Former president of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, Johan Kruger has weighed in on Tuesday’s judgment on the usage of dagga or cannabis.
The Constitutional Court has decriminalised dagga for private use but says police officers may conduct arrests if they suspect that people are in possession of cannabis for dealing purposes.
Opinions on the judgment are deeply divided.
Kruger says the medical profession hopes that people will use cannabis responsibly. He says the decrimalisation will afford people to use it in the correct manner. He noticed that there is a negative side to the ruling. “The is the percentage of people that will unknowingly walk into a trap where they will be using dagga and then use that as an entry drug into whatever might follow. Statistics prove that 20% – 30% of people that have been exposed to dagga will eventually end up being abusers of dagga. That is apart from the fact that there is also medical evidence that proves that dagga users have a 50 times bigger chance of getting lung cancer than cigarette smokers.”
