Sudan restricts cannabis imports under its contraband law

Sudan placed cannabis imports under contraband controls in 1901, with exceptions for medical practitioners, licensed poison sellers and people authorised by the governor-general. Unlawful imports could bring prison, a fine and confiscation of both the goods and the means used to carry them.

Cannabis appeared in a wider list of controlled goods

The Anglo-Egyptian administration’s law covered far more than drugs. Its list included counterfeit money, weapons, certain alcoholic drinks and materials considered offensive to religion or public morals. Cannabis was placed among poisons and medicines, alongside substances such as arsenic, strychnine, chloroform and opium.

The list expressly identified cannabis indica as Indian hemp or hasheesh. That wording made cannabis part of the import controls without requiring a separate cannabis-only statute. The ordinance was published on 1 January 1901.

The exceptions identified who could receive it

The restriction allowed consignments to a qualified medical practitioner, a person licensed to sell poisons, or someone specially permitted by the governor-general. These named exceptions gave authorised recipients a route through a prohibition directed at ordinary importation.

The penalties reached people involved in bringing in the goods, including people who were not the principal importer. A court could impose up to seven years in prison, a fine of up to 500 Egyptian pounds, or both. The goods were forfeited and could be destroyed or otherwise disposed of as the governor-general directed. Their means of transport could also be confiscated.

Holding the goods could count against the holder

The ordinance treated possession of a listed article as evidence that the holder had helped introduce, grow or manufacture it. To escape that presumption, the person had to show they had obtained it lawfully without knowing it was contraband.

That placed an explanation of the goods’ origin at the centre of the holder’s defence. The law connected a shipment’s journey into Sudan with the people later found holding it.

Later laws made the controls more specific

The 1906 revision expressly added local making and manufacture to the contraband offence. A separate hashish ordinance followed in 1907, covering unauthorised farming, processing, supply, possession and transport.

The 1924 hashish and opium law therefore belonged to an older chain of restrictions. Sudan’s cannabis history already included controls over importers and holders more than two decades before that later law.^[1][2]