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{
    "id": 654248,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/654248/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 190,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Okoth",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12482,
        "legal_name": "Kenneth Odhiambo Okoth",
        "slug": "kenneth-odhiambo-okoth"
    },
    "content": "maize is a staple food amongst many communities in Kenya. If you now want to be a proper farmer and producer of maize, you have no choice but to buy seed varieties from them. Those are seed varieties that you cannot replicate yourself for the next planting season. You have to keep on buying from them for every season throughout the year. This is dangerous for our security. We must amend this Bill to ensure that the body we are creating protects not only our food security in terms of seeds, but also in terms of securing plant materials like cassava and potatoes, which are high potential food crops for Kenya. On plants with medicinal value, people have talked of mwarubaini. In the USA, they have de-criminalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. They have legalized and regulated the use of that plant. They are now taxing medical marijuana. A total of 20 out of the 50 States in the United States of America (USA) have already legalised that. A lot of research and taxation is coming out of medical marijuana. I am not advocating leisure use of marijuana by people smoking it but medical marijuana that can be used for cancer treatment. Kenya is blessed with good climate, soil types and several months of access to sunshine. This is an industry, but we lack boldness as legislators. We should show that boldness to overcome the stigma about plants like this. A plant is just a plant and 100 years ago, our people used them as medicines. A Member has just shared what muratina was used for and yet, we have demonised it. We have even uprooted the plants and we are in a situation where second generation alcohol is devastating communities. In Ethiopia, they still serve muratina in bottles. It is bottled, regulated and sold and yet in Kenya, it is stigmatised, banned and out of production. We should be careful. As Parliament, we should put together a Motion that can go along with the plant and seed issues we are debating. We should have a discussion on legal medical marijuana that farmers can produce. Our researchers should be funded at the universities to patent the varieties of seeds that are available, so that we are not left behind 10 or 15 years from now, when it becomes so obvious that this is the global market for the next generation of medication and yet we do not have access to it except by importing and paying very high prices. If we got onto those things, we can catch up with countries like Israel that are doing research in that area, Portugal and Netherlands that have a principle of harm reduction. People who use drugs are not treated as criminals, but as patients who need addiction treatment and prevention. It is important to take care of that rather than send them to jail where they do not get the care and treatment they need. This Bill is timely but it does not do what it is supposed to do as per its objects. A serious research budget and an institution need to be set up to patent and find out the medications, seeds and plant varieties that belong to Kenyans. The organisation set up should have the competence, task and the resources to challenge any indigenous knowledge that has been stolen and patented through unscrupulous means in foreign lands. Kenya should fight for that knowledge to own the rights for people to produce those medications. We pay a lot of money for medication for some of the lifestyle diseases that have been mentioned. For instance, we really need to negotiate to get the generics for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). It was not until Bill Clinton retired that he negotiated that we could access cheap generics. The plant basis and knowledge is here. On issues such as fertility, sexual and reproductive health rights and concerns, the lead research for viagra was done at the University of Nairobi under Prof. Magoha. We should open up our minds. As legislators, we should make laws, fund them and be very jealous and guard the resources that God gave us. We are like the proverbial Land of Eden and human life began in Eastern Africa and I suspect in Kenya - our The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}