the whole country is going to pot.

The constitutional court of South Africa on Tuesday past (18 Sept 2018) confirmed the findings of a lower court and agreed that to criminalise the private use of "dagga" was unconstitutional.

I come from the Eastern Cape, a region in South Africa that is "world famous" for the quality of its weed (marijuana). I derived a certain "pride" in my region for the quality of at least one local product.

Many people have used the stuff but it was a criminal act. Quite a few years ago while living in Uitenhage, a friend of mine was telling me of one occasion where he was in court contesting visiting rights of his kids. Sternly he told me that he was "straight with the judge", yes your Honour, I do admit that I have one "ZOL" a day, it is only one, but that has not made me a bad parent. When I shared this story with mutual friend, she laughed and said yes maybe only one ZOL, but it would be definitely bigger than a Cuban cigar!

Another naughty fellow used to make "dagga koekies" and just leave them on a table when he was entertaining friends. He used to be highly amused at the antics of the unsuspecting lady victims who had no idea what they were eating.

Once I went to visit a friend when I was doing my time in the military, he was part of a rock band. They were all very friendly fellows who were only too keen to share all their stuff with me. Would you like some alcohol? No thanks. A Beer? No thanks. Some Brandy? no thanks. Would you like some weed? No thanks. The one fellow there asked me if I was sure as this was from the Transkei and even when he was back in New Zealand they had heard about the famed quality of "our herb". So the air was blue in their dwelling and I was the odd one out not participating in any of their groceries. I admit I would have liked a cooldrink but I thought the risk may have been a bit high. I really enjoyed sitting with my friend and his friends as serious attention was given to various important global events for discussion.

So I have known many guys in the army who used it, lots of black folks too (remember that my childhood was in Apartheid South Africa). I even knew a few fellows who used it while still at high school, although they were frowned upon by the rest of the school kids. Every one knew that smoking cigarettes led to smoking dagga and smoking dagga led to the use of hard drugs.

We accepted the idea that regular dagga users destroyed their brains but dagga users were never violent, it was a "peaceful" drug. We knew that dagga would never be legalized because the despotic government would never be able to fully tax dagga the way cigarettes and alcohol were taxed!

Well here we are in South Africa and there are hundreds, if not thousands of MEME's, videos, songs, comments making fun of this big social change.

It seems as if an immediate impact can be seen in my neighbourhood, can you believe it?