The South African police will not arrest you for growing weed in your house (or your car).

South African police have confirmed they will no longer bother arresting anyone for home cultivation or possession of cannabis.

“In short, the possession, use and cultivation of cannabis by an adult for personal and private use is permitted. In contrast, the trade in cannabis is not allowed, therefore the commercialization of cannabis is still not legal in South Africa,” Brigadier Athlende Mathe told IOL on Wednesday (a brigadier is a British Army officer above colonel and below major general).

According to the IOL report, cannabis has been decriminalized in South Africa for several years, but a new SAPS police policy has cleared up the confusion that began in 2018 when the South African Constitutional Court declared a law banning cannabis use in private settings unconstitutional.

“I am of the view that the prohibition on the exercise by an adult of any activity related to the private cultivation of cannabis for his personal private consumption is contrary to the right to privacy enshrined in the Constitution and is constitutionally invalid,” said Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo in its 2018 ruling.

This ruling essentially legalized private use of cannabis in the country, but police still technically had the power to arrest people for it, as the regulations did not provide enough detail about what specifically constituted legal and illegal activity.

The new police policy would allow South African cannabis users to grow and consume their own cannabis, provided they do so in a private space. As with all laws, what constitutes a private space depends to some extent on interpretation.

“No arrests should be made for the personal and private cultivation and/or possession of cannabis as these activities are not criminal,” said Brigadier Mathe. “Furthermore, no arrests should be made of suspected cannabis offenders solely for the purpose of previously “To achieve set objectives, and without the certainty that there is actually a crime that will be registered and prosecuted by the national law enforcement agency,” said Mathe, referring to the maintenance of police quotas. Officers make a certain number of arrests every month for certain types of crimes.

According to the IOL report, a private space basically just means four walls and a roof or anything that prevents others from accessing it. This can be a house, a shed, a car or a 4×4 Vivosun grow tent randomly placed outside with the roof cut off. It’s a bit arbitrary and the cultivator doesn’t technically have to have the space to cultivate there. As long as you don’t sell the cannabis yourself to anyone, the SAPS says you won’t be arrested.

These changes are due to updates to Section 1 of the Drugs and Trafficking Act, No. 140 of 1992, which expanded the definition of “deal-in” to include a more stringent definition, which IOL stated as follows:

“Under the newly defined law, the expression “act” includes any act related to the transshipment, importation or cultivation, except the cultivation of cannabis by an adult in a private place for personal consumption in private collection, manufacture, delivery , prescribing, administering, selling, distributing or exporting the drug.”

As many Americans living in legal states can attest, South African cannabis users still have a long, confusing road ahead before they can truly breathe a sigh of relief, but this still represents significant progress for cannabis legalization. South Africa is one of only six countries on the African continent where cannabis is not completely illegal. They are also the only African country to have decriminalized cannabis for recreational use. According to the IOL report, cannabis distributed in small quantities by religions, traditions or cultural healers will also be considered private and personal, capping a long list of gaping legal loopholes that will make for a very interesting few years in South Africa.

Maybe one day I’ll take a trip if I see someone in a minivan somewhere getting seriously hot, but my buddy once told me that there are lions there just casually walking around, so maybe not.