The saga over the legalisation of dagga in SA is set to drag on for a while. The state has appealed the Cape Town High Court ruling that the cultivation and private use of dagga should be legalised. Papers were filed by the National Director of Public Prosecutions and several other government departments this week. The state said it did not want any of the current legislation around the use of dagga to be changed or amended. It also claimed that the court erred in "characterising and formulating the issues before it". "The High Court ignored the case presented by the respondents and concentrated on the right to privacy only‚ despite the right not being pertinently raised by the respondents‚" it said. On March 31 a full bench found that the criminalisation of dagga was unconstitutional. The case was brought to court by Rastafarian activist Gareth Prince, and the Dagga Party. In its judgment the court found that the ban on the personal use of dagga by adults in their homes was an infr...
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