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Parliament > Court on weed ban expertise: Bombay high court

Plant ban begets other unscientific bans: weed lawyer
Plant ban begets other unscientific bans: weed lawyer

Cannabis remains contraband in India, after the Bombay high court dismissed a petition filed in April to decriminalise its use, on the ground that the legislature, and not the court, was the appropriate forum for the challenge.

A bench of justices VM Kanade and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi dismissed advocate Aditya Barthakur’s petition that had produced evidence of the medicinal benefits of Cannabis, and ordered:

“We are afraid that this Court while exercising its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India cannot grant the reliefs…Apart from that, the Petitioner has produced certain technical data regarding useful effects of Ganja etc. We are afraid that we are not experts in the field and the Petitioner can raise this issue in the Parliament…”

Barthakur commented to Legally India: “If a plant can be banned without backing such ban with scientific, medical or logical reasons then why does the state not ban two and four wheelers, local trains, the state should also consider a ban on breathing as in doing so will prevent what happened to those who inhaled the poisonous gas (methyl isocyanate) during Bhopal Gas Leak. Born with the endocannabinoid system we are all fundamentally wired to consume cannabis.

He added that now he "need[ed] to recharge my batteries and in sometime will approach the Apex Court under article 32 of our Constitution".

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