BrownSense Magazine

ON THE PROHIBITION AND LEGALISATION OF CANNABIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

For hundreds of years, colonists and settlers tried to prohibit and regulate the use and trade of cannabis. In respect of alcohol and tobacco the ‘political economies of addiction’ illustrated that intoxicants made good business sense. Using modern agricultural techniques and wily laws, they were easily able to monopolise the latter two. Attempts to monopolise cannabis, however, were less successful.