Rapper, Kwaw Kese, has stated unequivocally that it was wrong for the police to arrest him for smoking cannabis in public.

Kwaw Kese who was arrested on November 22, 2014 in Kumasi and subsequently sentenced to a day’s imprisonment and a fine of GHc1,200 says he has been smoking for over twenty years and could not fathom why he should be arrested for engaging in an act which gives him comfort.

Although Section 5 of the Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement AND Sanctions) Law, 1990 (PNDCL 236) states that “No person shall without lawful authority or excuse smoke, sniff, consume, inject in his body or otherwise administer narcotic drug on his body”, the rapper asserts that he did no wrong.

“It was a wrong decision to arrest me for being me. I have been smoking for long; why didn’t they arrest me [earlier]. The person who passed the law was forced to do so. Who passed the law? What happened before the law was passed? They passed the law because someone said it [weed] was not good. Before the white came to rule us, we were being us. The white man came and said it was not good; the same white man is legalizing it in his country. I think it’s good for me. I smoke. I have smoked for years and there has been no implication. This is me,” he said on Joy FM’s Cosmopolitan Mix.

He further revealed that he still smokes, adding that the police is even aware. According to him, it would be imprudent to lie.

“As we age, you can’t hide the truth forever…I smoke and it’s good for me…I’ve been smoking for almost 20 years or more; there’s never been any implication.

“I still smoke…before I got arrested, I was doing music to please people, I was ‘spoiling’ every stage which I still do and I was smoking weed doing that so I don’t want people to be like ‘because he got arrested, he’s stopped what he is doing’ Then I have to stop music; I still smoke weed…I used to be hiding it [but] now I want the world to know…

“I know a lot artistes smoke who smoke, nobody cares. Why is it because Kwaw Kese says he is Abodam and he’s caught smoking weed…me I don’t care, I smoke and the police know I smoke.

“I know some people in Parliament who smoke weed…I know a doctor who smokes weed and he still performs alright.

“People are hypocrites…I don’t want to be a hypocrite anymore. I can’t come and sit here and say I don’t smoke and go back [home] and smoke,” he noted.