Talk:Uganda

Talk

Discussion for: Uganda • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Uganda is the Country page for Uganda. It covers where cannabis has been found growing, the peoples the older ethnographies connect with it, licensed medical cannabis and hemp, the drug laws from 1993 to the Act of 2024 (including the annulment of the Act of 2015), the trade with Kenya and enforcement. The tables of growing regions, growing areas, accessions and news fill from pages that name Uganda as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources and how they were read

Statutes were read in the copies published by ULII (Laws.Africa): the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act assented on 9 April 2015 (which ULII titles "Act, 2016" and numbers Act 3 of 2016, after its gazetting in February 2016), the Act of 2024 (Act 2 of 2024) and the commencement instrument of 2025 (Statutory Instrument 2025 No. 42). The National Drug Policy and Authority Act, Cap. 206, was read in a copy hosted by the IFRC's disaster law database, which does not state its edition.
The Constitutional Court's judgment of 2023 (Constitutional Petition No. 1 of 2017, [2023] UGCC 100) could not be reached. Its outcome is taken from the judiciary's press release of 9 May 2023, which names the petition and its ground, and from the Daily Monitor, which quotes the lead judgment.
The INCB report for 2023 (p. 66) is the source for Parliament's passage of the bill on 22 August 2023.
du Toit (1975) was read in the printed chapter. Its statements about the Basoga, the Baganda and the Bagishu come from Roscoe (1911, 1921) and Purvis (1909), which were not read.
Pringle (2019) was read in the open-access edition (p. 98); the letter of the District Commissioner of Bugisu (May 1960) that it cites was not seen.
United Nations documents: the UNODC Bulletin on Narcotics of 2006 (p. 75), the UN study The Drug Nexus in Africa (1999, pp. 21 and 30) and the INCB report for 2004 (pp. 39–40), read on the issuing bodies' sites.
News reports (the Daily Monitor) are cited only for events, licences and what officials said. Their bylines could not be read for three of the reports.
Genetics. The listing of Uganda among the countries of origin in Gilmore and colleagues (2007) is taken from the table of a review by Welling and colleagues (2016); Gilmore's paper itself was read only in its abstract, and which Ugandan sample it used is not known.
The seed lines are described from the seller's catalogue, as on the accession pages.

Where the sources differ

The year of the first Act. The judiciary and the Daily Monitor call it the Act of 2015, the year of its assent; ULII titles it the Act of 2016, the year it was gazetted and came into force.
The date of the annulment. The judiciary's press release dates the judgment 5 May 2023; ULII's listing of the judgment gives 6 May 2023. The page gives 5 May.
The licensing minister. Section 11 of the Act of 2024 gives the licensing of cultivation to the minister responsible for health. The Daily Monitor reported in 2025 that the experimental licence of Bright Sparks Farm was granted by a clearance letter signed by the minister of internal affairs. The same report gives the Act's year as 2023.
The Daily Monitor of 2013 describes marijuana gardens in Luweero but also says that charges of possessing "opium" would follow and that "dry opium" was recovered; the page reports only the gardens.

Not used, and why

Lubogo (2022), which gives a protectorate ban of 1902 on "opium" that included bhang and Hobley's ethnological survey of 1902: the wording of its opening chapter matches the Wikipedia article on cannabis in Uganda, and the primaries it cites (the British and Foreign State Papers of 1905 and Hobley 1902) were not reached.
The parliamentary committee report of July 2023 on the bill: its scanned text is too garbled to quote reliably. It lists the Uganda Medical Cannabis and Hemp Industry Association and Industrial Hemp Uganda among the bodies heard.
Police figures for 2022 are for all narcotics; the page gives them as such.

Open questions

Colonial law. No ordinance of the Uganda Protectorate on Indian hemp has been found. Reports of the East African Court of Appeal from the 1940s and 1950s turned up in searches, but their texts, and whether they concern cannabis, could not be read.
Names. The UNODC's enjaga is not assigned to a language in its source; Lubogo's title uses njaga. No Luganda, Lusoga or Lugisu name for the plant has been found in a dictionary or a primary source.
Where it is grown. No survey or police report ranking Uganda's districts for cannabis growing has been found; the page names only districts where the police reported destroying gardens.
Herbarium. No preserved herbarium specimen of Cannabis from Uganda is published to GBIF; the holdings of the Makerere University Herbarium have not been searched.
Licences. No register of the licences issued under the Act of 2024, nor the health ministry's regulations under section 11, has been found.
The appeal. Whether the Attorney General appealed the annulment of 2023 is not known.