The State of Cannabis in South Africa

Privacy is the hinge on which the entire approach turns. Personal use of cannabis is lawful only in private, and the concept of “private” is broader than a bedroom or back garden. Privacy is any space that is not open to public view and not a public place as commonly understood. That could include a private dwelling, a private club accessible only to members, a securely fenced yard hidden from the street, or a guest room behind a locked door. It is the opposite of public exposure, and the law marries that spatial privacy to a social one: consent. Even in a private place, if non-consenting adults are present, using cannabis violates the statutory boundary. Consent matters because the regime balances one adult’s right to use with another adult’s right not to be involuntarily subjected to smoke, vapour, or the presence of intoxication in a setting they cannot easily avoid.

Children are positioned at the centre of protective prohibitions. Using cannabis in the presence of a child, even in a private place, is not permitted. Nor may adults store cannabis in a way that allows children to access it; the law explicitly requires secure storage and imposes penalties when this is neglected. That duty extends beyond the obvious—such as keeping edibles out of reach—to the broader obligation to separate a child’s environment from the risks associated with adult consumption and cultivation. The private-use model is not a licence to normalise cannabis around minors; it is a shield for adult privacy that carries reciprocal responsibilities towards those without legal capacity to consent.

Cultivation follows the same private-use logic. Adults may grow cannabis plants in private for their own consumption, provided they adhere to quantity limits and reasonable safeguards to prevent children’s access. The law’s spirit is home gardening for personal use, not hobby agriculture for profit. The precise caps on plants and dried cannabis are designed to draw a practical line between personal cultivation and conduct suggestive of dealing. Personal cultivation also implies an expectation of discretion: plants should not be on public display, nor should the activity produce public nuisance through odour or other impacts on neighbours. In practice, this means treating cannabis like any private garden crop that is invisible to passersby, secured from minors, and proportionate to personal needs.

Possession limits are likewise calibrated to personal use. Adults may hold cannabis in private, within prescribed quantities, in a manner consistent with the law’s protective aims. The legal framework contemplates specific thresholds to guide enforcement and provide clear limits to citizens. Commonly cited figures include private possession allowances measured in hundreds of grams for an individual adult and higher household totals for homes with multiple adults. Such thresholds operate as a practical tool for policing and prosecution decisions, differentiating personal-use scenarios from those where quantities, packaging, and circumstantial evidence indicate illegal distribution. If you live alone, your lawful ceiling is lower; if you share a household with other adults, the permissible amount stored collectively in private is correspondingly higher. The point is not to encourage stockpiling but to enable reasonable personal possession without criminal exposure.

The law’s treatment of sharing underscores the non-commercial nature of private cannabis. Adults may transfer cannabis to one another in private without any exchange of consideration, meaning genuine gifting is contemplated but transactionality is not. You can pass a small quantity to a friend at a private gathering; you cannot sell, barter, or cloak a sale by calling it a gift. The ban on commercialisation is categorical for recreational cannabis: no retail, no distribution, no paid consumption lounges, no invoiced “membership” schemes that mask sales. This bright-line rule prevents the emergence of a recreational market until Parliament chooses to legislate one. Entrepreneurs keen on cannabis must look instead to hemp, pharmaceutical-grade production under medical rules, or ancillary services that do not involve handling cannabis for sale.

Public use is expressly out of bounds. Smoking or otherwise consuming cannabis in a park, on a pavement, at a concert, or any other public setting is prohibited. The same prohibition applies to vehicles on public roads: a car is not a loophole. If the space is a public place or involves public roads, cannabis use remains unlawful regardless of whether the doors are locked and windows rolled up. Public spaces are regulated partly to protect non-consenting adults and children and partly to keep intoxication out of shared environments where the state has a legitimate interest in safety and order. The boundary is bright and intuitive: if members of the public can see or smell your consumption—or have a right to access the space—do not use there.

Driving under the influence remains illegal. The private-use reforms do not alter road safety laws, nor do they excuse any form of intoxicated operation of a vehicle. While the statutory regime around permissible possession and private use offers clarity to adults at home, the roads are governed by a different logic: risk mitigation. If cannabis impairs your ability to drive, you commit an offence by taking the wheel, and officers may rely on behavioural cues, collisions, or testing protocols to establish impairment. The legal reforms were never intended to create a privileged intoxicant; the alignment with alcohol policy—enjoy in private, never drive impaired—reflects the same public-safety principles.

Air travel within South Africa has become a practical frontier for these rules. Domestic passengers may, under certain conditions, carry small amounts of cannabis plainly intended for personal consumption. The cannabis must be appropriately stored, out of public view, and in quantities consistent with personal-use allowances. Nothing in this space legitimises public consumption at airports or on planes, and nothing abridges airline or airport security policies that might be stricter in their own right. The guiding principle for travel is the same as at home: private possession is protected, public use is not, and any hint of commercial activity breaches the law.

