Call to stop arresting cannabis users

141013. Cape Town. Myrtle Clarke and Jules Stobbs, better known as the Dagga Couple, speaking at the World Trafficing conference. The 35th Annual Crime Stoppers conference kicked of today at the CTICC. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

141013. Cape Town. Myrtle Clarke and Jules Stobbs, better known as the Dagga Couple, speaking at the World Trafficing conference. The 35th Annual Crime Stoppers conference kicked of today at the CTICC. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

Published Oct 14, 2014

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Cape Town - “I am a criminal.”

That’s one way to capture the attention of an audience packed with police officers.

The so-called Dagga Couple presented a passionate argument for the legalisation of marijuana during a session on World Trafficking at the Crime Stoppers International conference on Monday.

Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs are the heads of Fields of Green for All, a Joburg-based lobby group supporting legalisation of the cannabis plant.

“I am a criminal right now because for the past 30 years I have used the dagga plant, and the substances within it are in my bloodstream,” Stobbs said.

The pair made a plea to police to stop arresting cannabis users and “ruining their lives” with a criminal record.

“It is our human right to use this plant,” Clarke said. “We’re not harming anyone, and we’re not harming ourselves.”

She said that dedicating police officers and resources towards arresting cannabis users was wasting taxpayers’ money, and that police should instead focus their attentions on stopping rape and murder. “We need to have a good relationship between the people and police, and cannabis prohibition is undermining this.”

The pair’s frustration was evident by question time, when a mother from Mitchells Plain stood up to voice her concern.

“I hate drug dealers with a passion,” said the woman who did not identify herself. “The drug dealers are using dagga as a front for hardcore drugs. Our children start with dagga, then it becomes hardcore drugs. That destroys our children an communities.”

But Stobbs said dagga was not to blame for the rampant substance abuse crisis on the Cape Flats. “That’s because those children have nothing better to do than get warm and fuzzy from a tik lolly. It’s not a drug problem; it’s a social problem.”

The next speaker, Brigadier Ebrahim Kadwa from the Hawks, spoke about how organised crime could wreak havoc in the economy and in the lives of citizens. “It’s about profiting from human misery. It causes devastating harm in our communities.”

Cape Argus

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