SACC wants ConCourt to reconsider dagga ruling

Originally published in IOL

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) has spoken out weeks after private dagga use was legalised in South Africa in September.

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Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana of SACC, said last week various church federations met to discuss the pastoral implications of the Constitutional Court legalising dagga.

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“This decision is totally unacceptable to the Body of Christ. That being our starting point, we are consulting with lawyers on appropriate ways to bring the matter back to the Court. Even though the ConCourt is the apex court of South Africa, we have reason to believe that the Court should be open to consider some of the contradictions in the brief of the ruling,” Mpumlwana said.

He said it has been argued that there are some medicinal properties of cannabis that are of some value.

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“We are commissioning scientific research in this regard. If that were the case, we believe that there is a possible area of contradiction between the privacy primacy and the considerations of the commercialisation for the medicinal uses of cannabis, which are not reconciled in the ConCourt ruling,” he said.

“We are grieved by the many social ills and pastoral implications of how the legal provision for the “private” cultivation and consumption of dagga will affect life in the families, especially of poor people such as the elderly living with their problematic grandchildren,” he continued.

He said dagga, alongside alcohol and other drugs, remains a major source of the social ills of our society. If it is allowed to go unchallenged, our society will degenerate further into moral decay.

SACC plans on consulting lawyers and gathering scientific research ahead of the next All Church Federations Consultative Meeting set for 10am to 3pm on Thursday November 8 at the Rhema Bible Church.