Supreme Court: It is unconstitutional to grow cannabis in Ghana

The Supreme Court has maintained its earlier ruling that it is unconstitutional to grow cannabis, popularly called ‘wee’ in Ghana.

In a 5-4 majority decision on Wednesday, the apex court of the land held that the review application filed by the Attorney-General did not satisfy the criteria for a second look at its initial decision..

In July last year, the Supreme Court struck out provisions in the Narcotic Control Commission Act that allowed for the cultivation of certain kinds of cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes.

Section 43 of the Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 (Act 1019) allows the Minister of the Interior, upon the recommendation of the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), to grant an entity the licence to cultivate cannabis of not more than 0.3 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content for industrial and medicinal purposes.

But the Supreme Court panel, chaired by Justice Jones Victor Dotse, said the law was unconstitutional because there was no debate in Parliament on it before its passage into law, as stipulated by Article 106 (5) (6) of the 1992 Constitution.

Again, the apex court was of the considered opinion that the explanatory memorandum attached to the bill placed before Parliament did not set out in detail the policy change, the defects in the existing law and the necessity to introduce a law to license the cultivation of cannabis.

It therefore ruled that such an omission was a violation of Article 106 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.