Togo raises personal-use prison terms from months to years

Togo raised the prison range for a small personal supply of cannabis to one to three years when its new criminal code took effect on 25 November 2015. The fine became 500,000–3 million CFA francs. Courts could impose prison, a fine, or both, and could substitute treatment for someone with drug dependence.

The older cannabis rule counted sentences in months

Under the 1998 drug law, cannabis derivatives other than oil carried one to six months for a small personal-use amount. Cannabis oil had a separate two-month-to-one-year range. Both rules allowed a fine alone.

The rewrite removed those separate ranges from the small-quantity clause. It covered illegally held, bought or cultivated controlled plants and substances whose small quantity indicated personal consumption. The clause gave no weight or plant limit.

The consequences therefore depended on both the quantity and its intended use. Someone growing a small personal amount was expressly included in the same sentencing rule as someone buying or holding it.

A wider rewrite also sought alternatives to prison

The government presented the broader reform as a way to modernise a criminal code about thirty-five years old, define missing offences and implement international commitments. Parliament’s special commission examined the project with justice minister Koffi Esaw and UN human-rights representatives.

A contemporary account also described alternatives for minor offences as a way to reduce prison overcrowding. The cannabis provisions combined higher sentencing ranges with several choices for judges.

Judges retained routes to a lighter outcome

Alongside the fine-only option, the personal-use clause allowed qualifying sentences or their execution to be waived. Its listed conditions concerned someone below criminal majority, absence of repeat offending and a promise in court to stop.

For someone with drug dependence prosecuted under the personal-use, drug-driving or supplying-minors clauses, the court could replace the penalty with appropriate treatment. For other drug offences, treatment could accompany punishment. Evading ordered treatment carried its own one-to-five-year range, a fine, or both.

Supply penalties also increased

General high-risk drug production and supply rose from ten–twenty years under the older law to twenty–thirty years, with a fine of 50 million–100 million CFA francs or either penalty alone. Giving or offering such drugs for another person’s own consumption rose from three–five years to five–ten years, again allowing a fine alone.

Authorities later described cannabis as a high-risk drug in the 2020 bus seizure. The difference between a small personal supply and a trafficking charge consequently remained important in Togo, alongside judges’ choices over fines, imprisonment and treatment.^[1][2][3][4]