Rastafarian representatives came away empty-handed from the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)-convened Round Table in Boksburg, Gauteng this week, failing in their bid to get police to commit to halting cannabis arrests. Representatives from the police and prosecuting authorities agreed that law enforcement should be more sensitive towards Rastafarian culture but would not back down on their right to search and seizure at any time.

The SAHRC convened the roundtable after calling for a halt to Christmas cannabis arrests, saying the continual complaints they were receiving from Rstafarian communities accross the country appeared to be a systematic violation of their constitutional rights. . In January 2025 an SAHRC report was drawn up identifying the Rastafari community as an Equality Focal Area (EFA) that deserved special treatment from the law.

Police presented with evidence of systematic harrasment of Rastas

At the 'Rasta Round Table' held at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, Gauteng, speaker after speaker from the Rastafari community stood up to recount instances of police overreach and condemned ongoing unlawful arrests, criticising the unjust targeting of their members for cannabis possession. Up to 75% of cannabis-related arrests are not prosecuted, they said, which amounted to police harassing Rastas in order to fulfil arrest quotas.

Brigadier SS Ngele, from SAPS Head Office in Pretoria agreed that the law was opaque and that this raised questions about police discretion in making arrests, but the bottom line was that they had a duty to uphold the law and were bound to act on information where Schedule A offences were involved or there was a perceived danger to life. He conceded that some SAPS members required 'sensitivity training' and that there was a need to deploy SAPS legal representation to the provinces to ensure arrests were lawful.

The National Prosecuting Authority also admitted that few cannabis arrests resulted in prosecutions, as they depended largely on circumstantial evidence in adjudicating cases and proceeded with prosecution only if evidence was compelling.

Prince: Government was 'just window-dressing' at the Round Table

After the meeting, SA Cannabis Development Council chairperson, Gareth Prince said that while he welcomed any engagement with law enforcement, the police's presence at the Round Table was a "window dressing measure designed to justify apparently unlawful conduct against the community."

He questioned why such low-level Government representatives were sent to the meeting and why the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) were absent from the discussions.

"The police were not there with the goal of moving the industry forward" he said.

Prince deplored the use of arrests to regulate cannabis use and the fact that the Rasta community had not been consulted regarding commercialisation. He said the cannabis community intended to empower legacy farmers with a landrace that had grown locally for 500 to 600 years, which if used properly could improve the conditions of ordinary South Africans in a sustainable manner. He said Government did not appear serious about supporting community intiatives such as a proposal to the DTIC to back a bio-fuels project, to which no response had been received.

Cannabis Act 'Out of Touch with Reality'

At the Round Table Prince and Advocate Mandla Mkhwanazi of Mkhwanazi Attorneys traced some of the contentious issues affecting cannabis regulations to the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, 2024, which Prince called out as "out of touch with reality." Mkhwanazi disapproved of the Act for lacking judicial minimalisation.

“When you devise a law, you must ensure it is interdependent, interconnected and interrelated” said Prince pointing out that stakeholders were only invited to comment on the Act and were not consulted in its conceptualisation. In terms of Parliamentary protocol, he said there needed to be four stages: inform, consult, involve and feedback, none of which was done. Prince said Government notification to cannabis stakeholders using English-only, online platforms was limiting and hardly the way to reach rural communities.

However, he said the Rastafarian community would not be taking the Cannabis Act to court as they believed negotiation was the best way forward.

“We will walk and work with government,” he said, adding that legal action should only be last resort.

The Cannabis Act remains in abeyance awaiting regulations from the Justice Department as to details such as homegrow plant limits to the expungement of criminal records.

The SA Human Rights Commission said it believed more could have been achieved at the Roundtable but reserved comments pending the publication of a report following input from stakeholders to the event.

For a summary of the main submissions:

● Unlawful arrest: profiling, house searches and body searches.

● Regulations: the Constitution had to be the guideline in the promulgation of regulations for the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act

● Commercialisation: There needed to be a consideration beyond connotations linked to trade, to look at Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and the ethical commercialisation of cannabis.

● Education: Rastafarian children’s rights had to be respected at schools

● Land: Rastafarians were entitled to land rights, more so as their vegetarian diet made land-owning and cultivation central to their plant-based livelihood