Court to decide fate of cannabis ban in July

A constitutional challenge to the legislative prohibition on the possession and use of cannabis in Namibia is set to be decided on 6 July in the High Court.

High Court judge Claudia Claasen’s ruling is expected to conclude a five-year legal battle in which Namibian cannabis activists have sought to legalise the adult use and possession of the plant.

Claasen will decide whether the government’s special plea, arguing that the matter is not ripe for judicial intervention because parliament and the Law Reform and Development Commission have been deliberating on the issue for years, is valid.

Cannabis rights activist Brian Jaftha, president of Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) and the Rastafari United Front, and GUN secretary general Borro Ndungula dragged government to court in 2021 for the state's imprisonment and treatment of adults in possession of cannabis.

“This case is not merely about a plant. It is about the soul of our constitutional democracy and the place of African freedom within it," Kadhila Amoomo argued in court papers.

Amoomo argued that cannabis has been part of African healing and spiritual traditions for countless generations.

He said his clients and other users have, for years, “used cannabis responsibly for spiritual, medicinal, therapeutic, and religious purposes in the privacy of their homes."

But in response, many Namibians, including the activists, have been repeatedly subjected to arrests and forced to endure the indignity of criminal prosecution.

"They now approach this honourable court, not as supplicants begging for mercy, but as citizens asserting their constitutional birthright to dignity, equality, privacy, culture, and religion.”

Free them

At the heart of the case is the 1995 Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Act, and Schedule 8 of the Medicines and Related Substances Act of 1965, from which the applicants want all references criminalising personal adult use and private possession of cannabis declared invalid and unconstitutional.

The lawsuit asks the court to order that, within six months, all prisoners currently behind bars for cannabis-related offences be released.

It further seeks an order that sentences involving cannabis-related charges alongside other offences be reduced by the portion of the prison term linked to the cannabis conviction.

It also wants all previous convictions for cannabis use or possession to be expunged from state and police records within one year, and for the court to order a stay of prosecution in pending matters. The applicants are also seeking costs.

Matter for lawmakers

Acting on behalf of the state, advocate Dennis Khama defended the special plea, arguing that the matter is a policy issue already being addressed by both the legislature and the executive.

Parliament established a task force in 2020 to examine the issue, while in 2019 the justice ministry authorised the Law Reform and Development Commission to review relevant laws. The health ministry is also developing a bill to regulate rehabilitation for cannabis use.

The safety and security ministry is working on a new bill aimed at regulating law enforcement matters relating to cannabis offences, while the University of Namibia is conducting research into the causes of cannabis abuse.

Cannabis offences dominate the Namibian police’s fight against drug abuse, accounting for the arrest of 182 Namibians and one Zambian national in April alone.