smoking it for decades.^[1][2]

Growers knew a plant that officials overlooked

A botanical account published in 1851 described cultivation, preparations and pipe smoking in Sierra Leone.^[3] Its author, colonial surgeon R. O. Clarke, connected the seeds with Central Africans brought ashore after a British cruiser intercepted a slave ship.^[3]

Clarke described cannabis as already established among several communities.^[3] He distinguished a preparation made with flowers and seeds from another made with leaves, and recorded people gathering to smoke together.^[3] The document shows agricultural knowledge, trade and social use long before the official drug report named the plant.^[3]

International names concealed local knowledge

Historian Chris Duvall contrasts that account with the testimony of Sierra Leone’s Chamber of Commerce president in 1899, who said nothing resembling bhang or Indian hemp existed in the colony.^[1] Duvall places the comment within an official outlook concerned with declared imports and exports.^[1]

The colony later enacted drug controls based on the Geneva convention.^[1][2] The statute used Indian hemp and a botanical definition, while allowing for different commercial names.^[2]

Its surviving revised text prohibited growing and possessing cannabis and dealing in resin.^[2] Medicinal extracts and tinctures came under separate licensing and pharmacy rules.^[2] Farmers and smokers therefore faced a legal vocabulary different from the local name diamba.^[1][2]

The report joined the two names

The 1933 report explicitly connected diamba with Cannabis sativa.^[1] Duvall cites the episode as an example of local cannabis history being obscured within early drug-control systems.^[1]

The report’s claim concerned what officials knew about illegal drug use.^[1] Alongside Clarke’s earlier account, it shows how late the official recognition came compared with the documented practice.^[1][3]

Colonial law outlasted colonial rule

The Dangerous Drugs Act remained on the books until the national drug law of 2008 expressly repealed it.^[4] That law created a national enforcement agency and gave officers specific powers to destroy cannabis crops.^[4]

The link between a locally familiar plant and international drug controls continued to shape the law in Sierra Leone long after the report had finally put the two names together.^[1][4]