A Kenyan court has rejected a fresh bid for a marijuana religious exemption for Rastafari worshippers. Judges ruled on 15 July that campaigners had failed to prove the country’s drug laws breach their constitutional rights. The decision keeps Kenya’s blanket cannabis ban firmly in place. It also ends, for now, years of legal pressure from the Rastafari Society of Kenya, which first filed its case back in 2021 seeking a cannabis religious exemption for its members.

Marijuana religious exemption request dismissed by judges

The 2021 petition asked the court to exempt Rastafarians from arrest and prosecution. It covered growing, holding and using marijuana as a religious sacrament. Alternatively, it asked the government to build a legal framework around the practice. The society argued that criminalising the plant breached several rights, including freedom of religion and equality before the law. However, when judges finally ruled on 15 July, they found the petitioners had not shown the law was unconstitutional. The court cited other grounds for dismissal, though it gave no fuller explanation of them.

The ruling landed hard in Nairobi’s Rastafari community. Ras Ndeto is the 56 year old spokesperson for the Rastafari Society of Kenya. He described the outcome as further proof that his faith remains an afterthought in Kenyan public life. As a result, he said, the group would now take the fight to a higher court. “We are living like terrorists in our own country,” he added. Members gathered days later in Kibera for their regular groundation. This is a communal worship session built around drumming, singing and, for many present, the ritual use of marijuana.

Why a cannabis religious exemption raises policy questions

The dismissal highlights a tension that keeps resurfacing. Religious freedom claims and drug law do not always sit easily together. For example, Kenyan courts have shown they can treat the two issues separately. In 2019, judges recognised Rastafari as a legally protected religion. That case followed a pupil’s expulsion over her dreadlocks, and it strengthened the community’s standing on matters of belief and identity. Even so, that recognition has not delivered a marijuana religious exemption from criminal law. The July ruling confirms as much. In short, Kenya’s courts continue to treat religious identity and drug policy as separate legal questions, rather than letting one automatically unlock the other.

That said, other countries have taken a different path. In 2023, Antigua and Barbuda approved rules letting Rastafarians grow and smoke cannabis. That decision effectively wrote a religious carve out into national drug law. Kenya’s ruling shows no such outcome is guaranteed elsewhere. It leaves campaigners weighing whether an appeal can succeed where the original petition could not. For now, the exact size of Kenya’s Rastafari population remains unknown. Members say that uncertainty only adds to a wider sense that their community gets overlooked by policy makers.

The case is unlikely to be the last word on the matter. An appeal is already planned. Therefore, the question of whether spiritual practice can carve exceptions into Kenya’s drug laws looks set to return to the courts before long.

Source: theguardian