Adwoa Safo makes case for legalization of cannabis

Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya, Sarah Adjoa Safo, believes that it is about time Ghana took advantage of the economic benefits of cannabis.

She believes that Ghana has the potential to rake in the needed revenue from cannabis if better legal frameworks are put in place to check its usage.

Adwoa Safo made this argument on the floor of Parliament, indicating that the cannabis market is projected to be worth billions of dollars in the future.

“We are talking about a whole industry that is being created. If we have our fertile land here and we can grow and make sure that the right framework is in place, Mr Speaker, I don’t see why we can’t take advantage of it.

And for that purpose, I would want to support the motion on the floor. We have taken a big step by passing the parent law, and an LI is only a subsidiary piece of legislation that complements it and it is not going to depart from the legal framework already set out in the parent law.

Mr Speaker, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, if you look on page 9 of the report indicates that the global market for cannabis could hit USD 28.47 billion. Mr. Speaker this is the market we are looking at how can Ghana place itself in that international market when we have all it takes in terms of the fertility of our land and in terms of labour available on our farms to take advantage of this projection that the United Nations has done on cannabis?

Mr Speaker, we need to diversify our economy, we have to move away from the traditional sources of income or foreign earnings being gold, cocoa. This is the time that there is a revolution globally and so we need to take advantage of that and diversify our economy and get the needed foreign exchange to balance our payments,” she said in Parliament.