Cannabis legalisation delights South African users
JOHANNESBURG: A bucket containing a soupy green mixture sits under a table in Nduna Ewrong-Nxumalo’s consultation room here, South Africa’s economic hub.
The traditional healer, or “sangoma”, has trusted and prescribed the pungent mixture — cannabis tea — to his patients for years.
“We were given this holy plant by the ancestors,” Ewrong-Nxumalo said, scooping out a cupful.
“Healers who came before us trained us on how to restore people’s health with it,” said the healer.
“It is a plant to be respected and protected, and I’m happy the law is finally doing that.”
Last month, South Africa’s top court decriminalised the private and personal use of cannabis in a landmark case that pitted law enforcement agencies against advocates of the plant, known in the country as “dagga”.
The Constitutional Court ruling changed attitudes overnight while bringing interim legal relief to those who use cannabis for medicinal purposes by decriminalising the possession and cultivation of dagga for private use.
Parliament has 24 months to iron out legislative details, such as permitted quantities.
A 2007 study commissioned by the country’s trade and industry ministry suggested that more than 26 million South Africans — nearly half the population — use traditional medicine, mostly derived from wild plants including cannabis, and some animals.
Legislation prohibiting the sale of dagga in South Africa dates back to 1908.
The battle over its legalisation has been waged in South Africa’s courts since 2010, led by a group of activists who faced arrest for personal use in the past.
While the Constitutional Court did not decriminalise the use of the drug in public nor the offences of supplying or dealing, the legalisation of personal cannabis use has been met with some backlash.
The lobbying group Doctors for Life disputes the veracity of claims about cannabis’ medicinal powers.
The conservative African Christian Democratic Party has also strongly condemned the court decision.
But the leader of the Traditional Healers Organisation of South Africa, Phephisile Maseko, enthuses that the ruling is a victory for all.
“Finally we are told, particularly by the Constitutional Court, that we can use traditional medicines... that’s a real, real victory, not just to us as service providers but a victory to the clients and the patients we service.”
Patients use cannabis for a slew of ailments including cancers, as well as colic, anxiety, insomnia and as an antiseptic, Maseko said.