Kenya
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| Kenya | |
|---|---|
| Kenya | |
| |
| Samburu National Reserve | |
| Capital | Nairobi |
| Continent | Africa |
| Subregion | East Africa |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal |
| Status Since | 1994 |
| Enforcement | Penalties graded by weight; farms uprooted in forest reserves |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 1 |
| Growing Areas | 3 |
| Accessions | 6 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Kenya is a country in East Africa where cannabis is grown illegally in the Lake Victoria basin of the west, in the central highlands around Mount Kenya and along the coast.[1][2]: 75 In Kenyan usage the plant and the drug are both called bhang;[3][4] the Swahili word is bangi, a Hindi loanword that also draws on Persian bang and Arabic banj.[5]: 6
The plant reached eastern Africa from southern Asia.[6] Under British rule the Abuse of Opiates Prevention Ordinance of 1913 counted bhang among the "opiates" it controlled.[7] In colonial times it was grown for sale to labourers, intercropped with millet in Nyanza and brought in from Tanganyika.[5]: 13, 16–17
Cannabis is a prohibited plant under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act of 1994. Since an amendment of 2022, possession of cannabis that the court accepts was for the owner's own use carries up to five years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KSh 100,000; cultivation carries up to 20 years.[8]: ss. 3, 6 In July 2026 the High Court accepted that Rastafari is a religion protected by the Constitution but dismissed a petition by the Rastafari Society of Kenya for an exemption for its members' sacramental use of cannabis.[9]
Geography
In 2006 cultivation in the Lake Victoria basin, the central highlands and the coast was estimated at up to 1,500 hectares. Some of it stood in the lower farmlands, concealed among traditional crops; smaller plots lay higher up, in areas classed as national wildlife reserves.[2]: 75 In the late 1990s good-quality bhang was said to come from the following districts: Kakamega, Vihiga and Busia in Western Province; the Gwassi Hills, Kuria, Migori, Homa Bay and Kisii in Nyanza. On the coast, which had become a major producer over the previous decade, most growers worked the valleys of the Sabaki and Athi rivers in Malindi district. Large commercial plots were also reported from Kilifi district and the Chyulu Hills. Supplies also reached the coastal market from the uplands of Taita-Taveta. Police of the time destroyed a large plantation on forest land in the Nandi Hills.[10]: 21
By 2024 the forests of Mount Elgon, the Aberdares and the Mau were among the new hotspots, beside the older growing areas on the shores of Lake Victoria and the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya. In May of that year officials uprooted plants from 30 acres of Gwassi Forest in Homa Bay County.[1] In 2025 the interior minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, said that farms in the Mount Kenya forest affected Meru, Tharaka Nithi and Embu counties.[4]
Bernard Verdcourt's entry for Cannabis sativa in the Flora of Tropical East Africa (1975) reads: "Widely and illegally cultivated as a drug plant, also frequent as a weed of cultivation; 0–2100 m".[11]
Demographics
Communities with cannabis relationships
The Luo and Luhya of western Kenya were grouped by colonial officials under the name "Kavirondo".[5]: 14 In focus groups in Siaya and Vihiga counties, Luo and Luhya participants said that in the traditional society only elderly men, grandparents and above, were allowed to consume bhang.[12]: 33 In western Kenya smoking cannabis has particular cultural significance as a social activity; the plant also has medicinal uses there.[13]
In 1914, colonial officers reported, smoking was "very common" among the Wanyamwezi at Taveta. The District Commissioner at Voi wrote in the same year that the plant was "neither grown nor used by the Wataita" (the Taita); by the 1950s the Provincial Commissioner of the Coast reported "a considerable quantity of bhang" grown in the Taita Hills.[5]: 15–16
Agriculture
By the late 1990s cannabis, long grown in western Kenya, had changed from a minor crop for a limited local market into a commercial crop grown for profit on a large scale.[10]: 21 In 2004 Kenya was among the countries of eastern Africa where cannabis was a significant commercial crop.[14]: 39–40
In 1937 an agricultural instructor at Kajulu in Nyanza found bhang growing in a mtama shamba (millet field). The colonial government charged African growers with hiding the plant between rows of millet and maize.[5]: 17
By 2024 there was concern that the cannabis laws were holding back the development of medicinal cannabis and of non-psychoactive hemp as an industry.[13]
