Legal Clarity disappeared somewhere in the Haze
The Haze Club judgment of. was meant to clarify the constitutional legality of the private club model. Instead, the out-of-court settlement with Haze Club owner Neil Liddel was kept secret. In terms of the confidentiality agreement Liddel avoided prosecution, but the long-awaited clarity on the legality of private cannabis clubs remained buried.
The Department of Justice doesn’t want private cannabis clubs legalized.
Spokesman Makubela Mokulubete said expressly that the private club model was debated extensively during the creation of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act and that a clear decision was made that because the Constitutional Court had not made a specific ruling on private clubs, the Department did not consider it part of its mandate. In the Department’s eyes, private cannabis clubs in principle remain illegal and there is no intention to change this.
“So clubs are not permitted in terms of the Cannabis Act so it is in contravention of the law if those private cannabis clubs continue to operate” he told Parliament on 6 March 2026.
Justice Dept making really difficult, but does it even know what it’s talking about?
Unfortunately, Mokulubete avoided telling MP’s how the Department would deal with the core contradiction it had introduced with the Act: it recognizes the constitutional right of South Africans to personally possess and consume cannabis in private – with fellow consenting adults – but criminalizes all access to that constitutional right.
The Justice Department’s position has stymied the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), tasked with implementing a cannabis commercialization policy, from making any legislative headway this year.
But, what’s worse is that the Department may not be right in saying private clubs are illegal. CDH’s Brenda Scriba and Claudia Grobler have challenged the Department’s interpretation of its own law, and said that on constitutional grounds, the Act does allow for a private club model to operate within existing regulatory guidelines.
They argue that clubs are member-based associations, collectively cultivating and sharing cannabis for personal use and that the structure around these clubs is designed to fall within the permits of the Cannabis Act.
They wrote on 3 June 2026 that “Section 2(1)(b) of the Cannabis Act provides that an adult person may, without the exchange of consideration per occasion, provide to or obtain cannabis from another adult person in a private place for a private purpose. The Cannabis Act defines “consideration” broadly as meaning “any form of compensation, gift, reward, favour or benefit.
The implication is that if membership “benefits” are structured properly, private clubs are not in direct contravention of the Cannabis Act .
The Cannabis Act nowhere near becoming law for a long time to come
Right now this argument is academic and will remain so for the next 18 months at least. The reality is that South Africa has no legislation governing cannabis, eight years after Parliament was instructed by the Constitutional Court to make this happen.
The Cannabis Act has not been operationalized since it was passed into law by President Ramaphosa in May 2023, the final regulations remain unpublished and its chances of seeing the light of day are becoming more remote because of the new Prince legal challenge
Legal activist Gareth Prince is among the applicants seeking an immediate halt to cannabis arrests and challenging the fundamental precepts of the Cannabis Act.
The matter is due to surface again in the Western Cape High Court on 31 July 2026, but is unlikely to reach any finalization this year. This means the Cannabis Act will remain on hold – and with it the removal of cannabis from the Drugs Act, which is key to the DTIC driving the National Cannabis Master Plan forward.
The DTIC was also hoping to introduce an interim form of regulating the Grey Zone by including cannabis in the new Business Act, aimed at ‘formalizing’ the informal sector, but there are complications.
Although the Department of Small Business, which is drawing up the Act, is ‘cannabis-friendly’, there are too many public health and safety issues for an interim licensing system for cannabis retail to be introduced without input from the Department of Health.
Meanwhile, the Grey Zone is expanding rapidly without regulation
With Parliament having missed all its own deadlines to introduce an overarching cannabis commercialization bill to come into law next year, the odds are that the unregulated cannabis retail ‘Grey Zone’ will continue its relentless march throughout the country.
In the interregnum, the private club movement has taken the law into its own hands, so to speak, and within the ‘Grey Zone’ explosion there has been a significant rise in the number of of constitutionally-sound cannabis associations trying to be compliant that have sprung up around the country. The South African Cannabis Club Alliance is the most active organization trying to build a compliance model that can be easily translated into future legislation.
Spokesperson Bertie van Jaarsveldt says “By putting the compliance framework in place first, we’re creating a foundation that government can work with — whether that’s formal regulation, a national register, or future licensing structures. Instead of theory, we’re presenting a working model that reflects how the sector actually operates.”
In the meantime, in the absence of clear legal guidelines, law enforcement has crumbled in the face of the sheer scale of what the cannabis retail market has become in just three years. The lack of regulations has opened the door to widespread corruption and bribery within SAPS, which has come under repeated fire for targeting marginalized cannabis communities such as Rastafarians and legacy growers, while allowing largely white-owned businesses to flourish illegally in the metros. There is also repeated evidence of certain elements within SAPS of being players in the illegal cannabis market themselves.
Although there are no sound statistics on how many private cannabis clubs there are in South Africa, there are an estimated 12 000 cannabis outlets across the country. Those taking compliance seriously have created closed-loop models allowing grower members and consumer members to ‘exchange value’ and adopted responsible practices. They are outnumbered by the cowboy operators who have taken advantage of the regulatory vacuum to grab market share ahead of any new licensing regime.
In the frenzy, remember the fundamentals
“This is where good intentions most often meet legal trouble” says Zurayda Mayet of Mayet and Associares, who points out that the courts have not accepted the validity of the private club model.
She writes: ”In The Haze Club (Pty) Ltd v Minister of Police the Western Cape High Court declined to declare that grow and social clubs are lawful. The matter was taken on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, but the appeal was withdrawn before judgment, leaving the High Court’s position as the leading authority.
“The practical effect: while the refusal does not automatically make every club illegal, the legal risk for operators and investors is real and should not be underestimated.”
She said that it’s not just operators facing the risk: “Banks have also grown wary, with some closing accounts linked to cannabis activity outside the medicinal framework.”
Her advice?
“Treat grow clubs with caution. Before launching or investing in a club model, obtain a clear legal opinion on your specific structure in light of the Haze Club judgment.
Plan for banking and tax friction. Build account, payment and record-keeping arrangements that can withstand financial-institution scrutiny.”
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