Dagga chef rolls out the boom butter
Relieved, and swiftly stoned, at news that his habit’s not a crime
● Three years ago KwaZulu-Natal chef Christian Baker told the Pietermaritzburg high court that letting South Africans grow dagga in their gardens would help destroy the illegal market and the cartels that control it.
This was part of his bid to have his prosecution on a drug-related charge stayed.
This week, the man who eats dagga seeds as a health supplement, and bakes and cooks with weed butter, lit up when he heard that the Constitutional Court had ruled that the ban on the private use and cultivation of dagga was unconstitutional.
The ruling decriminalises the smoking of dagga by adults at home and growing it for personal use.
But the court also said that dagga may still not be smoked in public and that dealing in it is still illegal.
The 24-year-old chef appeared in a Phoenix court in May 2015 on a drug-related charge.
At the time Baker pleaded not guilty to the possession charge, claiming it was not “morally possible” to admit to any crime when “there is no apparent victim of the alleged crime and it can and will be shown in defence that the law against dagga is unjust and unjustifiable”.
He refused to accept his prosecution and turned to a higher court.
The high court granted a postponement of the trial and the charge was eventually provisionally withdrawn.
Baker told the Sunday Times this week: “Now that they have decriminalised personal use, I have no worry that the charges may be reinstated.”
He feels, though, that the Constitutional Court ruling is not specific enough “on what constitutes personal use and what your rights actually are now that dagga has been decriminalised”. “I also feel the ruling did not do enough for dagga users’ rights regarding where one would be able to use dagga and what protection a user would have if their employer came to know of them using dagga,” said Baker.
“The judgment could have gone more into detail as to what parliament should use as a guideline for the new legislation and to remove the stigma around dagga use.
“If you look at Uruguay, their parliament gave full control to the users and not to the state.
“The state would enforce the law but the user had a choice to grow their own or create a club where users could join together and leave a particular person to do the cultivation of the plant for personal consumption,” he said.
“In the [justice’s] ruling I feel that this should have been listed, as parliament can go and pass legislation basically limiting use to one plant per user, which then undermines the fight to legalise weed.”