On Tuesday, the country woke up to newspaper headlines about a cabinet minister calling for the legalisation of dagga – a widely grown plant in the country.

That minister is the otherwise reserved Phiwayinkhosi Mabuza, the Mhlambanyatsi Member of Parliament and Minister of Housing and Urban Development.

The minister’s submission before the august House stunned many, mainly because of his restrained manner and mostly because Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini had appeared to indicate that legalising dagga was currently out of the question because the issue still needed to be extensively debated.

Without dismissing the minister, as some prominent individuals have done, it would be prudent to probe if his submission holds any water.

MBABANE – A serious dagga shortage has led to three dagga farmers being killed in cold blood by a South African gang which seeks to satisfy the lucrative South African market.

Swaziland, the main supplier to the market in SA, has been hit by a serious shortage after the Royal Swaziland police (RSP) sprayed and destroyed hectares of the illegal herb, mostly in northern Hhohho.
The attackers are said to pretend to be police officers from the RSP.

National Head of the Anti Drug Unit, Superintendent Ephraem Maphalala has said  to reduce the high rate of drug dealing in the country, the current drug legislation had to be altered.

He said the old Opium Habit Forming Drug Act of 1922, together with the United Nations Convention of 1971 only deal with cases of possession and use and stipulates a custodial sentence of five years.

Maphalala said with the money that dagga dealers would make, they soon find their way back in the business. 

The Pharmacy Act of 1929 was amended in 1983 and it stipulated a 15-year-sentence with the equivalent of E15 000 fine, for those found to be selling drugs illegally. It has been more effective since.

Prosecutor Mncedisi Dlamini said sometimes during trial, families members shift the ownership of the dagga to one of the family members, usually the head of the family.

Police officers usually arrest everyone that they find in that particular homestead or car and charge them with dagga possession. 

 Sometimes family members found in one car would claim that they got a lift. He said it was not easy to prove that they all owned the dagga as they were all aware of the consequences of its cultivation, hence they would be released. 

Usually, the released members would go and pay the fine for the incarcerated member.

By Rebecca Harrison

After hours of scrambling over rugged mountain terrain, Swaziland's drug squad finally find what they're looking for: a secret field packed with some of the world's strongest dagga.

Prized for its potency across the world, "Swazi Gold" is grown in the remote northern mountains of this tiny African kingdom, then smuggled into neighbouring South Africa and on to Europe and North America.

Police in impoverished Swaziland say that despite dousing acres of towering plants with deadly insecticide, they are losing the war on dagga to dirt-poor peasants bent on protecting their most lucrative crop.

"We can't win this war," says inspector Ngwane Dlamini, head of criminal investigation in the northern region of Hhohho.