By Risco Lumamezi
Marijuana users in Namibia want government to legalise the use of cannabis and abolish laws that forbidden consumption and sale of marijuana.
Mr. Borro Ndungula , General of Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) and Rastafari United Front (RUF) told this paper that the government of the Republic of Namibia should legalise the use of Cannabis in the country as it has no negative impact to human beings.
This comes after the arrest of their president Mr.Brian Jaftha by the mob of Namibian Defence Force (NDF) and the Namibian police in April 2019 who was later released on bail of N$1000.
Ganja users held protests in April and handed over their petition to the Namibian parliament calling for the legalisation of cannabis and abolishment of the law prohibiting the use of the drug.
General Ndungula also dismissed report by the national broadcaster that their president was arrested with cannabis and mandrax saying he was just arrested of cannabis which were found in their offices.
According to him this happened to have all apartheid law reviewed from the Namibian legal system and the legalisation of cannabis, adding that many people are following the story that they are advocating for cannabis legalisation in Namibia.
“Most people are saying we are trying to have cannabis legalised in the country thinking that it will destroy the society and bring bad things in Namibia, just to try to prevent us from not succeeding or having campaigns to have cannabis legalised in Namibia” Said General Ndungula.
He said the law that is governing cannabis is out dated because is apartheid laws that need to be reviewed and the law itself is going against the Namibian constitution.
“The Namibian Constitution like me am a Rasta I trust Rasta religion I have my fundamental rights and freedom to practice any religion I want, so Rasta is my religion that is what the Namibian Constitution is telling me” He noted.
He said the out dated apartheid law does not allow the use of cannabis with the reason that it’s a drug but a Rastaman cannot be separated from drug as it is part of their religion and life.
Mr.Ndungula added that the law on drugs is empowering the police to come with strategically range to search their houses but the country’s constitution states that people have rights to privacy and nobody should come into their homes or to temper with their communications.
“The law that the police are enforcing, it’s true is telling them they can come and search our homes without a search warrant or they do not understand that the law they are trying to enforce is in violation of our constitution”
He argued that using cannabis is his human right.
He revealed why cannabis is an offence in Namibia is that from 1922 and 1971 is not because they were scientific evidence to prove that or medical evidence as people want them to believe that cannabis is criminalised because of it’s medical effect or medical threat.
He however added that for many past years cannabis have been used as medicine, culturally and to many other things and up to date no evidence have shown that someone died of cannabis or making people crazy but it’s only health thing.
“There is nothing wrong with cannabis it’s even part of our culture is what we believe, apartheid regime just wanted to take a way from people to control Africans because cannabis was the only African medicine people used when colonizers came in 1894 if you remember cannabis was criminalised in 1992 so they wanted to capture the minds of African people and they knew that by prohibiting cannabis from Africans will be the easier way to capture their minds and be able to win them” He explained.
He advised these thoughts that using cannabis will create more criminality activities not to spread anti calabash propaganda because it has proved scientifically that alcohol and cigarette is hundred times more than cannabis because every year thousands of people in Namibia are dying from alcohol related diseases and accidents as medical doctors are saying.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) has to come and apologise for the wrong they have been doing against the cannabis now they are even telling the government that they must listen to their punishment on cannabis because it has been perceived” remarked general.
Mr. Ndungula added that the law on cannabis is in contradiction with the United Nations(UN) laws on drugs because in 1988 Namibia through SWAPO they attended convention research on drug and UN convention research on drug trafficking and in the convention it was discussed that all countries must change their laws on drugs to be in line with UN 1988 drug convention and Namibia signed the convention but it has never implemented it and drugs that are currently in Namibia are in contradiction with the UN.
“Cannabis is not smoking the smoking part is only five percent now they are criminalising cannabis because of it’s five percent, cannabis can be eaten, drunk, smoked and can be used as medicine there is lot of benefits and uses it’s not only for smoking as many thinks it can also be given to children. People can still drink it as tea, it can be put in juice, in water and can be drunk like oil or crush it and put in the food and when you eat it or drink it have more infection than smoking” Explained cannabis senior user.
He is of the idea that people in Namibia should be taught to get educated on cannabis not only smoking. Smoking has only five percent compared to eating that goes up thirty and drinking is the highest because it goes up to forty percent. Borro adds that there are some economical benefits that come from cannabis, when it will be legalised in Namibia .
According to him ,it will create different industries that are currently not available.
“Namibia does not produce lot of petrol, cigarette they are many things you can still get like paper, building materials and so on but there are people out there who don’t want to know the truth about cannabis because they are trying to protect their businesses” He concluded.
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