Cannabis in Central Africa: 9 countries, no legal market

The United Nations M49 standard puts nine countries under “Middle Africa”: Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe. The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) has two more members, Burundi and Rwanda, which the UN counts as East Africa.

The difference in scope has consequences. No country on the UN list of nine has adopted a legal framework for cannabis, while within ECCAS Rwanda is the exception, for medical use only. This overview is based on the published texts we could consult as of 23 September 2026. For a specific trip or project, the country's embassy is the only authoritative source.

The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs places cannabis in Schedule I, its highest level of control. On 2 December 2020 the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs removed it from Schedule IV by 27 votes to 25; it had been listed there alongside heroin for 59 years. That vote legalised nothing. Cannabis stays in Schedule I, and the conventions still prohibit its non-medical use.

Central African laws apply the same logic. They draw no line between low-THC hemp and psychoactive cannabis, and they set no threshold like France's 0.30%. With no threshold, a CBD product has no category of its own and counts as cannabis.

Cameroon is the only country in the region whose criminal text we could read in full. Article 8 of Law No. 97/019 of 7 August 1997 on narcotics control states the principle: cultivating the opium poppy, the coca bush and the cannabis plant is prohibited on national territory. Landowners must destroy any such plants growing on their land.

Penalties for a small quantity held for personal use are set by article 102, which names cannabis oil explicitly and sets no condition on potency:

Beyond personal use, cultivating or processing high-risk drugs carries 10 to 20 years in prison (article 91). The text gives CBD oil no separate status, so a check may treat it as cannabis oil.

In the DRC, Law No. 004/2003 of 13 March 2003 bans the production, possession and sale of cannabis. The agriculture minister's office says it keeps an exception for medical and scientific uses, subject to state authorisation. In August 2026, on a visit to North Kivu, the agriculture minister announced plans to promote cannabis cultivation for medical purposes, the Congolese daily La Prospérité reported.

Members of parliament have challenged the plan, pointing to security in the provinces hit by conflict. No new law had been passed at the time of writing. Nothing changes for individuals: possessing cannabis or a derivative is still an offence in the DRC.

Rwanda published a ministerial order on cannabis and cannabis products on 28 June 2021. It permits licensed cultivation, processing, import and export for medical and research purposes. Medical use requires a prescription from a specialist doctor. Recreational use is still excluded, and the order has no “wellness hemp” category comparable to the CBD sold in France.

Other parts of the continent offer a sharp contrast. In 2021 Morocco legalised medical, cosmetic and industrial uses of cannabis, under licence from a national agency; our article on law 13-21 and ANRAC explains how it works. On 28 May 2024 South Africa enacted a law on the private use of cannabis by adults. Neighbouring East African countries have gone other ways, as our overview of East Africa shows.

All these reforms rely on a law or regulation that sets up licences and controls, and no such text has been published in Central Africa. Our comparison of three legal models worldwide places these choices next to those of Europe and the Americas.

CBD can be sold legally in France because the decree of 30 December 2021 allows hemp varieties and products with no more than 0.30% Δ⁹-THC. In the Kanavape case of 19 November 2020, the EU Court of Justice also ruled that a member state cannot ban CBD lawfully produced in another member state. These rules apply inside the European Union and give a traveller no protection in Cameroon, Gabon or the DRC.

In practice, do not take CBD flowers, resin or oil to these countries, even with a certificate of analysis. Their law has no 0.30% threshold, and Cameroon's targets cannabis oil without mentioning potency. Checks when leaving France are covered in our guide to flying with CBD, and what makes a product legal here is explained in our article on the 0.3% THC threshold.