The Health Ministry should be the one responsible to decide if Malaysia should decriminalise the use of marijuana ( ganja ), says an NGO.

"The decision on whether to continue banning it should be left to the Health Ministry. And even if it was decriminalised, it's use must be based on the dosage prescribed by the ministry," Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs Alliance of Malaysia (Ikhlas) president Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah told Malaysiakini .

He pointed out that the ministry would be the only party well-versed about the possible dangers and acceptable dosages for such substances.

Ridzuan noted that in modern medicine, it was clear that all medications contain drugs.

"When we get sick, we go to the hospital to get medication which would contain drugs," he said.

He was asked to comment on the recent proposal by a Youth Parliament member for the use of marijuana to be decriminalised as per global developments.

The issue on whether Malaysia should not make it a crime to use the mood-altering substance has been the subject of national debate, with brickbats thrown at the suggestion as well as some who welcomed it.

Meanwhile Health Minister S Subramaniam has been reported to have said that the decriminalisation of ganja use must be holistically studied by all quarters.

He said there were many more pressing issues the government must attend to but the decriminalisation of ganja is not one of them.