Dagga party springs to defence of EC man jailed for posession of weed

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

By John Harvey

Former Port Elizabethan and president of the Dagga Party Jeremy Acton has rallied to the defence of a man sent to prison this week for the possession of dagga in the Coffee Bay area, saying it is the transgression of his cultural rights as a Rastafarian.

Gustav Nowers, 28, who only recently arrived from Cape Town with his partner to teach on the Wild Coast, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for possession of 0.68 grams of dagga in the Kwaaiman Magistrates Court in Mqanduli on Tuesday. He was convicted of the same offence seven years ago in Cape Town.

The Dagga Party is aiming to contest next year's general election.

Acton, a former Western High pupil and University of Port Elizabeth (NMMU) alumnus who now lives in Cape Town, has written to the sentencing magistrate Kaolosani Mkango to overturn his decision.

He said the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Language and Religious Rights recently recommend that Rastafarians should have a right to posses 100 grams of the drug and that in two cases the state had been summoned to justify the law and and defend the constitutionality of the prohibition of dagga.

In July 2011 and May this year, parties in Gauteng and Cape Town were granted applications to stay their prosecutions for the possession of dagga, and the right to present motivations in the High Court for a hearing in the Constitutional Court regarding the constitutionality and justification of the prohibition of the drug.

"I am told that Mr Nowers was refused legal aid or any form of legal representation in the court, and that this jail sentence was immediately handed down without allowing a postponement to enable the accused to prepare any defence in the case" Acton said.

He labelled the sentence "malicious" and said he would be filing an appeal on Nowers's behalf. He would also make an application to the Eastern Cape High Court for an urgent review of the magistrate's decision.

He asked that Mkango reconsider and recall his decision and postpone the case so that Nowers could get proper legal representation.

Nowers's partner Odette Oberholzer, 22, said the couple had left Cape Town three weeks ago to teach at Icebo Pre-school at Mngcibe, a village about three hours from Coffee Bay.

"We were staying over at a friend's rondavel last weekend when they police burst in at about 2am on Sunday. We are Rastafarians and Gustav only had 0.68g on him," she said. "We came to the [former] Transkei to help, and this is how we are treated. I was even called mlungu [white person] which I find to be derogatory, by the police and magistrate. This sentence is ridiculous. "The magistrate didn't even consider that I am now staying alone in an isolated village."

Acton's appeal comes as Washington this week became the second state in the United States to adopt rules for the recreational sale of dagga. Washington and last year Colorado legalised the possession of up to a 28.35g of the drug by adults over the age of 21, with voters deciding to set up systems of state-licensed growers, processors and sellers.