Cannabis in Kenya
History
In the account of Chris Duvall, cannabis was introduced to eastern Africa from southern Asia and spread widely within Africa mostly after 1500.[6] The historian Samson Ndanyi places its arrival in Kenya on the Indian Ocean trade routes that reached the coast at Mombasa, Kilifi and Lamu. In Duvall's view, as Ndanyi reports it, maritime trade from western India brought the plant to Kenya by 700 CE, and "a few" cannabis grains were present in central Kenya by 1500 CE. Barney Warf has suggested 1100 CE for its arrival.[5]: 6, 8 In 1975 Brian du Toit proposed that the people of the coast from Lamu to the Zambezi took up the smoking of bangi from Arabs who had brought the practice from India.[15]: 86 Other scholars have rejected du Toit's "Arab thesis" and proposed Gujarati, Axumite Ethiopian or Sabaean Arab carriers instead.[5]: 5
The Abuse of Opiates Prevention Ordinance of the East Africa Protectorate (No. 14 of 1913) came into operation on 1 January 1914. It defined "opiates" as "opium, bhang, morphine, cocaine and heroine" and provided for rules to regulate or prohibit the growing of Indian hemp and the import or possession of its seed.[7] Offenders faced a fine of up to 750 rupees, up to six months' imprisonment or both.[5]: 12 In June 1915 the Chief Secretary warned provincial commissioners that "cannabis indica i.e. Indian Hemp or Bhang" was being grown for sale to the "Kavirondo" working in labour camps and on farms. In 1929 the District Commissioner at Kilifi described supplies coming from Tanganyika, where cultivation was, in the commissioner's words, "practically unrestricted". In 1930 the Resident Magistrate's Court at Nakuru tried several Africans for "unlawful possession of bhang and bhang smoking pipes".[5]: 12–13, 16 Ndanyi argues that the colonial government sanctioned cannabis for medicinal use while prohibiting it for recreational use among Africans.[5]: 4
The Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of the Colony of Kenya (No. XLIII of 1932) replaced the 1913 Ordinance. It defined "Indian hemp" as the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant and made it an offence to cultivate the plant, to deal in it or to possess it, its medicinal preparations excepted.[16] In 1961 the Kenya Police seized 1,370 kilograms of cannabis and the government prosecuted 2,469 people for illicit possession and 10 for illicit cultivation; in 1962 seizures rose to 2,283 kilograms. A police report of 1961 said that Africans "addicted to smoking 'bhang' look upon it as a 'strong tobacco'". A colonial police claim that fighters of the Mau Mau were "drugged with 'bhang'" before operations was, in Ndanyi's view, a construct fashioned to ridicule them.[5]: 15, 18, 20
Kenya acceded to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs on 13 November 1964.[17] The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act, assented on 8 July 1994, came into force on 26 August 1994 and repealed the 1932 Ordinance.[8][16] In 2018 Kenneth Okoth, member of parliament for Kibra, introduced a Marijuana Control Bill.[5]: 4
Cultivation
Cannabis is grown in Kenya on farmland among other crops and in plots inside forest reserves.[2]: 75[1] The seller East Africa Genes offers seed of lines it calls landraces under Kenyan place names: Migori, Kwale, Kisumu, Kambi and Central Kenya.[18] It says that the Migori line has been grown in Kenya for several decades and that, before bullfights in western Kenya, farmers mix it with napier grass to feed the bulls.[18][19] It places the Kwale line, sold earlier as Mombasa 1, in Kwale, near the border with Tanzania, and names the Kisumu line after Kisumu, on Lake Victoria.[18]
Preparations and consumption
Bhang is smoked. In Siaya and Vihiga the traditional vessel was an earthenware pot holding sand, fire and water, called nyaloo by the Luo and oluchekhe by the Luhya.[12]: 34 As enacted in 1994, the drug law also made it an offence to possess a pipe or other utensil for smoking opium, cannabis, heroin or cocaine.[20]: s. 5(1)(d)
In 2022, 1.9 per cent of Kenyans aged 15 to 65, or 518,807 people, had used cannabis in the previous month.[21]: 78 The share had held at one per cent from 2007 to 2017 and rose by 90 per cent between 2017 and 2022. In 2022 it was three per cent in urban areas and one per cent in rural ones; it was highest, at six per cent, in the Nairobi region.[21]: 42
Religious and cultural use
In Duvall's words, the Luo "associated njaga [cannabis] with their ancestors".[5]: 14
