The Dagga Couple or DC is a pro-cannabis lobbyist organisation from South Africa founded by Julian Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke after the two were arrested for the possession and dealing in the substance in 2010. Rather than plead guilty, the couple decided instead to sue seven sectors of government that maintained and enforced the policy of cannabis prohibition in the country resulting in what has been described locally as the Trial of the Plant in 2017. Stobbs was fatally shot during an armed robbery at his home in Sunrella, Gauteng on 3 July 2020. Clarke, who was with him at the time of the incident escaped unharmed.
History and arrest
Julian Stobbs, a retired Royal Navyair traffic controller and art director in the television and film industry and Kathleen Clarke, a freelance art director and former school teacher were arrested after police, acting on a tip-off, raided their home in August 2010. Having more than 115 grams of cannabis, they were charged with possession, the intent to sell and faced a lengthy jail time if convicted. They were granted bail and subsequently released. However, according to ENCA, "the two have turned their case on its head, challenging the government to legalise marijuana". They are suing seven government departments on the charges that they are upholding unlawful and unconstitutional laws. Cannabis is considered a Schedule 7 drug in South Africa, along with heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine; The Dagga Couple intend to challenge this and many other legal aspects they consider "unjust and irrational, not supported by any empirical evidence and outdated". In line with changing attitudes worldwide, they also believe cannabis does far less damage than alcohol or tobacco and that it can be used for medicinal purposes.
Origins of the name
The regional term dagga is commonly used for cannabis and is derived from the Khoikhoi word dacha, which was used by the early European colonial settlers in the Western Cape. After their arrest Stobbs and Clarke became known as "The Dagga Couple" in local media.
Dagga in South Africa
Cannabis is illegal for recreational and medical use in South Africa though some advocates have been pressurising the government to modify its laws, which first restricted cannabis in 1922, to allow exemptions for medical use, religious practices, and other purposes. Cannabis is thought to have been introduced to Africa by early Arab or Indian Hindu travelers, which Bantu settlers subsequently introduced to southern Africa when they migrated southward. It was already in popular use in South Africa by the indigenous Khoisan and Bantu peoples prior to European settlement in the Cape in 1652, and was traditionally used by Basotho to ease childbirth. According to author Hazel Crampton, old Afrikaner recipes for teas and foods exist which make use of the plant. Use of the plant was associated with traditional African populations and a lower economic status. Longitudinal research studies by the Medical Research Council report that the number of cannabis users in South Africa was 2.2 million in 2004, and 3.2 million in 2008. In 2003, Interpol rated South Africa as the fourth-largest cannabis producer in the world, and the Institute for Security Studies reported that most cannabis seized in the UK and a third globally had South African origins.
South Africa is known for having one of the most liberal constitutions in the world and includes such clauses as The Right to health and The Right to Self-medicate. The Dagga Couple are challenging these and other legal issues in their case at the country's highest court, The Constitutional Court. This landmark case will also challenge certain racially based laws pertaining to the plant.
Prince/Acton case
On 31 March 2017, in a case against the state brought on by Gareth Prince, Jeremy Acton, and Jonathan Ruben in the Western Cape High Court, presiding Judge Dennis Davis ruled that any law disallowing the use and cultivation of cannabis by an adult in a private dwelling was unconstitutional and therefore invalid, on the grounds that such infringement of the constitutional right to privacy could not be justified. The state subsequently appealed the decision and the case is set to be heard in the constitutional court in November 2017. The Dagga Couple applied in October of the same year to be enlisted as friends of the court to assist Prince and Acton with Clarke stating "The case brought by Prince and Acton was unique in that the matter is one of significant public interest and importance‚ invoking a consideration of a vast number of constitutional rights whilst‚ at the same time‚ all of the protagonists on one side of the argument are not represented by counsel". On 28 October 2017 this application was granted by the constitutional court of South Africa.
Registered in February 2014 and officially launched by the Dagga Couple in December 2014, Fields of Green for All is South Africa's first cannabis-based non-profit organisation aimed at assisting citizens arrested on any cannabis-related offense. By joining, anyone arrested for any cannabis related charge in South Africa will receive all the legal assistance necessary to obtain the stay of prosecution. The idea being that instead of pleading guilty and accepting a criminal record, incarceration or a suspended sentence and a fine, people are taking a stand and declaring themselves not to be criminals.
In April 2019 Fields of Green for ALL launched the Dagga Private Clubs movement, as a local adaptation of Cannabis Social Clubs the non-profit small-scale cannabis dispensation system created in Europe.
