A Kenyan court refused to grant Rastafarians the right to smoke weed on religious grounds in a ruling Wednesday.
Rastafarians, who use marijuana as part of their religious meditation, have waited years for the High Court to decide whether they can use the herb under the constitutional right to freedom of religion.
The court ruled that the community had failed to show why the country's drug laws impinge on their religious freedoms. The judge said the petition was "dismissed in its entirety".
However, he said the widespread recreational use of cannabis in Kenya suggested the current law was too harsh.
The "status quo appears untenable", the judge said, and there should be "frank conversations on cannabis and which direction we should take".
