It’s no secret that in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape people grow quite a bit of dagga – just spend a few days at a backpackers in Port St Johns and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.

Now marijuana advocates are up in arms after it was announced that police would once again spray glyphosate on plantations ‘in the remote “hills and valleys” near Port St. Johns” using helicopters.

The problem here is that glyphosate has been banned in many parts of the world and declared a grade 2 carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation, and local communities are up in arms about the damage the spraying causes. Below from TGT:

…the Transkei Animal Welfare Initiative (TAWI), the Amapondo Children’s Project (ACP) and Fields of Green for All (FGFA) claimed using glyphosate violated constitutional human rights.

They said since government started spraying over 20 years ago, extensive research had been done on the negative health and environmental impacts that had even recently resulted in the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring glyphosate a grade two carcinogenic that “probably causes cancer”. They also question the environmental impact in a sensitive biodiversity hotspot.

FGFA activist Jules Stobbs yesterday said police had replied to the letter and “told us all to f**k off, basically”.

It has been claimed by certain newspapers that police have sprayed areas whilst people have stood in them trying to protect their livestock. This video below provides a good outline of the problem:

So in the war against the evils of dagga police are destroying the only source of income many of these residents have? That doesn’t seem very prudent to me, perhaps a little overhaul in terms of the way we legislate marijuana might be in order me thinks.

[sourc:tgt]