Today is D-Day for cannabis use and hemp rights in South Africa at the Western Cape High Court, Cape Town! Cannabis Development Council of South Africa (CDCSA) Chairperson Ras Gareth Prince is due to file a two-part court challenge against the State challenging cannabis laws and arrests and hemp laws and regulations.
Prince is filing an urgent application seeking to compel government to observe the Constitutional rights on cannabis use and to provide relief against arbitrary arrests. He is also litigating for law enforcement to respect the right to earn a livelihood of indigenous and marginalised people through hemp cultivation and trade.
Prince’s challenge was originally set down for 10 April but was deferred to 14 April 2026, due to the Easter holidays.
Prince is the legal activist who’s court challenge, commonly known as the Prince Judgement, paved the way for cannabis legalization in 2018.
He’s suing eight organs of the state, in his personal capacity and in his capacity as a Rasta National Council (RNC) member and also as representative of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Sandbox small farmers whose right to grow hemp and official written promises to assist them have been violated and unfulfilled, respectively, by the State.
The RNC and the IKS farmers are listed as second and third applicants. Prince’s challenge also states his standing as one of two Rasta stakeholders on the Presidential Cannabis and Hemp Steering Committee, alongside the academic Dr Thandeka Kunene.
The eight State respondents are the national police minister and the national police commissioner; the minister of trade, industry and competition (tic) and that department’s (tic’s) director-general; the ministers for justice and correctional services; agriculture; fisheries, forests and the environment and the national director of public prosecutions.
The applicants interdict the national police minister and national commissioner from arresting adults for cannabis possession, use or cultivation at a private place as defined in Section 1 of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 7 of 2024. They dispute the consultation processes leading to the Act as flawed and having been carried out under an incorrect legal framework.
They, therefore, demand the suspension of cannabis arrests and prosecutions until Parliament rectifies that oversight.
Rastas have been the most affected constituency by coercive law enforcement measures, despite the 2018 Constitutional Court personal use victory (Prince 3), codified in the as yet to be promulgated Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, 2024 (CFPPA/Impugned Act), on which public inputs closed on 5 March 2026.
Cannabis arrests have also continued despite a police moratorium on cannabis arrests dating back to 2023 and renewed in 2024, pending the finalisation of binding cannabis regulations protocols. The application argues the Act had failed to address a defect in the 2018 provisions.
At issue are the regulations pertaining to dealing and personal use and definitions of what this constitutes as well as alleged law enforcement restrictions of what are constitutionally recognised rights to possession, private use and cultivation of both cannabis and hemp – and their interpretation.
The notice of motion also demands that respondents take appropriate steps including filing progress reports or affidavits with the Court Registrar to indicate compliance with applicants’orders until the remedy sought is enforced.
The destruction of the plant also features prominently in the notice, with applicants demanding police cease such practice where a licence has been issued until such time as the hemp regulations published in December 2025 come into legal force. The application also disputes the 2% THC threshold on hemp stipulated in the Plant Improvement Act 2018 as excluding South African landrace strains.
The application also demands the expunging of all cannabis criminal records for cannabis possession, use and cultivation through a process that does not require in-person attendance or legal representation.
Prince argues the application’s urgency owes to the fact that litigating in the courts has been a last resort measure because contested cannabis abuses continue on a daily basis.
“I respectfully ask this Honourable Court to grant the relief set out in the Notice for part B in its entirety, with costs against any respondent who opposes,” concludes the application.
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