I smoked marijuana for 26 years – Kweku Baako

Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Kweku Baako, has confessed to smoking Indian hemp for 26 years.

Mr Baako made the revelation on Joy FM’s News analysis programme ‘newsfile’ on Saturday when he was contributing to a debate on whether to legalise marijuana.

Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), Mr Akrasi Sarpong, in the course of the week, said it was high time Ghana debated the subject considering the wide-spread use of marijuana.

He said there was “a virtual legalisation” of marijuana because already “mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives are using stuff made of Indian hemp for their hair.”

Mr Baako said on the programme that as a former user of marijuana, he would not advise legalisation of smoking.

He suggested that the debate should be focused rather than allowing just anybody to contribute to the public debate.

“It shouldn’t be thrown into the market place for everybody to talk some. We need the experts. The pharmaceutical industries, those who will need it for those things, the psychiatric profession ought to be brought on board. “All these things must be done before it even gets to Parliament if there’s any need for any legislation or amendment of any legislation. So it should be a focused things [which is] expert-driven…when it comes to the area of smoking and its negative effects, some of us could be contracted to give our experiences,” Mr Baako said.