UCT criminologist Dr Simon Howell (pictured here) says elements within the police are receptive to reform, given the confusion that cannabis policing has lapsed into..
Dr Howell, keynote speaker at Fields of Green for All’s (FGFA) Police Reform Project community workshop on 27 February 2026, tells Cannabiz Africa that the police appetite for internal reform depends on a variety of factors, including the personal attitudes of the cops themselves who are would be as much the beneficiaries of the process as much as the communities they serve
Need for clear cannabis policing guidelines that everyone can understand
The UCT criminologist and police training expert, says that one of the main objectives of the PRP is to translate law enforcement into a language that the proverbial ‘bobby on the beat’ can understand.
Currently there are no nationally accepted policing guidelines regarding cannabis nor are there defined limits on what constitutes dealing.
The SAPS National Commissioner’s August 2023 directive calling for a moratorium on cannabis arrests has all but been ignored because it didn’t have the buy-in of the National Prosecuting Authority. Cannabis policing has since deteriorated into an ad hoc muddle as the NPA has been sitting on proposed guidelines for over 18 months and has left the provinces to make it up as they go along.
Elements of SAPS are receptive to reform
So if the National Commissioner’s instructions on cannabis policing are being ignored, what chance is there of any success of a non-government organization changing the rules of the game from within?
FGFA CEO Myrtle Clarke acknowledges it won’t be easy but that the organization is in it for the long-haul: “We need to be strong and stand our ground and speak our hearts” she says, emphasizing that SAPS acknowledges the need for reform. “Some parts of law enforcement have been receptive of what we do. There’s a certain sector that is receptive to our work”.
The Marijuana Board of South Africa (MBOSA), which attended the PRP workshop is more militant in outlook: MBOSA leader Thabo Makwetla says: “You can’t wait for your oppressor to give you your freedom. We’re taking it back.”
PRP’s aim is to change the SAPS rule book
In a nutshell, the PRP aims to co-develop new, legally-aligned and practical Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) for SAPS to shift the psychology of cannabis policing culture. The PRP, supported by UCT and the University of Bristol, has identified the most effective way of changing SAPS is to get the police human resources directors to accept new Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that apply nationwide.
At the moment cannabis policing varies from tolerance to extortion and ad-hoc arrests. The fact that in some areas police have to meet arrest quotas to show their crime fighting successes, has played into the victimization of vulnerable cannabis communities such as the Rastafari and rural growers.
FGFA says this raft of irregularities and acknowledged shortcoming prompted last year’s launch of the PRP in the first place: “Opaque and vague cannabis regulations as currently exist have encouraged discretionary cannabis law enforcement practices and undermined users’ rights. This has led to uneven law enforcement, inconsistent policing, over-policing and discretionary police responses, blamed for fuelling unlawful cannabis arrests and law enforcement corruption”.
By getting the right KPI’s in place, Clarke says the PRP hopes to bridge the divide between the cannabis community and law enforcement. FGFA says is open to community submissions on poiice reform until the end of March in time for publication in June 2026 when formal engagement with SAPS is expected to commence.
Police need community consent in order to do their jobs
The PRP’s 27 February workshop at Constitution Hill in Braamfontein on Policing Post-Prohibition Cannabis in South Africa, featured structured statements from various cannabis constituency leaders in South Africa and abroad.
Speakers spelt out their visions for police reform in response to an evolving and increasingly rights-based regulatory landscape. They highlighted the disconnect between the law and law enforcement practice.
California associate project scientist Michael Polson, speaking via video link, blamed law enforcement involvement in policing regulations for eroding civil liberties. He said prohibition had handed the police undue powers and control.
“If you involve police, you’re on a slippery slope,” he stated. Satellite surveillance was being inconveniently deployed to incriminate cannabis cultivators and many parts of California were now barred to cultivation, he said.
Dr Howell, a mainstay of the 2017 “Trial of the Plant” and Professor Daniel Bear from Canada, highlighted police reform as a mutually beneficial dividend for the police and the cannabis community. “The police without consent are not policing well,” Dr Howell said.
Cannabis Africana Project, a years-long research partnership between the Universities of Bristol and Cape Town, also featured prominently at the workshop.
Cannabis Africana Project is currently investigating the history and contemporary place of cannabis in rural and urban settings in four African countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya. Professor
Gernot Klantschnig of the project called in from Bristol University with Nigeria’s Ediomo-Obong Nelson also appearing via video link to recount experiences of cannabis law enforcement in his country.
The main workshop outtake: sustainable law enforcement can only result from sound police-community relations – and actually a dose of goodwill all around!
#
