In the Caribbean, members of the touring South African cricket team are fined R10 000 each for smoking dagga. In the ensuing controversy at home some feel they should be hung, drawn and quartered while others say it was just a harmless party activity performed in private and really not an important issue.
In the United States the Supreme Court rules 8-0 against allowing the medicinal use of dagga, prompting decriminalisation groups to say they will appeal on constitutional grounds for the decision to be overturned.
In France the health ministry announces that it will carry out studies to assess any therapeutic benefits to be had from smoking dagga.
Back in South Africa Rastafarian lawyer Gareth Prince goes to the Constitutional Court to argue for exemption, on religious grounds, from the laws governing the use of dagga.
News over the past week, both local and international, has certainly pushed the long-simmering debate on the legalisation/ decriminalisation of dagga off the backburner and into the forefront of public consciousness.
In the light of the snowballing international campaign for the decriminalisation of the plant, the shrill attacks on Herschelle Gibbs and other members of the South African cricket team in the West Indies for smoking dagga are cause for concern.
They suggest that an intolerant, puritanical element among us is badly in need of a sense of humour and a balanced, mature perspective. Dare we suggest that a couple of grams of prime Transkei produce may be exactly what is required?
We desperately need to be distracted from too small-minded a focus on controlling everything, even the party activities of our young sportsmen travelling abroad. Such obsessions, with the ridiculously drastic punishments recommended in various quarters, betray a tendency towards heavy-handed action against people who push even slightly at the constraints of our societal mores.
There appears to be a vocal element in South African society which tends, through sheer volume, to usurp newspaper letters pages and the talk shows when it takes on the task of defending our outdated social taboos.
The smoking of dagga is rooted in an African subculture that this hysterical lobby in our society would prefer not to acknowledge.
Because many South Africans often prefer not to challenge the weight of social conditioning and remain silent, the puritans and zealots are encouraged to continue bullying their point of view into acceptance.
It is surely now time to seriously consider at least the decriminalisation of dagga. It is absurd that a largely harmless activity widely enjoyed by many South Africans, including leaders in business, government, the media, the judiciary and, it appears, in the batting order, should be denied by a law which makes so many people potential criminals.
It is a fact that a preponderance of dagga cases contributes to clogging up our overtaxed court processing system. The policing resources employed to combat dagga use and distribution can surely be utilised for more serious purposes.
Another fact, as pointed out by veteran politician Helen Suzman, is that dagga is not nearly as harmful as alcohol, although it causes short-term memory loss. Suzman further notes that dagga has excellent medicinal and therapeutic uses and that, indeed, there is a growing international movement to decriminalise dagga.
The multiple uses of dagga and hemp as a crop are documented well enough to be used in a convincing argument for decriminalisation.
Dagga, as a high-value cash crop, also plays an important role in the economies of many rural communities.
While dagga use peaked with the drug experiences and experiments of the counter-culture of the Sixties and Seventies, it has long since ceased to be an act of social or political revolution. For many people it is just a normal part of life, an old habit and an adventure in consciousness.
Few responsible users of dagga would advocate legalising its use for all without stringent controls.
Dagga has made millions of people throughout the world more aware of themselves and others, more receptive and more open to sharing other people’s perspectives.
As a liberator of feelings and ideas, dagga has through the ages been, and continues to be, a great force in our cultures and civilisations, each of which has named it uniquely bhang and ganja in India, kabak in Turkey, takrouri in Tunisia, kif in Algeria and Morocco, maconha in Brazil and, of course, marijuana in Mexico and the United States.
The West, with singular exceptions, appears to take its lead on dagga policy from the United States, which blames all of its myriad social ills on “drugs” and includes the dagga plant under this heading. There is surely scope for a policy which takes into account the African experience of dagga.
The most compelling argument for decriminalisation, however, is that, with evidence available on the largely benign effects of dagga, responsible adults should be left alone to make such decisions for themselves.
The most important aspect of the debate, however, is the … the … uhm … err, what were we talking about?