Sierra Leone sets at least 15 years in prison for cannabis offences

People convicted of cannabis offences under Sierra Leone’s new pharmacy law faced at least fifteen years in prison from December 2001.^[1] The prohibition reached smokers, growers, people holding cannabis and people who let others smoke on their premises.^[1]

A pharmacy law reached into people’s homes

The law regulated pharmacists, medicines and their supply, but it also dealt directly with cannabis, using the older name Indian hemp.^[1] Possession without lawful excuse was prohibited, and the person holding the drug had to prove that excuse.^[1]

Smoking was a separate offence.^[1] So was frequenting a place used for smoking cannabis, permitting smoking on premises one owned or occupied, or possessing pipes and other equipment intended for it.^[1] A person could therefore come within the law through the place they visited or the equipment they kept, as well as through the drug itself.^[1]

Fifteen years was the cannabis-specific minimum

The cannabis penalty said an individual convicted of an offence relating to Indian hemp must receive at least fifteen years in prison.^[1] The general penalty section also included special rules for people with two earlier convictions for particular cannabis offences.^[1]

Growing any plant from which a narcotic drug could be extracted required the Pharmacy Board’s written consent.^[1] Written permission, rather than a household plant allowance, was the route the statute provided for cultivation.^[1]

The restrictions also followed cannabis across the border: the minister could not grant an import or export licence for Indian hemp prepared for smoking.^[1]

Colonial controls stayed alongside it

The new Act replaced the 1988 pharmacy law and kept earlier regulations alive unless revoked.^[1] It expressly left the colonial Dangerous Drugs Act in force.^[1]

That older law already prohibited cannabis cultivation and possession in its surviving revised text, while treating medicinal extracts and tinctures through licensing and pharmacy rules.^[2] The 2001 statute placed its cannabis offences alongside that existing system.^[1]

A national enforcement law followed

In 2008, parliament passed a new drug-control law after a cocaine-laden aircraft landed in the country and exposed weaknesses in enforcement.^[3] It created a national agency and expressly repealed the colonial Dangerous Drugs Act.^[4]

The 2008 law also said it would prevail where another enactment conflicted with it.^[4] In 2024, the Pharmacy Board relied on the 2001 cultivation-consent power for medical production guidelines focused on export.^[5] In Sierra Leone, the pharmacy law became a basis for licensed production as well as criminal restrictions.^[1][5]