The most marginalized cannabis communities continue to endure police harassment, particularly in the Western Cape, and the their frustration surfaced during the Indlela stakeholder webinar. Sonqua Xam representative, Andre Jochem of the Soakwagixa NPO, called in from a police station where he was negotiating the release of a man arrested on cannabis charges. While he was speaking, he got a call that there was a cannabis-related police raid in Delft on the Cape Flats.
“The government has to drop cannabis from the Drugs Act immediately” he said.
This, however, is unlikely to get to the root of the problem, and activists are going further in a campaign to shift the way police are incentivized in their jobs.
During a presentation on the Police Reform Programme (PRP), Fields of Green for All’s (FGFA) Myrtle Clarke said arrests would continue as long as there were quotas for arrests. She said that the PRP aimed to change the police from within by changing the key performance indicators (KPI’s) in their job descriptions. FGFA is supported by UCT’s Centre of Criminology and the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which has identified the Rastafarian community as a ‘designated vulnerable group’ susceptible to human rights abuses at the hands of the state.
The PRP is planning a summit on 27 February 2026 where it is expected to meet officials from the security cluster to push for a new moratorium on police arrests as the August 2023 directive by the national commissioner calling for a halt to cannabis arrests had all but been ignored. Clarke called for a mass public turnout at the Constitutional Hill meeting in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, to push the point home. The event will be live-streamed.
In the short-term there appears to be no solution to the issue. The SAHRC has not had much success since the February ‘Rasta Round Table’ in Boksburg which it tried to broker a halt to cannabis arrests. Police were unwilling to compromise on any of their search and seizure rights, and by all accounts the situation has got worse during the year. One of the worst instances was the death at the hands of Cape Town shopkeeper, Ras Isa which is still under investigation.
On 3 November 2025 SAHRC released its Rights of Rastafari report, highlighting ongoing complaints of arrests and harassment by the Rastafarian community and said the following five workflows were part of its campaign to ensure that the rights of Rastas were recognized:
i) unlawful arrests and police profiling,
ii) regulatory development and public participation,
iii) commercialisation and indigenous knowledge,
iv) education and cultural inclusion, and
v) land access and sacred spaces.
Rasta United Front (RUF) President in South Africa, Ras Thau-Thau Haramanuba, told Cannabiz Africa he was not hopeful of imminent law enforcement conduct and behavioural changes.
“As for now we are not very optimistic of a change in behaviour towards the community by the police as members continue being targeted,” Ras Haramanuba stated.
