Histories of Cannabis Use and Control in Nigeria, 1927–1967

Illicit livelihoods: drug crops and development in Africa

“…This is the case also in Nigeria, although its recorded history is significantly shorter than in parts of southern and northern Africa (Klantschnig 2014). Cannabis cultivation has been historically concentrated in South-Western Nigeria, while some cultivation has also been detected in other parts more recently (AEGD 2001: 7;UNODC 1999: 22).…”

“…In Nigeria, the earliest debates about cannabis in the 1960s were almost exclusively focussed on the impact they could have on urban youth, reproducing arguments related to alcohol in the late colonial period (Klantschnig 2014). The high rates of unemployment throughout the continent, from Lagos to the Cape Flats and Nairobi, also creates fertile environments for the spread of drug use among marginalized youth (Scholes 2007;McCurdy 2014).…”

A brief agricultural history of cannabis in Africa, from prehistory to canna-colony

“…Illegal Farming 20 Most African colonial governments banned cannabis before it was listed in the 1925 Opium Convention (Illustration 4). Additional laws were enacted after this agreement, but drug-law enforcement did not immediately change (Klantschnig, 2014;Akyeampong, 2005;Du Toit, 1980). Arrests continued where authorities were already watching for cannabis; elsewhere, concern grew gradually.…”

“…Cannabis became salient in many African locations only after World War Two, when returning servicemen and merchant sailors brought it to port cities. Physicians became increasingly concerned about cannabis use and mental illness in African societies (Klantschnig, 2014;Mills, 2003). Anti-cannabis drug-law enforcement intensified globally in the 1960s.…”

“…22 Cannabis farming has been profitable, productive, and risky for a century. In Sierra Leone in the 1920s and 1930s, and Nigeria in the 1950s through 1980s, farmers supplied domestic and export markets even though cannabis farming was hardly visible to police (Akyeampong, 2005;Ellis, 2009;Klantschnig, 2014). When the colonial Zimbabwean government promoted cotton in the 1960s and 1970s, many farmers resisted because cannabis was more lucrative (Maravanyika and Maat, 2017).…”