The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 2024 was passed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2024. It allows cannabis to be grown and consumed by individuals in a private place in what is essentially a legislative response to the historic 2018 Concourt ruling.

The Act however, is not yet effective. Like a shiny new car it remains on the showroom floor, just there for the admiration of window-shoppers. The delay in enacting the law means that cannabis remains a narcotic in terms of the Drugs Act and transgressors are theoretically open to prosecution.

There’s no clarity on when the Act will actually come into law. Section 8 of the Act states that it only “comes into operation on a date fixed by the President by proclamation in the Gazette”. It also states that the Act may be phased in: “different dates may be proclaimed in respect of different provisions of the Act and the different items of the Schedule to the Act.”

The Cannabis Act does not specify how many plants an individual may grow privately. Nor does it clarify how criminal records for “dagga” possession are to be expunged. Lawmakers left these and other thorny issues for the Minister of Justice to decide by proclamation by crowding them into Section 6 of the New Act

Section 6 reads:

(1) The Minister must make regulations to prescribe—

(a) the maximum amounts contemplated in section 4(4), (5) and (8)(a);

(b) the conditions, restrictions, prohibitions, obligations, requirements or standards regarding the transportation of cannabis, by the person transporting cannabis as well as in respect of the passenger in such transport, as contemplated in section 4(7)(a) and (d);

(c) the form on which a person’s written application for the expungement of a criminal record must be made, as provided for in section 5(1)(b) and (2)(a);

(d) the certificate of expungement to be issued by the Director-General as provided for in section 5(1)(c) and (2)(b); and

(e) the manner in which the Director-General must submit certificates of expungement that have been issued, to the head of the Criminal Record Centre of the South African Police Service, as provided for in section 5(1)(d) and (2)(c).

(2) (a) The Minister may make regulations to prescribe any matter which is necessary or expedient to achieve the objects of this Act.

(b) Any regulation made in terms of paragraph (a) and subsection (1)(a) or any amendment thereto must, before publication in the Gazette, be approved by Parliament.

The new cannabis law could be enacted tomorrow as it does not require the Section 6 regulations to be finalized first. 

The delay is frustrating many lawyers representing those accused of transgressing the Drugs Act, as cannabis will be dropped from the Act at the stroke of a pen.

However, Cannabiz Africa understands that government would like to issue the regulations first as that would clarify enforcement, particularly on any plant limits that home growers will have to abide by.

One lawyer, when asked what the delay was in enacting the CfPPA, shrugged and responded: “government”.