Ghana has joined the list of countries engaging in cannabis reform.
The Ghanaian Parliament recently passed the Narcotics Control Commission Bill into law, giving its Narcotics Control Board the increased powers of a Commission that will allow it to supervise the implementation of the industrial use of the plant for industrial and medical purposes, Hemp Today reports.
The Commission will also be responsible for the monitoring and control of the trafficking of illicit substances in the name of public safety.
Additionally, the new legislation makes provisions for residents struggling with addiction to be given access to treatment options and medical care, as opposed to treating substance use disorders as a criminal matter. Addiction will be re-classified as a public health issue, in lieu of a legal one.
Ghana is among several African countries, such as Malawi and South Africa, to legalize cannabis for medical and industrial purposes and to revise its laws relating to drugs.
The legalization of adult-use cannabis, however, seems to be off the table for now.
“We seem to get lost in this issue of getting high, and all we can talk about as Ghanaians is smoking,” Hemp Association of Ghana President Nana Kwaku Agyemang toldAfrica Feeds. “As President of the Hemp Association of Ghana, we are not promoting smoking, we are promoting the industry, we are promoting cleaning up the environment, we are promoting creating a new revenue stream for government in terms of taxing from cultivation and export and we are talking about promoting medicines that are far better than opioids, medicines that cannot kill you because no one has died from taking cannabis.”
The Hemp Association of Ghana estimates that the country could take in as much as $100 million per hundred acres of industrial hemp.
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