“I will stop smoking dagga the day Zuma stops being corrupt.”
This memorable quote by dagga- loving AbaThembu king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, currently incarcerated for assault on one of his subjects, got me giggling like a school boy high on zol.
With the Concourt ruling on
marijuana this week, I remembered the king and his love for the herb.
He reminds me very much of someone close to me. I have a Dalindyebo of an uncle.
He is always high and tells us - at the slightest provocation - of the health benefits of dagga, yet his life is crumbling around him.
Often, dagga for him comes with alcohol abuse. There's something about cheap alcohol and dagga that turns him into a sorry sight.
I hate to see him like that, but with this ruling, he now has the licence to brag to us. Indeed, if the highest court in the land says dagga is okay for adults, who are we to try to stop him smoking?
I hate smoking and can't stand smokers. The smell is worse when someone has had alcohol, especially a cider or a beer, and they join you in bed at 4am.
It smells like a whole toilet chamber has been brought into your bed.
These are very good grounds for divorce or ending a relationship.
Singafa phela!
I also know someone who reeks of alcohol and dagga every day of his life. If he walks into a meeting at 7am, it smells as if the smoking area of a nightclub has been dragged into the room. That can't be life.
I particularly hate the smell of dagga or marijuana or zol or mbanje or whatever it is called in your language.
I detest it so much that in my younger years in Yeoville, I avoided going to Tandoor, the reggae joint where my good friends Apple Seed and Andy played.
And I'm a big reggae fan.
My personal experience is that smokers are selfish people, and if you don't put your foot down, some will want to smoke in the car or ask that you meet in the smoking area of a restaurant or pub.
I have walked out of such meetings and I refuse to attend parties where I am subjected to passive smoking.
Hell, I have left someone for smoking.
The court ruling, celebrated by many this week, worries me. And so it should those families already battling alcohol and substance abuse in their homes.
Substance abuse is one of the biggest problems this country faces. Alcohol is a particularly big challenge, and has decimated families.
Whether it is the rich and famous splurging thousands on expensive bottles of champagne or whisky at a Sandton nightclub, or one of those recycle guys spending all their hard-earned cash at a dingy bottlestore in downtown Joburg just moments after they get their measly pay, it seems booze is top of mind when we decide to have fun.
Add zol to this cocktail of trouble and we have a big problem on our hands.
The court ruling is like handing a drunkard a loaded gun in the middle of a tense family meeting.
And this long weekend we are going to be at the mercy of weed-smoking uncles drinking themselves to death and celebrating this ruling as if they have won the lottery.
Somebody just shoot me already!