He is all about legalizing cannabis sativa.
Why is he passionate about it?
basically why I wanted to talk about was taboo subjects in Kenya and recently we've seen that our good honorable Okoth, Kibra mp has written to the speaker for medical marijuana use in Kenya, and this is what we are advocating for because wand we feel the ti me has come, its the right time to push for this
i think marijuana was made illegal in 1994, but before that it was not illegal in Kenya per see.
if you look back in Kenyan history it used to be used I know in luo tradition during childbirth even as a pain reliever, so it does have medicinal purposes from way back.
what has been the response to this bill?
I think people were shocked because when they think of marijuana they think recreational marijuana, that's why I waned to say there are many uses for medical marijuana eg for Cancer, for people with HIV,if you look around the world America, Canada, South Africa they have legalized medical marijuana and are leading in marijuana farming. This can be used as a cash crop product that can help with foreign exchange so it adds to the economy of Kenya.
Is Kenya ready to regulate that to make sure its only going to be used for medical purposes?
we need to be able to talk about taboo subjects in Kenya one of them is marijuana, also alcoholism and drug addiction, mental health among other subjects.so these are taboo subjects that we as Kenyans should open up about and come out and talk openly about them, and have public debates about them, because as the constitution 2010 said, before a bill is passed there needs to be civic participation.
when you come to regulating this, I'm talking about medical marijuana, this is stuff used for medical purposes. of course if marijuana is abused it can cause drug psychosis, we are address controlled prescribed use under supervision of a health professional.
People who are opposed to legalizing for medical purposes have protested saying its likely to be abused.
decriminalizing something doesn't mean you are making it legal it just means you cant go to jail for having possession of marijuana. uhh currently the penal code states that if you are found with it you can face 10 to 20 years in jail for this. so this is what we are talking about decriminalizing it.
He started a hashtag #Legalizeit on social media. how can people join the conversation?
I think for starters is push the hashtag legalize it, this is just to have a general conversation, and as we go forward we will have t shirts we will have banners but just for now for people who are pro legalize, use the hashtag to talk about why you support it.even those who are opposed, can also jump onto the hastag its a good starting point.
Is he trying to get into politics, to break into politics?
Ok I will answer this with a question of my own, which is why is it that every time someone starts something they have a political agenda? why cant we have doctors talking about things that happen with the police, or why don't we have security guys talk about things that don't have nothing to do with them? What I'm actually doing is performing my civic duty, this is a passion of mine that I feel very strongly about.
It's just because I've become more vocal, one thing leads to another and I wasn't really vocal on social media and something happened and I had to become vocal on my social media platforms.
