Kenyans may no longer have to puff bhang in secret for fear of arrest – if a petition seeking to have the banned weed legalised is passed by the courts.
This is after a group of Kenyans who subscribe to the Rastafarian community filed a petition at the Milimani Law Courts seeking to have bhang also known as marijuana legalised.
The Rastafarians also want the court to suspend the arrest or prosecution of members who use cannabis for their spiritual and private growth.
According to the petitioners, their followers use bhang or cannabis by either smoking, drinking, eating, bathing and/or burning of incense for spiritual, medicinal, culinary and ceremonial purposes as sacrament to manifest their faith.
They argued that Rastafarians are often subjected to prejudice, intimidation, unwarranted searches of their persons and their homes and prosecutions because of their spiritual use of cannabis in their private homes or designated places of worship yet the use of herb or cannabis is grounded in biblical redemption and deliverance.
“It is the Petitioner’s contention that the impugned section clearly show differential treatment on the basis of Religion and privacy perpetuates the culture, stigma and discrimination against the 1st petitioners’ followers through the continued use of archaic laws that violate the rights of the 1st petitioners’ members,” reads the court documents.
The Rastafarians want the courts to declare as unconstitutional sections 3 (1), (2), (a) and (3) (a-d) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act No. 4 Of 1994 as it discriminates the Rastafarian as it strips them of their dignity contrary to Article 27(4), and 28, of the Constitution.
Their lawyers also claimed that the impugned provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances hurt the Rastafari right to associate with others for spiritual purposes as guaranteed in the Constitution.
“This therefore makes it criminal for rastas to assemble in prayer and partake the herb as a sacrament,” argue the lawyers.
Narok Senator Ledama Olekina has openly pushed for the legalisation of marijuana.
“There are indeed so many benefits and I think it’s just about the time we become more liberal to look at how we can survive. We are only poor because we believe certain things are immoral,” Senator Olekina told Spice FM in 2020.
In a rather shocking confession – Olekina claimed that nearly 80 percent of MPs take bhang.
Kenyans will be waiting to hear what the courts have to say about the matter – given that many countries have actually legalised marijuana which has been seen as a tourism attraction in most countries.