Fields of Green for All (FGFA) is to co-host a Policing Post-Prohibition Cannabis in South Africa workshop on Friday, 27 February 2026 in Johannesburg and has urged the country’s diverse cannabis communities to send representation.
The workshop is part of FGFA’s campaign to reform SAPS from within, and it is seeking input from the country’s various cannabis communities to help shape cannabis policing policy. The gathering will be held in Johannesburg at a venue still to be confirmed and will be livestreamed on Cannabiz Africa and other platforms.
FGFA is co-hosting the event as a civil society collaborator intent on ensuring community-centred dialogue. It has invited cannabis communities to send a maximum of two representatives to the workshop which can accomodate 30 people
Writing on the FGFA’s website, Joanne Perry says this is the first attempt in South Africa to collaboratively develop a new official policing policy that incorporates the shifting cannabis legal landscape.
Perry says the participation of communities in the process is paramount as they bear the brunt of bad policing.
“Cannabis communities—including growers, users, activists, and people affected by past and ongoing criminalisation—are primary beneficiaries of better policing” she says. “This is a rare moment in South African drug policy where community input will directly affect national police procedures.
Perry says the Policing Post-Prohibition Cannabis in South Africa Project seeks to:
- Co-develop National SAPS SOPs for Cannabis policing that are legally sound, practical, and consistent.
- Co-create Civil Society Guidelines that directly feed into those SOPs, ensuring that community voices shape police practice.
- Use a participatory, collaborative approach where researchers act as bridges between SAPS and Cannabis-using communities—two groups that rarely engage directly.
She says community insights are crucial in identifying harmful or unlawful policing practices, gaps in officer knowledge, constitutional rights infringements and community expectations for safe and fair policing.
“Community input will be used not only to shape SAPS practice but also to support advocacy, accountability, and future policy reform efforts”, says Perry.. .
What the Event Will Do
The community workshop, will:
- Gather experiential evidence from Cannabis users and community leaders about policing encounters.
- Identify priority issues to be incorporated into draft civil society guidelines.
- Discuss rights, responsibilities, and expectations in a new post-prohibition legal landscape.
- Ensure that the guidelines reflect a broad, diverse community perspective before they are submitted for integration into SAPS SOPs.
To register for attendance and for more details, Click Here.
About the Police Reform Project
In collaboration with experts and researchers from the University of Cape Town (Centre for Criminology) and University of Bristol (School for Policy Studies), this project is divided into two sections:
· September 2025 to June 2026: Civil Society engagement and subsequent report containing guidelines emerging from these engagements. This is part of “Impact Acceleration” – implementing the findings of – the Cannabis Africana: Drugs & Development in Africa research project conducted between 2021 and 2024.
· September 2025 to 2027 (end date not finalised): Engagements between SAPS and Experts.
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