Ace broadcast journalist, Kwame Sefa Kayi has called on the Akufo-Addo led government to legalize Indian hemp in Ghana.
He claims, as a country, we are losing out on the benefits marijuana brings with its illegality.
The 2016 GJA Journalist of the Year said marijuana is useful for medicinal and research purposes, and when put into good use will be a great avenue for socio-economic development.
The use of marijuana or cannabis, popularly known as wee or the devil’s tobacco is against the laws of the country and any person caught in contact with it is dealt with in the court of law.
“I am an advocate for it. So that’s my bias; I am for it…We have what they call social and recreational, that is one leg. I am not for that. There’s a research and medicinal. I am for that”, he claimed.
“Unfortunately, in our growing up and everything; it’s been social and recreational we’ve looking at. So, we’re programmed to see it as a bad thing but the research and medicinal is a completely different era”.
Over the past few years, there have been a growing advocacy for a national discourse on the usefulness and possible legalization of the plant.
Despite countries like Uruguay, the United Kingdom and the United States of America legalizing marijuana for its great value to the socio-economic fabric of these countries, Ghana still sees it as an illegal product which when caught, one could face a jail term of 10 years or more.
Siding with Kwame Safe Kayi, award-winning journalist Kwesi Pratt also said: “Ghana will import wee in 20 years’ time if it is not legalized saying “we’ve seen that it’s useful in the drug market. It is good for hair creams. It is good for body creams and so forth. Why are we not legalizing it? But we’re still using the Police to arrest wee farmers when the real criminals go scot-free”.