While private personal consumption of cannabis is legal in South Africa, there are no clear rules for travelling around with the stuff. So, what about carrying weed on a domestic flight? You wouldn’t want your holiday in East London spoiled by being bust when you thought you were cool, or find yourself being booked for a scheduled offence for exceeding required amounts or violating acceptable possession norms. We asked South African Airways what cannabis consuming passengers should bear in mind beforehopping aboard their flights.
SAA media relations executive Vimla Maistry gave a few pointers and outlined the essential guidelines for passengers.
“Whilst SAA does not have a policy around the carrying of cannabis on domestic flights in South Africa, it follows the 2018 Constitutional Court ruling and the South African Police Service directive (2019),” she shared. She highlighted the conditions under which adults may carry cannabis for personal use on domestic flights.
Key SAA Guidelines for Travelling with Cannabis
• Personal Use Only: The cannabis must be intended for your own consumption.
• Quantity: Under 5 grams is generally considered acceptable.
• Concealment: The cannabis must be securely concealed in your luggage (not carried openly).
• Domestic Flights Only: This allowance applies within South Africa.
• Carrying cannabis on international flights is strictly prohibited.
Maistry’s pronouncement that no cannabis is permitted on international flights is timely. Travelling to or transiting via countries that prohibit cannabis while carrying the drug can be a potential death sentence in some domains.
And there are also grey areas that need shedding some light on. One of these is the smell of cannabis on your items. For example, a reader worried on a social media thread what would happen to him in drugs no-nonsense Singapore and Doha with a passport giving off a strong whiff of weed. His friend had stored his passport in a drawer with cannabis. Could he barred or strip-searched? After all, in some jurisdictions a plain positive test is treated as possession.
Luckily, sympathisers were on hand to give Mr Concerned their two cents’ worth. Fresh Packs advised him to “Just air the thing out”; another recommended a ziplock with charcoal thrown in to absorb the weed smell. Another user, Glittering-Brain, suggested silica gel packets in place of the charcoal. Plenty advice poured in on how to rid his travelling document of the smell, including using dryer sheets.
From seasoned passengers who knew Singapore well came the advice that over there, e-gates ruled and one need not hand over their passport. Unless, of course, you found yourself needing assistance filling out the online arrival card.
But the Middle East portion of answers gave cause for genuine concern. “I would NOT go through immigration with anything that smells like weed in much of the Middle East. Asking for trouble,” stated a longtime resident. He was upvoted by more than a hundred users.
An anecdote by someone put things into perspective. While travelling through Dubai with an ex-wife who had a “good size nug” in her purse years ago, he reminded her of a probable death sentence imposed for even the tiniest amounts. He had caught a strong whiff of her stuff while queuing behind her. Wary, she thought of the powder room. Dubai toilets possibly had drug-detecting toilets.
What to do? They left things to chance.
“In the end, we passed through security with nary a sidelong glance…and actually rather enjoyed the three or four hours we spent in Dubai.”
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