Is Cannabis Legal In South Africa?
Cannabis in South Africa has been decriminalised by the country’s Constitutional Court for personal consumption by adults in private.However, laws prohibiting use outside of one’s private dwelling and buying and selling cannabis still remain.Since regulations against the purchase of products containing cannabis still remain in effect, it is unclear how the ruling can be enforced.
Before prohibition against the plant was lifted in 2018 advocates pressured the government to modify its laws, which first restricted cannabis in 1922, to allow exemptions for medical use, religious practices, and other purposes. Dagga(is the Afrikaans term commonly referred to for cannabis; it derives from the Khoikhoi word dacha, which was used by the early European colonial settlers in the Western Cape.
How Was Cannabis Introduced In South Africa
Cannabis is thought to have been introduced to Africa by early Arab or Indian traders.It was already in popular use in South Africa by the indigenous Khoisan and Bantu peoples prior to European settlement in the Cape in 1652, and was traditionally used by Basotho to ease childbirth. According to author Hazel Crampton, old Afrikaner recipes for teas and foods exist which make use of the plant.Use of the plant was associated with traditional African populations and a lower economic status.
Longitudinal research studies by the Medical Research Council (MRC) report that the number of cannabis users in South Africa was 2.2 million in 2004, and 3.2 million in 2008.In 2003, Interpol rated South Africa as the fourth-largest cannabis producer in the world, and the Institute for Security Studies reported that most cannabis seized in the UK and a third globally had South African origins.
Provincial Laws Governing The Use Of Cannabis
Beginning in 1860, the Natal Colony began to import Indian workers (called “coolies” at the time) to supplement their labour force. These Indians brought with them the habit of consuming cannabis and hashish, which blended with local, extant African traditions. The European authorities were concerned by this practice, believing it sapped the vitality of their workers; consequently, in 1870, Natal’s Coolie Law Consolidation prohibited “the smoking, use, or possession by and the sale, barter, or gift to, any Coolies whatsoever, of any portion of the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa)…”
Both the Cape and Transvaal colonies restricted the growth of the plant, which they considered a “noxious weed”; in 1891, the Cape Colony prohibited cannabis under Act 34, and the Free State outlawed dealing in cannabis in 1903.In 1908, Natal began to regulate the sale of cannabis. In the Transvaal, dagga was sold “openly and normally” by storekeepers to miners.
Although white farmers did cultivate cannabis in the 18th century and early 19th century, consumption by the farmers themselves was rare. However, even cultivation fell out of favour later in the 19th century.In 1921, “serious signs of a moral panic focusing around dagga” appeared, centred on the Western Cape. A concern developed about the “‘camaraderie’ which led some to lay aside race and other prejudices with regard to fellow” drug users.
National Laws Governing The Use Of Cannabis
In 1922, regulations were issued under an amended Customs and Excises Duty Act which criminalised the possession and use of “habit forming drugs”, including dagga. Under regulation 14, the cultivation, possession, sale, and use of the plant were prohibited. The burden of proof for any defence against a charge lay with the accused; legal scholar Professor Chanock contrasted this with laws regulating alcohol at the time, which laws placed the burden of proof on the accuser; he reasoned that the cannabis regulations were applied differently because they were intended to target black people.
Following the Fifth Session of the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, it was at South Africa’s wish, expressed by Secretary to the Prime Minister J. C. Van Tyen in 1923,that dagga was included in a list of prohibited narcotics, which list had hitherto been almost entirely concerned with opium and its derivatives.Cannabis was subsequently outlawed internationally in 1925.
