JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.
Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This is a very interesting case both as well with respect to the facts as with respect to the law involved. The appellants were tried at the criminal session, Takoradi, by a circuit judge with the aid of assessors, on an indictment which charged some of them with possessing Indian hemp, some with smoking Indian hemp, and all of them with cultivating Indian hemp.
The appellants are members of a certain religious sect, and live in a place called Princess Town in the Western Region. For the last four years or more prior to their arrest they have been growing certain herbs and been using them for all sorts of things, e.g. they have been burning a herb as incense for invocation at their worship, making soup out of it, boiling and using it themselves or administering it to other people as medicine for all kinds of ailment with success. They alleged that the father of one of them, upon spiritual inspiration, discovered these herbs and the sect had ever since used them publicly to the good of all the members and their associates. They call the herbs, "The herbs of life." Here it is appropriate to quote in full the evidence-in-chief given by the second appellant in his defence to the charges:
"I am a farmer. I live at Princess. My leaves are leaves of life. I smoke the leaves which give me wisdom, understanding and strength so that I don't do after some other people live. I don't steal, I don't lead a bad life. I don't give false evidence against others. I am able to conform to the ten Commandments. When I smoke, I preach the Gospel to others so that they lead good lives. When I smoke the leaves, I don’t drink. In Genesis Chapter 2 verse 9 the leaves are referred to."
Continually the appellants had, at their public worship, condemned the chief and his elders, and particularly the youth of the town, for indulging in alcoholic and spirituous drinks, and for smoking cigarettes; these practices they alleged lead the people to bad lives which shut the gates of heaven against them; on the contrary they preached that if the youth would abandon drinks, cigarettes and the consequent bad life and would use the herbs of life, they would surely go to heaven when they died.
[p.725]
The appellants, as it would appear, make themselves a nuisance to all people outside their sect, and on Christmas Day, 25 December 1963, some of the elders complained to the chief about their conduct and requested
