Wee smoking is pervasive in Ghana
An ex-convict, Mr. Issah Alhassan has advised the security agencies to stop worrying themselves about jailing wee smokers, because by jailing them, they are sending them to the world market of wee to smoke to their fill.
The Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement, and Sanctions) law – 1990 (PNDCL 236), no person shall without lawful authority or excuse smoke, sniff, consume, inject in his body or otherwise administer narcotic drug on his body.
It adds that any person who without lawful authority injects any person with, or in any manner administers a narcotic drug to any person commits an offence and shall be convicted for an offence under subsection (1) or (2) is liable to be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.
Despite the above, the ex-convict says wee smoking is pervasive in Ghana’s prisons, and is advocating for sanity to be restored in the prisons. He wondered why people who smoke cannabis continue to be convicted when it’s used in the country’s prisons is pronounced.
According to Issah Alhassan, those serving various jail terms for drug use live the same lifestyles within their terms of incarceration because they get the substance to buy at will.
“Access to wee in prison is just the same as someone who freely walks on the street and I do not understand the judgment of some of our judges”, he wondered.
In his opinion, a judge who sentences a convict for smoking weed is just aiding him to have full access to it even in the prison because the substance is readily available on demand by the inmates.
“Somebody who was jailed for smoking one roll is now enjoying more rolls in the prison”. He told Angel Fm in an exclusive interview with Fancy Dimaria on Angel Drive last Friday which was monitored by MyNewsGh.com.
Revealing further, Issah Alhassan disclosed that, inmates who are allowed to work outside prisons smuggle weed termed as “pump” in their anus for use in the prison yard.
“In prison, smuggling weed through the anus is termed as “pump”. He revealed.
“These inmates buy the weed outside, package them nicely in polythene bags and then push it hard through the anus and hide it there till he gets into the yard”, he added
In his narration, Issah Alhassan indicated that, some inmate do this without the consent of the wardens who take them out whiles other wardens aid them in the act.
“Some officers also connive with some inmate to the extent of leaving the prisoner to go to do whatever he wants to. In such circumstances, they also take the advantage to buy the marijuana (weed) and “pump” into the prisons”, he added.
The ex-convict gave a chilly account of how this practice led to death an inmate as he tried bringing out the “pumped” substance days after the process failed.
When asked why he thinks some inmates would engage themselves in such dangerous practices, Alhassan revealed is as a result of the poor feeding in the prisons.
“Whatever the amount of money a prison officer takes for a work charged, a prisoner is entitled to only GHC 5.00. To me, I think such an amount is not enough after a prisoner’s hard day work”. He cried out.
The ex-convict, Mr. Alhassan, was sentenced six-year imprisonment by Agona Swedru District Court, and served in the Nsawam Prisons.
He was convicted for defiling a seventeen-year-old SHS student whom he claimed was his girlfriend.
