Video and Text: Blakk Rasta apologises to parliament. Says he was on “heat.”

Reggae artiste and host of the Taxi Driver show on Hitz FM, Abubakar Ahmed, alias Blakk Rasta, has apologized to parliament for saying that 80 percent of MPs smoke marijuana.

“The utterances were unfortunate. They came on the spur of the moment. I was on heat,” he told the Privileges Committee of Parliament.

“We all know the importance of being an MP. We respect the house. I have never made this kind of remarks anywhere,” he said.

The radio show host, musician and an advocate for the use of marijuana said on Hitz FM entertainment show that 80 per cent of MPs smoke marijuana.

When the issue first came out, Blakk Rasta denied using the word smoke.

“What I said was that about eighty percent of MPs or over might have used marijuana before and are still using marijuana,” he said he told Dzifa Bampoh on Newsnight on Joy 99.7FM. He further explained that marijuana had many uses and he was not referring to only smoking. He said he wanted marijuana legalized in Ghana so that the nation could exploit its economic benefits.

The firebrand host of Taxi Driver said he had never smoked marijuana all his life even though he is a strong advocate for its legalization. He laughed at claims that marijuana has harmful health implications.

“I have humongous evidence about the health implications of akpeteshie (the locally brewed gin) but is it illegal? Do you know how many people akpeteshie has killed,” he asked.

He described those holding on to smoking as the reason for making marijuana as illegal “primitive” people who should be kept in a museum.

When he was asked if he would appear before the privileges Committee, Blakk Rasta said it would be his life’s dream, an opportunity to educate the lawmakers about the benefits of marijuana and the urgent need to legalise it.

But a recording of the interview he granted Hitz FM showed that he actually used the word “smoke.”

He told parliament that “unreservedly, it is an unfortunate remark… I didn’t make those remarks to look down parliament or on anybody.”

Video credit: joyonline