Cannabis Development Council of South Africa (CDCSA) Chairperson Ras Gareth Prince has placed authorities on legal notice and said a lawsuit is in the works pertaining to cannabis laws and regulations in South Africa!
Speaking to Cannabiz Africa, Prince said authorities should expect a formal challenge in the courts against various cannabis-related protocols and regulations in South Africa.
He was speaking in response to an invitation by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development for comments on regulations to the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, 2024 the Ministry released on 3 February. Interested parties have until 5 March to make inputs.
“Yes, part of our case will be a challenge to the constitutionality of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, the hemp regulations and the cannabis regulations. The papers should be ready in the next couple of weeks,” Prince stated on Monday 23 February 2026.
When first contacted for comment a week after the regulations’ publication, Prince stated the Rasta faithful and others viewed the regulations as procedurally flawed and therefore would challenge them.
“We don’t intend to legitimise an unlawful process,” he said.
The regulations give effect to the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 7 of 2024 which President Ramaphosa assented to two and a half years ago. They among others give numerical thresholds for possession and cultivation: adults can legally possess up to 750g per day and cultivate no more than five plants.
However, it now seems that the entire Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 2024 will be the subject of a challenge by Prince and his stakeholder constituency.
Prince made history after challenging prohibitionist anti-cannabis laws in South Africa, leading to the 2018 Cannabis for Private Purposes victory later enshrined in the Act that Ramaphosa signed into law in 2024.
This is not the first time that the Rastafarian legal scholar has spoken against the legislation that allowed personal recreational use in South Africa.
In an earlier interview with Cannabiz Africa in the aftermath of the law’s assent by Ramaphosa, Ras Prince criticised what he said was a rushed and superficial consultation process that led to the Bill from which the legislation derived. He suggested the entire legal framework be scrapped and started from scratch.
The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act resulted in a legal cannabis industry for South Africa, including industrial and medicinal use. However, stakeholders have waited for years for cogent personal use regulations, with trade notably missing from the updated regulations released by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development. The Ministry earlier this month said trade was the jurisdiction of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC).
Prince has also been vociferous regarding reported cannabis law enforcement policing abuses. He welcomed and was an attendee of the Rastas Roundtable convened by the SA Human Rights Commission in February 2025 in Boksburg, saying there had been very little engagement between Rastas and police in the preceding six years.
However, he expressed disappointment that the Roundtable had failed to secure Rastas more rights or elicit police assurances that Rastas would not be harassed. “The police were not there with the goal of moving the industry forward,” he said. He also questioned the low-level government representatives and the absence of DTIC representatives from the discussions.
He deplored the fact that Rastas had not been consulted regarding commercialisation despite furnishing the DTIC with a bio-fuels project proposal.
Prince also champions the empowerment of legacy farmers through the patenting of centuries-old landraces.
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