In 2019 Justice Mwita of the High Court held that Rastafari is a religion whose sincere adherents are entitled to full protection under Article 32 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of conscience and religion.[22] In 2021 the Rastafari Society of Kenya and two others petitioned the High Court for an exemption from the drug law for the private, sacramental use of cannabis in Rastafari worship. Justice Bahati Mwamuye accepted in 2026 that Rastafari is a religion worthy of protection under Article 32. The judgment opens with lines from a Swahili song titled "Bangi" and calls such songs "one drop in the veritable ocean of cultural expressions that situate cannabis as a means for spiritual peace and enlightenment".[9]
Trade and commerce
In the late 1990s some of the bhang sold in western Kenya was grown in Uganda and sold in Kenya to gain an advantage in the exchange rate; some of the bhang reaching the coast was grown across the border in Tanzania. The Kenyan Narcotics Bureau reckoned that about 20 per cent of the cannabis available in the country came from Uganda by road; up to half of Kenya's own crop was reportedly exported to neighbouring and European countries.[10]: 21, 30 By 2024 some cannabis was produced in Kenya and much was imported from Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia; Ethiopian shash had become popular over the previous two decades. New hybrid varieties were selling in Nairobi at a premium.[13]
Legal status
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act defines "cannabis" as the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant from which the resin has not been extracted. It lists cannabis first among the prohibited plants of its Third Schedule. Its First Schedule lists "Cannabis (Indian Hemp) and Cannabis resin (Resin of Indian Hemp)" among the narcotic drugs.[8]: s. 2, Schedules 1 and 3
Since the amendment of 2022 (Act No. 4 of 2022), possession of cannabis that the court accepts was solely for the owner's consumption carries up to five years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KSh 100,000.[8]: s. 3 As enacted in 1994, the section set 10 years' imprisonment for such possession and 20 years in every other case.[20]: s. 3(2)(a) Trafficking in a narcotic drug, or other possession of it, is graded by weight: for 1 to 100 grams, a fine of at least KSh 30 million or 30 years' imprisonment or both; for more than 100 grams, a fine of at least KSh 50 million or three times the market value, whichever is greater, or 50 years' imprisonment or both. Using a narcotic drug carries a fine of at least KSh 250,000 or imprisonment of at least five years, or both. Cultivating a prohibited plant carries a fine of KSh 250,000 or three times the market value of the plants, whichever is greater, or up to 20 years' imprisonment, or both. Land used for cultivation may be forfeited. On conviction the court directs the police to destroy the plants.[8]: ss. 4–7, 12
The Act exempts possession under a licence issued under its section 16.[8]: s. 3(3) In its judgment of 15 July 2026 the High Court dismissed the Rastafari petition in full. It held that the petitioners had not exhausted the legal and administrative mechanisms available before turning to the court, that the evidence on the centrality of cannabis to the faith was inconsistent and that any limitation of their rights was reasonable and justifiable under Article 24 of the Constitution. Justice Mwamuye closed with a call for a "full and frank conversation on cannabis": "The status quo appears untenable."[9]
Enforcement
Growing Regions
Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki:
| Region |
|---|
| Lake Victoria basin |
Growing Areas
Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:
| Growing Area | Has growing region |
|---|---|
| Gwassi Hills | Lake Victoria basin |
| Mount Kenya forest | |
| Sabaki River valley |
Accessions
Map
List
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| EAG-KEN-KIS-0120200001 | Kisumu Sativa 2020 | ||
| EAG-KEN-KWA-0120200001 | Kwale Sativa 2020 | ||
| EAG-KEN-MIG-0120200001 | Migori Sativa 2020 | ||
| EAG-KEN-MIG-0120200002 | Isibania Sativa 2020 | ||
| EAG-KEN-UNK-0120200001 | Kambi Sativa 2020 | ||
| EAG-KEN-UNK-0120230001 | Central Kenya 2023 |
Conservation status
The National Museums of Kenya holds DNA-barcode vouchers of Cannabis sativa collected in Kenya in March 2014 for the Barcode of Wildlife Project.[23] The seed lines that carry Kenyan place names are kept and sold by a commercial seller.[18] New hybrid varieties were selling at a premium in Nairobi in 2024.[13]
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Odiwuor, George (26 May 2024). "Alarm over rise of illegal weed farms in protected forests". Nation. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006). "Review of the world cannabis situation" (PDF). Bulletin on Narcotics. LVIII (1 and 2). New York: United Nations (published 2008).
