A Gambian parliamentarian has questioned the government’s “failure to prosecute smugglers of hard drugs” into the country but keep jailing hundreds of youths for cannabis possession. 

Madi Ceesay, member for Serrekunda West Constituency, was speaking exclusively to Gambiana during a two-day stakeholders’ engagement on promotion of rights of drug users held at the International Conference Centre in Bijilo.

The programme, which brought together members of the National Assembly, staff of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, police officers and staff from the Ministry of Interior, was organised by Students for Sensible Policy Gambia chapter. 

Mr Ceesay told Gambiana that the nation’s laws need to be looked at to ensure that people charged with possession and use of cannabis should not have harsher sentence than those caught with class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

“My whole take on the [drugs] discussion is that if we go to our jails now, we will find youths whose crimes are only around possession of cannabis, and to my surprise I do not find many for hard drugs offences. I have made these findings in my recent visits to some of our prisons.

“I have not come across anybody who is in prison because of cocaine or other related class A drugs and we frequently hear reports of tonnes of hard drugs being confiscated by law enforcement officers. 

“But unfortunately, we found in our prisons poor Gambian youths who are there because of a joint of cannabis. So, I think the law has to look at some of those issues.”

“Kids being jailed for cannabis should really be rehabilitated. We need to rehabilitate them, reorient them because I don’t see those matters as serious as hard-drugs that are always seized in tonnes, but hardly seen a single person put in jail because of that,” added Mr Ceesay, who is also chairman of the National Assembly standing committee on human rights and constitutional matters. 

He urged the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency to work hard to reform the country’s drug acts and prosecute the drug lords. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba