S.A.Rastafarian lawyer launches challenge to dagga laws

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Rastafarian lawyer launches challenge to dagga laws Published in: Legalbrief Today
Date: Tue 09 July 2013
Category: Litigation
Issue No: 3312


Rastafarian lawyer Garreth Prince is challenging the legislation that outlaws dagga, notes a report in The Mercury.

In an application lodged at the Cape Town High Court, Prince asks for certain sections of the Drugs and Drugs Trafficking Act, the Medicines and Related Substances Act and the Criminal Procedure Act to be declared invalid. He is also asking for a moratorium on all arrests for the use, possession, cultivation or transportation of small amounts of dagga - for personal use - should Parliament be ordered to 'correct' the impugned provisions; that the Director of Public Prosecutions hold back on all pending dagga-related criminal proceedings during the suspension period; and that Correctional Services to assist all prisoners jailed for the possession, cultivation, transportation and dealing in small amounts of cannabis in securing their release. The report says Prince faces criminal charges in the Khayelitsha Regional Court for dagga possession, dealing and cultivation. His wife and daughter are his co-accused. But the report adds the High Court has granted a stay of the pending criminal proceedings against them while Prince launches his constitutional challenge

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Rasta lawyer to challenge drugs act

May 4 2013 at 03:00pm
By FATIMA SCHROEDER
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INLSA
Rastafarian lawyer Garreth Prince leaves the Cape Town High Court. Picture: Leon Lestrade


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Cape Town - In his bid to change the law relating to the use of dagga, Rastafarian lawyer Garreth Prince intends to challenge sections of the Drugs and Trafficking Act, specifically to see the Rastafarian community allowed to use the “holy herb” as part of their religion.
And Friday Prince overcame a small hurdle when he secured a stay of the pending criminal proceedings against him and his family, for the possession of and dealing in dagga, while he launches proceedings in the Western Cape High Court to challenge the act.
Prince has a legal qualification but is not an admitted attorney. Since Prince also has previous dagga-related convictions, his criminal record prevented him from adding his name to the roll of admitted attorneys from the Cape Law Society in 2002.
Prince, his wife, Juanita Adams, and daughter Samantha Adams were arrested in June last year after police raided their Glencairn home and found several dagga plants and 500g of dried dagga.
It is Prince’s case, however, that he and his family use dagga strictly for religious purposes.
While they initially appeared in the Simon’s Town Magistrate’s Court, the case was transferred to the Khayelitsha Regional Court, and is still pending.
Prince turned to the high court yesterday where he argued, before Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso and Judge Nape Dolamo, that the pending regional criminal proceedings should be stayed to give him the opportunity to launch a “full frontal challenge” to the constitutional validity of the sections of the act.
He submitted that the lower courts lacked the jurisdiction to hear the constitutional issues. The interests of justice required that the high court determine the constitutional issues.
“I’m saying, in essence, that the law, as it stands, unfairly and unjustly and disproportionately impacts on the ability of the Rastafarian community to live their lives in the manner that the constitution guarantees,” he said.
Judge Traverso said the court could not close the doors to Prince, but added that no court in its right mind would allow criminal proceedings to continue in the lower courts while a constitutional challenge was pending before the high court.
She urged the parties to reach agreement on the issue so that criminal proceedings were stayed, and Prince could launch the constitutional challenge.

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No dagga for us Christians, says ACDP

November 10 2012 at 11:14am
By Michael Mpofu and Tanya Waterworth
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INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
Rev. Kenneth Meshoe of the ACDP.


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Durban - Anyone planning to make an early start on their Christmas shopping be warned – the Grinch is back and he’s having another go at stealing Christmas.
But the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) is not about to take it lying down, or allow the country to go to pot – for that matter. The party will march on Saturday in opposition to a bid to have Christmas and Easter holidays removed and against calls for the legalisation of dagga for religious and recreational purposes.
“When prayer was removed from our schools, Christians said nothing.
“When Ascension Day was removed as a public holiday, Christians did not fight it,” said ACDP leader the Reverend Kenneth Meshoe on Friday.
But now it was “time for Christians to stand up and say ‘no’ to subtle attacks on our faith”, he said.
Submissions had been made to the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, a Chapter Nine institution, calling for the removal of Christmas and Easter as public holidays.
The commission had also recently made recommendations to the government that dagga be legalised.
The ACDP – which will march from Braamfontein in Johannesburg on Saturday– is opposed to both calls.
Commission spokesman Sipho Mantula said the recommendation on dagga came after a long consultation with Rastafarians and it was decided to authorise 100g of dagga per person for religious purposes.

“Even the children will claim to be Rasta and the drug problem in the country will be exacerbated.
“You cannot solve one problem by creating another,” Meshoe said, referring to a suggestion by Dagga Party of SA leader Jeremy Acton that there was no difference between alcohol and dagga and that both could be regulated successfully.
“We believe it [dagga] can be regulated and we have the right to access to the plant for recreational use,” Acton – who is battling criminal charges for possession of dagga – said.

Part of the court’s reasoning was that it would be difficult to regulate the responsible use of the plant and almost impossible to ensure that those given permission to use the drug would not abuse it.
Cultural rights, the right to access economic resources and medicinal rights and the right to personal use were all at stake, Acton argued.
Meanwhile, Meshoe said the public hearings in Gauteng for the removal of the Christian holidays had been “hidden” from his party until the day before they were held.

Meanwhile, Colorado and Washington were on a high this week as they became the first states in the US to legalise the possession and sale of cannabis for recreational use, while drug users in Uruguay will be allowed to buy enough cannabis from their government each month to make 20 cigarettes.
Colorado was quickly followed by Washington, in a week that saw millions of Americans streaming to the election booths.

Back home, South Africa’s “dagga couple”, Jules and Myrtle Clark who are challenging the constitutionality of being legally allowed to use dagga recreationally, are hoping to have their case heard in the high court by next year.

But director of SA National Council Against Alcohol and Drug Dependence in Durban, Carol du Toit, said that while there was a powerful lobby to legalise dagga, there were a number of issues to consider.
“South Africa, as we all know, has an unacceptably high rate of deaths due to road accidents, a large percentage of which can be attributed to the abuse of alcohol and or other chemical substances.”

She added that dagga abuse has also been linked to an a motivational syndrome, affecting the user’s work performance and drive for success. - Independent on Saturday