{"id":249163,"date":"2023-02-05T12:32:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-05T10:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/weed-in-south-africa-apartheid-waged-a-war-on-drugs-that-still-has-unequal-effects-today\/"},"modified":"2023-02-05T12:32:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-05T10:32:54","slug":"weed-in-south-africa-apartheid-waged-a-war-on-drugs-that-still-has-unequal-effects-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/weed-in-south-africa-apartheid-waged-a-war-on-drugs-that-still-has-unequal-effects-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Weed in South Africa: apartheid waged a war on drugs that still has unequal effects today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cannabis is being commercialised into a multibillion-dollar global industry and South Africa wants a piece of the pie. In his 2022 state of the nation address<\/a>, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of developing a hemp and cannabis sector to boost the post-COVID economy.<\/p>\n

Poor rural communities in South Africa have long cultivated cannabis<\/a> in illegal conditions of risk. They now face losing out to corporate interests and the wealthy.<\/p>\n

How did the stakes become so high \u2013 and so unequal?<\/p>\n

My recent historical study<\/a> helps answer this question. It reveals how an apartheid-era drug law incited a \u201cwar on drugs\u201d that was in effect a \u201cwar on cannabis\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 1971 a law was passed that subjected the cannabis plant and its products to the strictest possible controls. This set in motion a structurally racist policy that continued well into the post-apartheid era. <\/p>\n

Apartheid\u2019s 1971 anti-drug law<\/h2>\n

In 1971, South Africa\u2019s apartheid government passed the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act<\/a>. Lawmakers boasted it was the<\/p>\n

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toughest anti-drug law in the Western World. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The law\u2019s main target was white \u201chippy\u201d youth. <\/p>\n

The law followed recommendations by a state-sponsored inquiry, the Grobler Commission<\/a>. The commission focused only on white South Africans\u2019 misuse of synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs such as LSD, Mandrax (methaqualone) and heroin. <\/p>\n

Though the commission did not in fact turn up evidence of an extensive drug abuse problem, it nevertheless recommended tough suppression.<\/p>\n

To the ruling National Party<\/a>, the use of drugs by white people appeared to threaten Afrikaner religious culture and the future of a white South Africa. They hyped the drug problem as<\/p>\n

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a form of terrorism that is more dangerous than the armed terrorism we are familiar with on our country\u2019s borders. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This language of crisis enabled the apartheid lawmakers to borrow from the country\u2019s draconian anti-terrorism laws, such as the 1967 Terrorism Act<\/a>, used to put down anti-apartheid activism.<\/p>\n

Like the anti-terrorism legislation, the 1971 anti-drug act provided for harsh minimum prison sentences and detention without trial for purposes of interrogation. It also removed the court\u2019s discretion in sentencing for drug offences.<\/p>\n

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Read more: Cannabis policy changes in Africa are welcome. But small producers are the losers<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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When it was debated in parliament, the principle of \u201ctoughness\u201d appealed across party lines \u2013 except for the lone voice of the Progressive Party MP Helen Suzman<\/a>. Suzman observed that although the Grobler Commission excluded research on substance use by the majority black South Africans, the law would nonetheless apply to them. <\/p>\n

Similarly, she argued, the commission had not investigated cannabis \u2013 a substance considered by many to be less socially harmful than legal alcohol or tobacco. Yet it was to be scheduled in the new law as a \u201cprohibited dangerous drug\u201d, along with heroin and cocaine. <\/p>\n

Lone voice of reason<\/h2>\n

For centuries in Africa<\/a>, including parts of South Africa, the cannabis plant had important indigenous cultural value and was cultivated for a variety of social and pharmacological uses. <\/p>\n

Cannabis was first criminalised in the country in 1922<\/a>. But drug policing remained relatively weak<\/a> for three decades. In the gap, and with growing urban markets, commercial cannabis livelihoods emerged to combat growing rural poverty<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In such conditions \u2013 as Suzman pointed out \u2013 punitive drug control, created to combat white pill-popping, was clearly going to fall on black South Africans for cannabis offences. <\/p>\n

Suzman fought hard<\/a>. She pointed out that a \u201cMarijuana Commission\u201d<\/a> was under way in the US, documenting how the supposed dangers of cannabis were greatly exaggerated. She argued for a less criminalising status for cannabis in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Her views were defeated and apartheid\u2019s extraordinary drug legislation was easily passed. Cannabis was classified among those substances marked for strictest suppression.<\/p>\n

The law\u2019s impacts<\/h2>\n

This decision proved to be a watershed. The effects of the 1971 anti-drug law<\/a> were immediately evident, falling disproportionately on black South Africans. Cannabis accounted for well over 95% of drug-related arrests and convictions across all \u201crace\u201d groups. <\/p>\n

In a 1972 assessment by the Natal Provincial Supreme Court \u2013 in the case State v Shangase and Others<\/a> – judges showed how prison terms of two to ten years were being imposed even for the petty possession of single cannabis \u201czol<\/em>\u201d (joint).<\/p>\n

The \u201crehabilitation centres\u201d part of the 1971 law applied only to white offenders since \u2013 as Suzman had pointed out<\/a> \u2013 the segregationist state did not provide drug treatment programmes for black people. But, even for convicted white users, sentences involving treatment applied in less than 1% of cases.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, but unsurprisingly, illegal cannabis cultivation increased within the segregated spaces of apartheid.<\/p>\n

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Read more: A new approach to criminalisation could end Cape Town’s drug wars<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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An illegal crop in high demand was profitable to grow, and even more so to trade. Helicopters spraying herbicides and multiple checkpoints raised the stakes of drug politics for all parties.<\/p>\n

The laws\u2019s embedded racism meant that as tough drug suppression continued after apartheid ended, its racist effects also continued.<\/p>\n

A reckoning with history is needed<\/h2>\n

The 1971 anti-drug law was replaced in 1992 with a Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act<\/a>. The new law maintained harsh sentences and cannabis remained illegal. The African National Congress, which came into power in 1994, reproduced the heavy-handed tactics it had inherited from the apartheid National Party: militarised suppression, spraying and incarcerations.<\/p>\n

In 2017 and 2018<\/a>, the government\u2019s cannabis policy was successfully challenged in the courts, on grounds of cultural and religious freedom. This also opened a window for liberalising cannabis as a commercial venture for certain products. Yet the actual policy remains unclear and contested<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apartheid\u2019s 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa\u2019s unequal cannabis landscape. Now, in an opening cannabis economy, rural cultivators remain in a vulnerable position against more powerful interests. <\/p>\n

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Read more: Marijuana use in South Africa: what next after landmark court ruling?<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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Decolonising drug-related knowledge and policies<\/a> in South Africa requires a deeper reckoning with history, including from apartheid into the present.<\/p>\n

*Quotations from the Debates of the House of Assembly<\/em>, Hansard (Cape Town: Government of the Republic of South Africa, 5 May 1971.<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cannabis is being commercialised into a multibillion-dollar global industry and South Africa wants a piece of the pie. In his 2022 state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of developing a hemp and cannabis sector to boost the post-COVID economy. Poor rural communities in South Africa have long cultivated cannabis in illegal conditions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-249163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/weed-in-south-africa-apartheid-waged-a-war-on-drugs-that-still-has-unequal-effects-today-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}