The Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest court, ruled on the 18th September that the personal use of cannabis is not a criminal offence. The decision was unanimous and it is regarded as a landmark ruling.
It rules that the ban on private possession and consumption, and cultivation of the plant for own use is unconstitutional as the ban infringed on section 14 of the SA Constitution which gives all citizens the right to privacy. SA is the third country in Africa to legalise cannabis, following Lesotho in September 2017, and in Zimbabwe in April this year.
This means that you can now smoke dagga legally at home, and grow enough for personal consumption, but you cannot smoke it in public, and dealing in the product is still considered illegal. While government still has to decide how much weed a person may use in private and the age restriction for use and so on, police officers have been briefed on the new ruling insofar as your private house is concerned.
Although still untested, one would think that smoking and growing weed within the confines of your private house would still need to take place in such a manner so as not to infringe on the rights of your neighbours. In the case of sectional title property for example, you should bear in mind that your right to smoke or grow weed would be limited to your exclusively owned section and not to any common property. Insofar as tenanted property is concerned, it seems that the landlord can restrict this, similar to smoking and other substances via the terms of the lease agreement and conditions of use of the property.
It is important to note that cannabis cannot be smoked publicly and dealing in it is still illegal. Once you leave your house for example, all other laws and provisions kick in. For example, section 65 of the National Road Traffic Act explicitly states that no person may drive a vehicle or occupy the driver’s seat of a motor vehicle of which the engine is running on a public road while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drug having a narcotic effect.
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