Let's legalise, grow, export ganja – GSA boss

The Acting Executive Director of the Ghana Standards Authority, Professor Alex Dodoo, is advocating the export of marijuana for economic gains.

This comes at a time when there are varied opinions on the drug use and its legalisation in the country. Notable personalities including former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, have spoken in favour of the drug.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament to answer queries raised in the 2015 Auditor General’s report, Prof Dodoo said the banned substance in the country is medicinal in other jurisdictions and if properly regulated, can generate revenue for the country.

He told the committee: “A full dose of medical marijuana, if you buy it in the pharmacy, bottled and packaged, will cost close to £ 600 which is a lot of money. So my considered opinion was that the discussion and the debate about if there is a market out there for a product that we have… I don’t think we have a medical need for the use of medical marijuana in Ghana. The conditions for which it is needed do not prevail here.

“However, the export potential can be real and Ghanaians are Christians so we don’t talk about some of these things but from a medical perspective, it’s a medical product just like morphine which comes from opium. If the country can open the debate and say we have the potential to produce, it’s a natural resource, its organic, we have the potential to package it and to legally export it to raise income from countries where they need it and they are being forced to produce under artificial conditions, then I think it’s a debate worth having and I stand by that.”