Triumph for tradition
DOCTORS DISPUTE CLAIMS OF ITS MEDICINAL POWER Finally we can use traditional medicines ... that’s a real, real victory, says healer.
Abucket containing a soupy, green mixture sits under a table in Nduna Ewrong-Nxumalo’s consulting room in downtown Johannesburg. 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 how to restore people’s health with it,” said the healer, wearing a leopard-skin vest and khaki trousers.
“It is a plant to be respected and protected, and I’m happy the law is finally doing that.”
Last month, the Constitutional Court decriminalised the private and personal use of cannabis in a landmark case that pitted law enforcement agencies against advocates of dagga.
The 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 details such as permitted quantities.
For Siphelele Luthuli, 47, who was diagnosed with asthma in 2010, the court ruling is a saving grace after years of secretly buying cannabis from a merchant in a dangerous part of Durban. “For me it’s really liberating to be able to have access to it.”
Luthuli, a tourism entrepreneur, turned to cannabis in her quest for a natural alternative to a heavy cocktail of steroids, which she said caused water retention and weight gain. In 2014, her doctor did not object when she suggested trying homebrewed cannabis tea – at a fraction of the cost of the Western treatment.
After taking the cannabis tea for almost a year she went back for a check-up and was declared asthma-free, she said.
Dagga is sometimes seen as a gateway drug to harder substances, but Sipho Ntanzi, 23, a goat shearer, has steadfastly used it as a painkiller for years. The powers of cannabis have been an open secret in his family for generations.
“When I was growing up, my uncle used to brew cannabis tea for himself at home and there was no problem or stigma attached to it,” he said, adding: “No one had a problem with it unless you smoked it. Then you would get into trouble.”
As an adult, he started taking a cupful of the tea daily in the morning and evening. “After drinking it I feel stronger and my system is refreshed,” Ntanzi said, while sipping the tea in the sangoma’s offices.
Criticising Western medicine for despising traditional herbal remedies such as cannabis, Ntanzi said he takes a dose whenever he feels “a bit sick – to stop illness in its tracks”.
A 2007 study commissioned by the trade and industry minister 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 for its legalisation has been waged in SA 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 supplying or dealing, the legalisation of personal cannabis use has been met with a backlash.
The lobby group Doctors for Life disputes the veracity of claims about cannabis’ medicinal powers and the conservative African Christian Democratic Party has also strongly condemned the court decision.
But the leader of the Traditional Healers Organisation of SA, Phephisile Maseko, said the ruling was 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 for the clients that we service.” – AFP
It’s a plant to be respected and protected