South Africa gives the green light to personal cannabis use

SOUTH AFRICA’S highest court ruled yesterday that private, personal cannabis use was legal.

Deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, delivering the Johannesburgbased Constitutional Court’s unanimous verdict, declared that the law banning marijuana use in private by adults was “unconstitutional and therefore invalid”.

“It will not be a criminal offence for an adult person to use or be in possession of cannabis in private for his or her personal consumption,” he said, to cheers from the public gallery.

The court also ordered parliament to draft new laws within 24 months to reflect the order.

Outside, cannabis campaigners lit pipes and rolled joints to celebrate the news. “I’m happy I won’t be getting any more criminal records for possession,” Ruaan Wilson, a 29-year-old resident, said. “Now we can get police to focus on real drugs and thugs.”

A court in the Western Cape had ruled in March 2017 that a ban on cannabis use by adults at home was unconstitutional, a move that effectively decriminalised it in the province, which includes Cape Town.

But the state ministers of justice, police, health and trade challenged that finding, arguing that there was “objective proof of the harmful effects of cannabis.”

Yesterday’s ruling does not decriminalise the use of the drug in public, nor the offences of supplying or dealing marijuana – but cultivation for personal, private use will no longer be illegal for adults.