legalise marijuana, yesterday announced he would run as an independent in the next general election.

Mr. Gershwyn Smith, better known as the "high priest'' or Mohatma Shiloh Mahdi, has taken out an advertisement in this newspaper to declare himself as an independent candidate.

His decision to enter politics was "partly in celebration of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary''.

In the advertisement the 43-year-old outlines his lengthy career in social activism, starting in the 1960s when he took part in `anti-apartheid riots'.

He claims he was sentenced to prison for his part in the riots but was pardoned by the then Governor Lord Martonmere.

Mr. Smith attended the Stonington Hotel College and was co-founder of the Young Progressives.

In the 1970s he hosted television programmes on "building a better world'' and led several peace rallies around the Island.

In February he marched on the House of Assembly proclaiming marijuana was not a drug but an herb like parsley. He demanded it be decriminalised and that all those in jail for marijuana offences be released.

Mr. Smith was himself once charged with possession of marijuana while in Jamaica.

He is holding a Press conference outside Magistrates' Court at noon today to discuss his political aspirations.

According to his advertisement, one of them is: "Every law shall be reviewed and all Satanic verses removed from the law books and amendments made with guidance by the holy scriptures. The old world is collapsing. Babylon the great is fallen.''