The line between possession for personal use and possession for dealing has long bedevilled drug enforcement. South Africa’s current posture avoids setting a single magic number that conclusively proves dealing. Instead, the law and enforcement guidance recognise that dealing is shown by a combination of factors: quantities that exceed reasonable personal thresholds, evidence of packaging for resale, scales, customer lists, communications indicating transactions, or cash consistent with distribution. In other words, police and prosecutors are tasked with looking at the whole picture rather than treating a gram count as destiny. This approach is both fairer to private users and more effective against actual trafficking, because it targets conduct and context rather than only weight.

Hemp sits apart from psychoactive cannabis as an agricultural commodity. South African policy treats hemp as a crop, with production authorised under permits and guided by agronomic regulations. Growers must comply with licensing schemes, cultivar standards, and THC thresholds appropriate to industrial hemp, and they fall under the broader umbrella of agricultural quality and seed laws. The aim is to foster a viable hemp industry that supplies fibre, grain, and other non-intoxicating derivatives for textiles, construction materials, nutrition, and industrial inputs. Because hemp is not grown for recreational consumption, its regulation is grounded in agricultural law—particularly the Plant Improvement Act—rather than the private-use model. For farmers, that means a familiar world of permits, inspections, and compliance documentation rather than a green light to plant at will.

Medicinal cannabis belongs to yet another distinct corridor, governed by pharmaceutical law and overseen by the national regulator responsible for medicines and medical devices. Cultivation for medical purposes, manufacturing, clinical research, and the supply of medical-grade cannabis products are regulated activities that require specific licences, quality systems, and compliance with good practice standards. Some cannabinoids remain scheduled substances except under defined conditions, and medical products must meet evidence and safety thresholds before they can be prescribed or sold lawfully. Patients who obtain cannabis for medical reasons must do so through channels recognised by the medicines regulator, not through recreational suppliers, and companies wishing to participate must meet stringent controls that are more akin to pharmaceutical manufacturing than horticulture.

The Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act still matters in this ecosystem, even as parts of it have been curtailed by privacy-based reforms. Offences related to dealing, trafficking, and certain forms of possession remain intact, and the state retains robust powers to investigate and prosecute commercial drug activity. When conduct crosses from private, non-commercial use into the realm of distribution or sale, the older architecture of drug control reasserts itself. This duality—privacy-protected personal use on one side and vigorous enforcement against dealing on the other—is the hallmark of South Africa’s compromise. It is not a free-for-all and not a punitive prohibition either; it is a calibrated split that asks adults to take responsibility for how and where they engage with cannabis.

Because privacy is the organising principle, property rights and social arrangements can intersect with cannabis in complex ways. A landlord might contractually prohibit smoking in a building due to insurance or nuisance concerns, and those private agreements can coexist with statutory rights. A body corporate may set rules about smoke drift into common areas, odour complaints, or the cultivation of plants on balconies visible from the street. Employment policies may also govern intoxication in the workplace, especially in safety-sensitive roles, and employers often have separate grounds—unrelated to criminal law—to insist on fitness for duty. The private-use law does not override civil contracts or workplace policies; rather, it cohabits with them, protecting the adult’s right to use in private while allowing private actors to set reasonable conditions in their own domains.

Edibles and vaping differ in method, not in legal status, when it comes to the private–public divide. Whether you smoke a joint, vape a concentrate, or eat a cannabis-infused brownie, consumption in public remains prohibited, and exposure of non-consenting adults or children is equally barred. Edibles have their own safety considerations because they are easy for a child to mistake for ordinary treats, making secure storage critical. Vapour devices can reduce odour but do not change the prohibition on public use or on exposure to non-consenting adults. Whatever the form, the legal litmus test is where and with whom, not the delivery mechanism.

The new framework also contemplates a measure of social repair for past cannabis convictions that would now fall within lawful private use. Mechanisms for expunging minor possession records are a logical extension of the policy shift, preventing a lingering criminal record from shadowing individuals for conduct that is no longer a crime under the private-use paradigm. While expungement does not apply to all offences and does not whitewash dealing convictions, it recognises that equity requires looking backward as well as forward when the law changes. Proper procedures, eligibility criteria, and documentary steps are part of this process, reflecting the system’s cautious but meaningful attempt to align criminal records with current values.

Penalties under the new Act are proportionate and pointed at the law’s protective priorities. Fines for failing to secure cannabis from children, sanctions for using in prohibited settings, and offences involving minors are crafted to reinforce the idea that private use is a privilege with conditions. None of these penalties are designed to ensnare adults acting responsibly behind closed doors; they are there to deter negligence that externalises risk onto those who have not consented or cannot consent. Where conduct suggests commercial intent, penalties scale significantly because the law draws a hard line at recreational trade.