The Obuo Akroma Forest Reserve in the Afram Plains North District was home to the 80-hectare cannabis farm, which was uncovered on Saturday by the Forestry Commission.
A team of Forestry Commission employees who pounced on the suspects in the farm acting on a tip-off was able to apprehend five people, among them an agricultural science teacher. Normenyo Blewu, Korsi Mawuena, Charles Kale, and Emmanuel Kojo were the suspects, along with Michael Anakpo, the Agric teacher and putative farm leader.
Since then, the Police have been in charge of the suspects’ investigation. Three maxi-sacks of harvested marijuana, six medium-sized sacks, three cutlasses, two hoes, a knife, five plastic containers filled with the harvested material, and alcoholic beverages laced with the narcotic substance, according to Mr. Richard Amoateng, the district manager of the Forestry Commission in Afram Plains who oversaw the operation at the weekend.
In a statement to the media, We received information about the suspects’ actions in the forest reserve, so I immediately sent my team there, according to Mr. Amoateng. There, we ran into the suspects and several others on the property. He claimed that when the accused attacked us, “my men overcame them while others managed to elude arrest.”
The crew discovered that some of the seedlings that were awaiting planting had been cared for by the suspects, the district manager claimed. Although they had put up a sign advising others not to try, he claims that the crew also discovered 13 tents on the property where the suspects were residing. According to Mr. Amoateng, the Commission would soon step up its efforts to put an end to this illegitimate herb manufacturing in the region.
Remember that the new Ghanaian Narcotics Control Commission Act, 2020 (Act 1019), which was approved by Parliament on March 20, 2020, and received the President’s assent on May 11, 2020, aims to treat drug use and dependency as a public health issue rather than focusing on law enforcement, incarceration, punishment, and repression. The new law has eliminated prison time for drug possession for personal use in favor of a fine of 200 to 500 penalty units, or GHS 2, 400 to 6,000.
The Narcotic Control Commission Act, 2022 (Act 1019), Section 43, states that “the Minister, on the recommendation of the Commission, may grant a license for the cultivation of cannabis, commonly known as “wee” in Ghana, which is not more than 0.3% content on a dry weight basis for industrial purposes to obtain fiber or seed for medicinal purposes.”
The top court’s seven-member panel, however, determined this section violates Article 106 of the 1992 Constitution, which outlines the procedures a bill must go through before being passed into law by Parliament, and was, as a result, void, in a decision reached by a 4-3 majority on Wednesday (July 28, 2022).
