Ken Okoth

Kenneth Odhiambo Okoth (1978–2019), known as Ken Okoth, served as the member of Kenya’s National Assembly for Kibra, Nairobi, from 2013 until his death in July 2019. In September 2018, he proposed replacing cannabis prohibition with a regulated framework for cultivation, production, distribution and consumption. His proposed Marijuana Control Bill of 2018 brought together cultivation, research, taxation and the consequences of criminal convictions. His initiative did not result in cannabis legalization before his death.

His place in cannabis history rests on that legislative initiative. Anthropologist Neil Carrier places it within a broader Kenyan argument about whether an established but prohibited crop could become a legitimate source of medicine and income.

A legislator concerned with rights

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights remembered Okoth as a founder and leading participant in the Kenya Parliamentary Human Rights Association. Its tribute highlighted his work against torture and extrajudicial killings and his support for access to justice and information.

That record provides context for his attention to criminal convictions in the cannabis proposal. It does not mean every organisation that worked with him endorsed cannabis reform. The commission’s tribute concerns his wider public service, rather than a statement of support for his bill.

From a crop to an economic argument

Carrier records Okoth contrasting cannabis’s potential with the difficulties of sugarcane farming. The argument was about changing the economic treatment of a plant, rather than simply tolerating individual smoking.

In reporting on his letter to Speaker Justin Muturi, The Star described proposals for progressive taxation and jobs across the production chain. Okoth also raised medical and industrial research, and protection of Kenyan genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Cannabis reform was an economic and social policy question for him, extending beyond individual consumption. Those were objectives for a proposed industry, not evidence that a legal export market already existed.

Carrier’s wider analysis asks who would benefit from such changes. A licensed market could generate income while also excluding small growers through costs or access to capital. That is a question for assessing a reform’s design, not an outcome established for Okoth’s unpassed proposal.

Regulation and the criminal record

The reported plan envisaged registration of growers, producers, manufacturers and users, with protection of children. It also proposed amnesty and clearing previous cannabis-related criminal records, addressing the continuing consequences of convictions for cannabis use.

These elements distinguish a regulatory proposal from the claim that cannabis should be beyond all rules. They also broaden the question beyond access to the substance: changing future offences does not automatically remove the consequences of earlier convictions.

The reporting describes a request for help preparing the bill for publication. It should not be treated as proof that Parliament completed a reading, passed the text or created a lawful market.

A reform effort among others

Okoth’s initiative was distinct from Gwada Ogot’s Senate petition. Carrier discusses both within a debate that mixed medicinal arguments, economic hopes and objections grounded in morality. Neither proposal can stand for a unanimous Kenyan view.

The everyday vocabulary remained relevant: cannabis was discussed as bhang, alongside the Swahili bangi. Familiarity with the plant did not settle what legislators believed the law should do.

Okoth’s death ended his own pursuit of the proposal, in Carrier’s account. His entry records an attempt to change Kenya’s cannabis law, with no legal score change attributed to the unpassed bill.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}