Cannabis in South Africa
[9] The first written record of the plant in South Africa is by Jan van Riebeeck, who ordered officers of the Voorman to purchase "daccha" in Natal for trade with the Khoikhoi.
The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a monopoly on its sale, and to that end prohibited cultivation of the plant by Cape settlers from 1680.
[4] 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.
[10] Concern about the extent of dagga use in South Africa continued to grow, resulting eventually in the enactment, in 1971, of the Abuse of Dependence-producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act.
[17] Cannabis grows well in South Africa's climate,[18] especially in the "dagga belt", an area including the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces[10] where, per the 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, it is a traditional crop.
According to GroundUp, cannabis is "an important cash crop" that "sustains entire communities in the rural Eastern Cape", which otherwise survive in a subsistence economy.
[19] In 1990, a coalition of civil society organisations successfully lobbied government in the former Natal province to ban the herbicide paraquat from use in aerial eradication programmes.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) now uses a herbicide formulation which includes glyphosate, and maintains that it is safe, posing "no threat to human, animal, or environmental health".
However, a new coalition of the non-profit organisations Fields of Green For All and the Amapondo Children’s Project launched legal proceedings in 2016 to stop the SAPS from performing aerial eradications.
[19][20] In South Africa, the third largest centre of biodiversity in the world,[22] a number of Indigenous peoples and local communities have cultivated cannabis for long time and have developed special ties with the plant, including the custodianship of traditional cannabis plant varieties (genetic resources) and associated agricultural or medical skills and know-hows (traditional knowledge) which have been bioprospected for decades.
[23][24] These elements are today protected against misappropriation and biopiracy by international law, such as the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity that the country has ratified[22] or the GRATK Treaty signed by South Africa in May 2024.
[26]In South Africa, medical cannabis products may be prescribed for any health condition, once the presiding physician determines that it could assist in treatment.
[27] It is estimated that the African cannabis market will grow to be worth $7 bn by 2023, with the main stakeholders being Nigeria with $3.7bn, South Africa $1.7bn, Morocco $900m, Lesotho $90m and Zimbabwe $80m.
However, laws allowing people to grow the plant within their own homes as well as the government's mandate to not exclude the poor from the industry, has made the procurement of certified quality seeds a necessity.
[35][36] Since 2000, as part of the Global Marijuana March and NORML initiative, Cape Town and other cities have hosted an annual pro-legalisation Cannabis Walk on the first Saturday of May each year.
[52][53] However, the Dagga Couple noted that partial decriminalisation in 2017 has reduced the significance of the proposed change in scheduling, and have called for a more drastic reclassification of the drug.
[32] In January 2016, following a systematic review of scientific studies on cannabis, the Medicine Research Council concluded that there was evidence that cannabinoids could be used to treat chronic pain and spasticity in multiple sclerosis.
[54] On 31 March 2017, in a case brought by Gareth Prince, Jeremy Acton, and Jonathan Rubin before the Western Cape High Court, presiding Judge Dennis Davis ruled that any law disallowing the use and cultivation of cannabis by an adult in a private dwelling was unconstitutional and therefore invalid, on the grounds that such infringement of the constitutional right to privacy could not be justified.
The judge further ordered that “it will be deemed to be a defence that the use, possession, purchase or cultivation of cannabis in a private dwelling is for the personal consumption of the adult accused”.
In his ruling it was stated: He placed no limits on quantities that adults would be allowed to carry, consume or grow and said that it would be up to parliament to decide once a bill was drawn up to accommodate these recommended changes.
It makes provision for publicly possessing as well as gifting (without any exchange of remuneration) cannabis plants, seeds/seedlings and dried flowers, or the equivalents thereof.