- ↑ Wangui, Joseph (15 July 2026). "Court recognises Rastafarian faith, but rejects legalising bhang". Nation. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Waititu, Samuel (10 May 2025). "State declares war on drug cartels cultivating bhang in Mt. Kenya Forest". Kenya News Agency. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 Ndanyi, Samson (2021). "Cannabis in Kenya". Southern Journal for Contemporary History. 46 (2): 4–23. doi:10.38140/sjch.v46i2.5623.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Duvall, C.S. (2017). "Cannabis and tobacco in precolonial and colonial Africa". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.44.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Abuse of Opiates Prevention Ordinance, 1913(Ordinance No. 14 of 1913), 13 October 1913.East Africa Protectorate.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act(Act of Parliament, Cap. 245 No. 4 of 1994), 8 July 1994.Kenya.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Rastafari Society of Kenya (RSK) & 2 others v Attorney General & 2 others (Petition E175 of 2021) [2026] KEHC 11816 (KLR)". High Court of Kenya. 15 July 2026. Retrieved 12 October 2026 – via Kenya Law.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (March 1999). The Drug Nexus in Africa (PDF) (Report). ODCCP Studies on Drugs and Crime, Monograph series 1. Vienna: United Nations.
- ↑ "Cannabis sativa L." Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Olungah, Charles Owuor; Muga, Geoffrey Otieno (2021). "New consumption patterns of marijuana and their implications for law enforcement in Kenya". African Journal of Alcohol and Drug Abuse. 6: 27–40.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Carrier, Neil; Apondi, Bernice; Rusenga, Clemence; Omenya, Gordon (July 2024). Cannabis policy in Kenya: a call for an informed and inclusive national debate (PDF) (Report). PolicyBristol Policy Briefing 151. University of Bristol.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (2005). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2004 (PDF) (Report). United Nations. ISBN 92-1-148198-8. E/INCB/2004/1.
- ↑ du Toit, B.M. (1975). "Dagga: the history and ethnographic setting of Cannabis sativa in southern Africa". In Rubin, V. (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 81–116. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.81.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 The Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, 1932(Ordinance No. XLIII of 1932), 31 December 1932.Colony of Kenya.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 "Pure African Strains". East Africa Genes. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- ↑ "Pure African Strains". East Africa Genes. Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act(Act of Parliament No. 4 of 1994), 8 July 1994, as enacted.Kenya.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (2022). National Survey on the Status of Drugs and Substance Use in Kenya, 2022 (PDF) (Report). NACADA.
- ↑ "JWM (alias P) v Board of Management [particulars withheld] High School & 2 others (Petition 10 of 2019) [2019] KEHC 10897 (KLR)". High Court of Kenya. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 12 October 2026 – via Kenya Law.
- ↑ "KU748196: Cannabis sativa voucher NMK:34.10036 ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase large subunit (rbcL) gene, partial cds; chloroplast". European Nucleotide Archive. EMBL-EBI. Retrieved 12 October 2026.