The National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) has warned Kenyan youth against supporting Roots party presidential candidate George Wajackoyah’s bhang legalisation agenda.
Wajackoyah’s bizarre manifesto has elicited both praise and ridicule as Kenyans attempted to objectively debate a few of its tenets.
His proposal to legalize marijuana has irritated the organization tasked with fighting its abuse.
“You will face the law if you follow Wajackoyah’s pronouncements on bhang,” Victor Okioma, NACADA CEO, warned the youth.
The organization has warned youth and any Kenyan riding on the Wajackoyah hype that the crime committed will result in the ruthless consequences of the law.
NACADA CEO Victor Okioma stated that the law on anti-narcotics and psychotropic substances will be strictly enforced.
“Our position is very simple the anti-narcotics and psychotropic substances act is still vibrant in this country, and those young people who might be persuaded by pronouncements by politicians to indulge in offence around that act will face the law,” Okioma authoritatively said.
He also accused the presidential candidate of falsifying facts about its legalisation. “Wajackoyah is not being truthful and not giving out critical information. He only says that Uganda has legalised bhang, but he doesn’t say that Uganda has legalised the drug’s production for pharmaceuticals under very strict control,” Okioma claimed. Okioma revealed that South Africa decriminalised bhang for recreation, but it cannot be smoked in public. “South Africa has legalised recreation, but you cannot use it in public, even close to your wife. You will be arrested,” he stated.
In his manifesto launched at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), Wajackoyah promised to legalise hemp for export and for medicinal purposes.
Wajackoyah’s running mate Justina Wamae explained that the type of drug that they wanted to legalise was the bhang compound cannabidiol (CBD) essential component of medical hemp, and not tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that intoxicated users.
NACADA is a semi-autonomous state corporation under the Ministry of Interior tasked with coordinating a multi-sectoral campaign to achieve a nation free of alcohol and substance abuse in Kenya.
The commercialisation and recreational use of bhang was criminalised in Kenya during the British colonial East Africa Protectorate under the Opium Ordinance, effected from January 1, 1914.
