Is Weed Legal in Lesotho? Understanding Lesotho Cannabis and Marijuana Laws (2026)

Cannabis sits in an unusual middle ground in Lesotho. Licensed companies have been allowed to cultivate, process and export cannabis for medical and scientific use since 2017 — the year the small mountain kingdom became the first African country to open the door to a legal cannabis industry. For ordinary Basotho, though, almost nothing changed: growing, possessing or using cannabis without a government licence is still a crime, and the country has no medical-cannabis program that lets local patients buy the plant. This guide explains what is legal, what is not, how the licensing system works, and why a decade of “green rush” headlines has yet to translate into prosperity for the people who have farmed cannabis here for generations.

Is weed legal in Lesotho?

No — recreational cannabis is not legal in Lesotho, and neither is growing it at home. The only lawful cannabis activity is commercial cultivation, manufacturing and export carried out by companies that hold a licence for medical and scientific purposes. Everything else — personal use, possession, and unlicensed cultivation — remains a criminal offence.

That distinction matters. Lesotho legalised the licensed production of medical cannabis; it did not decriminalise cannabis for its citizens. There is no dispensary system, no patient card, and no legal route for a Mosotho to buy cannabis for their own treatment. In practice, nearly all of the cannabis grown legally in Lesotho is shipped abroad to regulated markets in Europe and beyond.

A short history of cannabis in Lesotho

Cannabis is one of the oldest crops in Lesotho, where it is known as matekoane. Cultivation in the region dates back to at least the 16th century, when the Koena people are said to have traded cannabis to local San communities around 1550, and by the 19th century the plant was a staple crop across the kingdom. Generations of Basotho families have grown it on mountainsides and in their gardens, valuing it as a hardier and more profitable crop than maize or sorghum.

For most of that history the trade has been illegal and export-driven. In the 2000s, researchers estimated that roughly 70% of the cannabis sold in neighbouring South Africa originated in Lesotho, smuggled across a long and porous border. That informal economy still exists alongside the new licensed industry, and it remains a lifeline for rural households that have never been able to buy into the legal market.

What Lesotho’s cannabis laws actually say

Lesotho’s drug laws are built on the Drugs of Abuse Act of 2008, which replaced the older Dangerous Medicines Act of 1973 and brought the country in line with international drug-control treaties, including the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The Act treats cannabis as a controlled “drug of abuse” but allows licensed operators to cultivate, manufacture, supply, import and export it for medical and scientific purposes.

The detailed rules for the industry came later, through the Drugs of Abuse (Cannabis) Regulations of 2018, which set out the licence categories, application criteria and seed-to-sale tracking requirements. Those regulations were overhauled again by a 2025 amendment. The system is run by two bodies working in tandem: the Lesotho Medicines Regulatory Authority (LeMeRA) — a national medicines regulator modelled on South Africa’s SAHPRA — carries out the technical review of licence and permit applications, while the Lesotho Narcotics Bureau vets them, issues the final decision, endorses export and destruction certificates, and reports to the International Narcotics Control Board, all under the Ministry of Health.

Two changes since then stand out. In Legal Notice No. 155 of 2025, published on 7 November 2025, the government tightened import and export permit rules, introduced a dedicated permit pathway for testing laboratories, required the Narcotics Bureau to formally endorse export and destruction certificates, and substantially raised licence fees across the sector. Then, on 1 March 2026, the Lesotho Medicines and Medical Devices Control Authority Act 2023 came into force, giving LeMeRA its formal footing. The direction of travel is clear: stricter compliance, closer oversight, and a higher financial bar to entry.

Can you grow cannabis at home in Lesotho?

No. Growing cannabis for personal or recreational use is illegal in Lesotho, regardless of how small the plot. The law only permits cultivation by licensed companies, and a licence is expensive and difficult to obtain. Unlicensed cultivation and dealing are criminal offences that carry prison terms and heavy fines under the Drugs of Abuse Act.

Enforcement is uneven. Because so many rural households depend on cannabis income, small-scale cultivation in the mountains is, for the most part, quietly tolerated rather than prosecuted. Arrests are far more common at the South African border, where smugglers move large quantities across each day. The result is a two-tier reality: international firms grow legally inside fenced, camera-monitored compounds, while the farmers who have tended the crop for generations continue to operate outside the law.

How cannabis licensing works — and what it costs

Anyone wanting to enter Lesotho’s legal cannabis sector has to apply for one of several licence types, demonstrating technical expertise, security arrangements and the financial capacity to meet international quality standards. The 2025 amendment reset the fee schedule, and the headline numbers show why the industry is dominated by well-funded foreign investors rather than locals:

• Cultivation, manufacturing and testing licences: M100,000 each
• Operator licence: M400,000
• Supply and transportation licences: M40,000 each
• Research licence: M50,000; storage licence: M10,000

On top of the initial fees there are annual renewals — M300,000 for an operator licence, M75,000 for cultivation, manufacturing or testing — plus inspection and administrative charges. An operator licence alone costs roughly US$25,000 before a single plant is in the ground, in a country where a large share of the population lives below the poverty line. Building a compliant facility costs far more again, which is why so much of the capital behind Lesotho’s industry comes from Canada, Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel.

