Page 74 - Daggabay Magazine Issue 9

Fields of Green for ALL • Collectively Reforming South African Cannabis Laws

2.4.2 Policy Options, Current International Trends & The Model(s)

To Most Effectively Achieve Our Policy Aims In South Africa

Laws are changing at an incredible speed around 6. Regulated legal production and supply
the world. However, Cannabis laws have never – entirely under government monopoly
stood still and policy alternatives to internationally 7. Regulated legal production and supply for
mainstreamed prohibition appeared rapidly medical and non-medical use – with a mix
after the IDCC entered into the fray. As far back of commercial and government-monopoly
as 1976, the Netherlands implemented the elements
so-called “coffee-shop” system, and medical 8. Regulated legal production and supply for
use of Cannabis was legalised in the US State medical and non-medical use – licensed
of California in 1996. Another trend has been producers and/ or licensed vendors
depenalisation: preventing de facto enforcement
of criminalisation for personal use, or changing to 9. Free Market Model.
de jure decriminalisation. Even though the options for South Africa often

These options often result in the same situation on look like a combination of approaches 8 and 9,
the ground while presenting very different legal relying on elements taken from 4 and 5, it is clear
obligations and implications on paper. The 2019 that a uniquely South African regulation model is
African continental report of ENACT notes that needed, rather than an approach that copies the
44
“while most drugs still remain de jure illegal across imperfections of other countries’ pioneering of
the continent (with [...] exceptions), there is a wide timid, partial legalisation.
discrepancy in how they are actually being policed South Africa is well placed to be one of the
and controlled within each state’s borders.” 45 pioneering traditional Cannabis-producing

These numerous examples of legislative resistance countries when it comes to legally regulated
against full prohibition have shaped a current Cannabis. Neither the Netherlands, Uruguay, the
international panorama that is extremely complex United States or Canada have the long-standing
and diverse. This list might not be comprehensive traditions of Cannabis use that we have.
or definitive, but it reflects the wide array of South Africa’s apartheid history is well known
possibilities offered. They are obviously subject to internationally and we live with the consequences
change as, worldwide, jurisdictions continue to of that history every day.
enshrine modern Cannabis policies.
Of all countries, South Africa has no excuse
Focusing more on the production model, and for implementing regulations that look like
mostly on adult use, it is also possible to list Prohibition 2.0 and which continue to hamper
regulations from most to least restrictive: the rights of its citizens or violate its traditions
1. Prohibition of all production, supply, and use and history. Given our history and the irrefutable
2. Prohibition of production and supply, alongside evidence that the prohibition of Cannabis has
been used as an instrument of oppression, South
legal production and supply for medical use Africa needs Cannabis laws and regulations that
3. Prohibition of production and supply, take ALL of the evidence into account – from
46
decriminalisation of possession for personal the historical to the scientific. Because the South
use African context requires it, these regulations
4. Prohibition of production and supply may end up being the most liberal and the most
– with decriminalisation of possession for human rights-centered in the world.
personal use, and some retail sales
5. Prohibition of production and supply
– with decriminalisation of small-scale personal
cultivation and “Cannabis social clubs”

30 CANNABIS IN SOUTH AFRICA • THE PEOPLE’S PLANT • A Full-Spectrum Manifesto For Policy Reform