The Taung Daily News reports that officers from SAPS Relief D unit were driving around Klipfontein township on Sunday morning, 11 January 2026 when at around 11.30 am they saw a whole lot of cannabis plants growing on plot 202. They confronted the 33 year-old owner of the plot, pulled up the plants and arrested him. He is due to appear in court soon.
Acting Namakwa District Police Commissioner, Colonel Moses Lekgwati, commended the police for their vigilance and proactive policing: “This arrest demonstrates our commitment to keeping our communities safe” he said.
H3 Legal Solutions’ Charl Botha says police actions such as this are out of line with Government policy and undermine public trust in the police and waste state resources.
“One part of government says cannabis is legal. Another part is still raiding homes, confiscating plants, and charging people with ‘dealing’” he says.
“The law has no quantity definition for dealing. This contradiction is now collapsing public trust, wasting taxpayer money, and quietly criminalising the very communities that were promised reform. South Africa has legal cannabis. Thousands of South Africans are being treated as criminals. This is not a misunderstanding. It is not isolated misconduct. It is a structural contradiction inside the state .
One of the problems is that the infamous 23 August 2023 Memorandum from the National Commissioner’s office instructing officers to halt cannabis arrests, has all but been ignored. A Cannabiz Africa source says the problem with the implementation of the moratorium was that it did not have the backing of the National Prosecuting Authority.
Last year the NPA confiscated the house of an Upington resident who was found guilty of dealing in R300 worth of cannabis. The seizure caused outrage in the cannabis community with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition saying last year that they would take up the case with the NPA as it was out of alignment with the Cannabis Master Plan.
Botha says it’s clear that the National Commissioner’s 23 August directive has been largely ignored. It had instructed police not to arrest adults for private possession, cultivation, or use of cannabis, recognising that no law currently defines a quantity that constitutes “dealing”.
“That should have ended the raids. It didn’t” says Botha. “Rural communities, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, continue to report raids, confiscations, intimidation, and arrests. Traditional healers and subsistence farmers remain primary targets. Cannabis is legal. But the knock on the door continues.”
He points out that when enforcement contradicts legislation, three things happen:
– Courts become clogged with cases that collapse,
– Taxpayer money is wasted on litigation the state cannot defend,
– Communities lose faith in the law.
“Every unlawful raid costs public funds. Every collapsed case erodes legitimacy. Every confiscated crop destroys livelihoods. This is not only unjust — it is fiscally reckless” he says..
Botha says the answer lies in decisive, centralised leadership over the cannabis sector. He says thme following steps should be taken:
• Align SAPS enforcement with national law
• Make the Cannabis Master Plan binding
• Centralise cannabis governance
• Harmonise health, trade, agriculture, and policing into a single framework
• Protect legacy growers and rural cooperatives
• End contradictory enforcement
Fields of Green for All believes the most effective way to try and change policing is from within. Last year it launched its Police Reform Project aimed at getting key performance indicators changed within SAPS. FGFA is holding a post-prohibition policing summit on 27 February 2026.
#
