Cape Town - Thousands of marchers gathered in Cape Town at the weekend to call on the government to legalise cannabis.
Dagga Party leader, Jeremy Acton, supported by the Dagga Couple (Myrtle Clarke and Jules Stobbs), with the crew from Bongalong and i420 Cape Town led the march.
Acton said: “The recent dagga judgment granted at the high court does not make dagga legal yet. The battle has only just begun claim your rights everywhere you are to the extent that you can.”
Acton added that he smokes about six to eight joints a day: “No one has ever died of an overdose of cannabis, and you do not need a prescription because it is practically self-medication.”
Bongalong chief executive, Johannes Berkhout, said: “We are marching for the legalisation of cannabis, not just for medicinal and industrial purposes, but recreational as well. We want to see them [the laws] go from incarceration to education.”
Berkhout said, should the constitution legalise cannabis, it would add to the economy of South Africa. “It will create jobs in the agriculture, bio fuel, textile, building and medical industries,” he added. The Dagga Couple, known for taking on the constitution after they were raided in their home by police, were also at the march.
During the raid on their home, they said police “only found an old couple in pyjamas rolling joints”.
They said that the laws prohibiting the use of dagga in South Africa were “based on propaganda, based on protecting the industries that benefit from its prohibition, and are a violation of citizens’ human rights.
“Cape Town males aged 18-28 are the most prolific signatories for the legalisation of cannabis in South Africa.
During August we will be in the Pretoria High Court. We are going to be talking about the plant, showing the evidence of how this plant does not harm us. We want to smoke this plant where we want to smoke the plant,” said the couple.