Lesotho’s medical cannabis export industry

Lesotho’s pitch to investors is straightforward: high-altitude sunshine, low humidity, year-round growing conditions and labour costs well below those of North America or Europe. According to the Lesotho National Development Corporation, the country’s high-altitude terrain — much of it above 2,000 metres — supports multiple harvests a year, and the government promotes a 10% corporate income tax rate for agriculture and agro-processing along with zero-rated VAT on exports.

Those conditions drew a wave of international operators after 2017, several backed by major Canadian producers — among them Verve Dynamics (linked to Aphria, now part of Tilray Brands (TLRY )), Medigrow (now MG Health, backed by Supreme Cannabis), and Daddy-Cann (acquired by Canopy Growth (CGC )) — alongside UK, US and Israeli investors. Companies such as WeGROW built large greenhouse complexes aimed squarely at the European market. Lesotho now exports an estimated US$15–20 million of cannabis a year, the LNDC reports, made up mostly of dried flower, with extracts and seeds accounting for the rest. Shipments go to markets including Germany, Australia and other regulated jurisdictions, and Medigrow/MG Health became the first African company to export medical cannabis to Europe.

The bottleneck is certification. Selling into the European Union requires EU-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certification, and very few Lesotho operators have cleared that bar. A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Cannabis Research found that of the roughly 33 companies that had been granted cannabis licences, only eight were legally registered and just one had earned GMP certification and was actually exporting flower as an active pharmaceutical ingredient. The country also lacks accredited domestic testing laboratories, forcing producers to send samples to South Africa — an added cost that smaller operators struggle to bear.

Why the cannabis “boom” hasn’t delivered for ordinary Basotho

For all the early optimism, Lesotho’s cannabis industry has largely bypassed the people it was meant to lift. A 2019 industry report projected the sector would be worth at least US$92 million by 2023; the reality has fallen far short, and the gains have flowed overwhelmingly to foreign-owned companies. As reporting by The Guardian documented, smallholders who have grown matekoane for decades remain locked out, unable to afford a licence that can cost hundreds of thousands of maloti, while politicians’ repeated promises to open the industry to locals have gone unfulfilled.

Researchers have reached the same conclusion. The Journal of Cannabis Research study found the legal framework has effectively excluded the small, medium and micro enterprises — and the subsistence farmers — who might benefit most, concentrating the opportunity among the elite and multinationals. The industry has also proven volatile for investors: in 2022, the High Court of Lesotho ordered the insolvent liquidation of Bophelo Bioscience, one of the country’s largest licensed cultivation sites, after a boardroom dispute at its Nasdaq-listed parent, Akanda Corp. Lesotho’s experience captures a wider tension across the African cannabis market — abundant genetics and ideal growing conditions, but business models that have repeatedly failed to share the rewards locally. It is why Lesotho is often described as pace-setting the African cannabis movement while all is not rosy.

The “Lesotho” landrace and the country’s prized genetics

Lesotho’s cannabis has a reputation that long predates legalisation. The local landrace — usually called simply “Lesotho,” or by its Sesotho name matekoane, and sometimes “Sotho Heights” — is a pure highland sativa adapted to the extreme conditions of the Maloti and Drakensberg mountains. It is cold-hardy enough to finish in near-freezing weather, grows tall and branchy, and is prized by breeders for its relatively fast flowering and for elevated levels of THCV, a minor cannabinoid of growing scientific interest. THC content in landrace samples is variable, commonly reported from the high single digits into the mid-teens.

Those genetics are part of what makes Lesotho attractive as a source of high-quality African cannabis — and also a point of contention. Activists and scholars have warned that traditional Basotho cannabis varieties are being bioprospected and exported worldwide with little or no benefit returning to the communities that developed them over generations.

About Lesotho, the Mountain Kingdom

Lesotho is a small, landlocked country in Southern Africa, completely surrounded by South Africa — one of only a handful of nations on Earth that is an enclave of a single other state, and a neighbour that has taken a very different path by decriminalising cannabis for personal use. It is often called the “Mountain Kingdom” or the “Kingdom in the Sky” for good reason: no part of the country sits below roughly 1,400 metres, the highest low point of any nation in the world. Home to about 2.2 million people, the largest ethnic group is the Basotho, whose language, Sesotho, and distinctive culture, music and crafts give the kingdom a strong identity. That high, sunlit terrain is exactly what makes Lesotho so well suited to growing cannabis — and what the country’s industry has built its export pitch around.

The outlook for cannabis in Lesotho

Lesotho’s near-term direction is toward tighter regulation rather than broader access. The 2025 amendment raises fees and compliance demands, which the government argues will professionalise the sector and reassure international buyers, but which also push the cost of entry even further out of reach for ordinary Basotho. Whether the kingdom can convert its first-mover status into lasting domestic benefit will depend on choices it has so far avoided: lowering barriers for small producers, building local testing and processing capacity, and creating a legal channel for Basotho patients.

For now, the answer to “is weed legal in Lesotho?” remains a qualified one. Medical and scientific cultivation is legal and growing as an export business; recreational use is not, and home growing is off-limits. Anyone watching the wider shift toward cannabis reform across Africa — or comparing Lesotho with neighbours like Ghana — will find Lesotho a revealing case study in how a pioneering law can reshape an economy without yet reaching the people at its roots. Travellers should note the practical bottom line: cannabis, including CBD, is best left at home, as there is no legal way to buy or carry it for personal use in the kingdom.