David Julian Wightman never expected to become a cannabis activist living in Zambia.
He was born in the African nation to a Zambian father and Canadian mother, but shortly after, David moved to Canada where he grew up. He then became a journalist and moved back to Zambia in 2013 to take care of his ailing father.
It didn’t take long for Wightman to see the incredible injustices that everyday citizens endure in the name of cannabis prohibition. “When I arrived back in Zambia in 2013, I was shocked to see the numbers of people who were being jailed for cannabis offenses, most of them poor peasant farmers and unemployed youth,” Wightman said in an interview with Marijuana.com.
“I began writing about the issue and also the benefits of cannabis. I also started the Facebook page NORML Zambia, directly inspired by the NORML organizations in the United States and worldwide.” Wightman is working to end the “war on cannabis” happening in Zambia, which is all too familiar in many parts of the world today.
“Currently the war on drugs is out of control in Zambia. Almost half of all inmates in Zambia’s prisons are held for cannabis. Over the last 6 or 7 years, the…