The Orange River Colony bans giving and receiving dagga

The Orange River Colony made giving and receiving cannabis offences in 1903, including sales, gifts and exchanges.^[1] Known locally as dagga, cannabis came under civilian restrictions after Africans had been prosecuted and fined under a military proclamation left over from the South African War.^[1]

Wartime controls entered civilian law

Britain’s victory in the war left officials governing the former Boer republics and deciding how older controls would operate in peacetime.^[1] Historian Thembisa Waetjen traces the Orange River measure to confusion over a military proclamation still being used against African people holding dagga.^[1]

The colony adopted those provisions in its Dagga Prohibition Ordinance.^[1] Its wording covered both sides of a transfer: supplying cannabis and obtaining it from somebody else.^[1]

For users who acquired cannabis through gifts, barter or purchase, those ordinary transactions now fell within the prohibition.^[1] A payment was not needed for the supply restriction to apply.^[1]

Neighbouring officials wanted controls too

In the Transvaal, officials also argued for restrictions, attributing intoxication, lost usefulness and violence to African dagga smokers.^[1] But their proposals encountered another part of colonial administration concerned with keeping the gold mines supplied with labour.^[1]

A 1908 labour-bureau survey asked mine inspectors and other officers what they had actually observed.^[1] Many respondents described moderate use and saw little reason for prohibition, while some feared new restrictions would discourage men from coming to work.^[1]

The neighbouring territories therefore produced different responses to the same plant.^[1]

Colonial rules followed different interests

The Cape Colony’s 1905 policy took another route by placing cannabis on a poison list and reserving sales to chemists.^[1] Growers opposed the commercial power that gave those buyers, while medical campaigners continued to seek stronger controls.^[1]

Waetjen places these disputes within a divided political landscape before the colonies joined the Union of South Africa in 1910.^[1] Cannabis policy involved labour recruitment, professional authority and racial government as well as claims about intoxication.^[1]

A national ban came later

The national prohibition of 1922 eventually brought cannabis within a Union-wide drug-control system.^[1] Officials still argued about enforcement, leading to a compromise in remote African areas.^[1]

The Orange River ordinance was one step in South Africa’s history: an early restriction whose neighbours’ disagreements showed that a uniform national policy had yet to be made.^[1]