A step too far
IT WAS reggae icon Peter Tosh who famously sang on his eponymous Legalise it, don’t criticize it debut album in 1975. Now Prince Phumezile Dinwayo of the Amantlane Traditional Council in Lusikisiki, in the Eastern Cape’s Mpondoland wants the Medicines Control Council not just to legalise the use of marijuana or cannabis for medicinal purposes, but unregulate it entirely and give the people in the district the monopoly over its production.
He believes it could revolutionise the lives of the people in the region for the better. We have no doubt it would, dagga or cannabis is synonymous with what was once termed the Transkei, but always farmed and exported illegally. Legalising it, much like legalising other softer social crimes like prostitution could have immense benefits to everyone involved in the industry; quality standards for consumers, price protection and regulation for producers and a new revenue stream to the receiver too.
When you consider legalising it for medical use, as has been the case in certain states in the US and parts of Europe, there are even more compelling cases to be made here, we need think only of the late IFP MP Mario Ambrosini’s moving address to the House of Assembly – shortly before he died of cancer in 2014.
But there are major downsides to the drug too, chief among them the role of cannabis as a gateway drug to hard drug use and associated addiction. There is also the suspected, though yet unproven, link to the development of psychological problems in later life, such as schizophrenia, for habitual users. We don’t believe that any recreational drug; whether alcohol, nicotine or cannabis should be unregulated – the inherent dangers for the users and the broader society are just too great.
Whether or not cannabis should still be illegal – particularly for medicinal purposes – is a different matter altogether.
South Africans have until next Friday to tell the Medicines Control Council what they think about the proposed Medicine Innovations Bill – and the possible legalisation of medicinal cannabis.
We hope they will use this opportunity to make their voices heard.