There is strong overall public support for cannabis legalization across Namibia although, with the extremely conservative Oshana and Ohangwena regions bringing down the national average, the median approval rating was 42,3%. Support for an end to prohibition was strongest in the Caprivi and Hardap areas.
That’s according to the Afrobarometer Survey 2024 conducted by Cirrus Survey Warehouse Namibia.
The survey factored variables including region, age group, education level , gender and ethnic background which proved determinative of the outcome.
In full, approval ratings in the country’s regions for full adult-use legalization were as follows:
- Hardap (69%),
- //Kharas (68%),
- Zambezi (67%),
- Omaheke (59%),
- Otjozondjupa (52%),
- Khomas (48%),
- Kavango East (39%),
- Kavango West (57%) ,
- Kunene (43%), Omusati (28%),
- Erongo (27%), Oshikoto (20%), Oshana (10%) and
- Ohangwena (5%).
The ethnicity breakdown stood as follows:
- Caprivians (82%),
- Nama (69%),
- Subia (63%),
- Afrikaner (56%),
- Herero (55%),
- Kavango (52%) and
- Baster (50%)
Respondents had to answer whether using cannabis use can “always be justified”, “sometimes be justified” or can “never be justified”.
Education levels also had a bearing on how the matter was viewed with people with university and postgraduate qualifications shown to have the highest approval at 46%, followed by those with a high school education at 42%.
To summarise:
- Hardap (69%), Kharas (68%) and Zambezi (67%) where Caprivians are concentrated, had the highest approval rating while after Caprivians, the Nama (69%) and Subia (63%) were the most approving of ethnic groups;
- 40% of people aged between 18-25 said marijuana use can be justified, just behind their 26-35 peers while
- support dropped to 37% among 36-45 year-olds, third in ranking when it comes to adult use support.
- Overall, men were found to be more supportive of cannabis use at 40%, compared to women (37%).
- The survey appears to contradict claims by authorities that society is strongly opposed to cannabis consumption and to vindicate arguments by Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) and other stakeholders in the country’s pro-cannabis lobby that community leaders have tended to stamp their authority on the will of the people.
- All in all, the approval median in terms of the survey was 42.3%, a result some sectors of Namibian society has seized on to argue that the country is still divided when it comes to legalisation.
Community leaders have been at the forefront in opposing the lifting of the ban while activists have slammed it for being outdated and as a relic of the colonial period under South Africa. Activists say the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act 41 of 1971 (RSA) in particular, which governs possession and use, has no place in a modern democracy.
Gerub Gaseb is an example of one such prohibitionist leader. In a petition filed with the Okahandja Magistrate’s Court against the granting of bail for three suspects (one of whom is a South African) charged in connection with a record $N52-million cannabis seizure earlier this month, Gaseb painted cannabis as a substance that posed grave danger to young people and ‘vulnerable groups’.
The petition further stated that the distribution of drugs to areas including Windhoek, Okahandja and surrounding communities placed urban youths and other vulnerable groups in great danger. However, according to the survey’s findings, in Gaseb’s own Otjozondjupa region, 52% of respondents say adult cannabis use can be justified.
By not making the distinction between hard or synthetic drugs on the one hand and cannabis on the other, leaders have been shown to entrench ignorance around cannabis, which has a long history of use in Namibia’s indigenous communities. Moreover, legalising cannabis for medicinal and industrial use could transform a moribund economy by creating jobs and sustaining livelihoods, especially in Namibia’s indigenous communities.
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