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 s…