High Times reporter John Veit traces South Africa’s turbulent cannabis landscape with activists Myrtle Clarke and Trenton Birch, highlighting the human cost of contradictory laws, police chaos, and an export-first legalization model that sidelines legacy growers. Blending personal tragedy with policy analysis, it shows how private clubs, medicalization, and ingenuity persist in a legal gray zone as the country struggles to reconcile human rights, economic opportunity, and effective reform.
From the Jazz Farm in Johannesburg and Cheeba Africa Cannabis and Hemp Academy in Cape Town, South African cannabis activists Myrtle Clarke and Trenton Birch express tragic optimism about the future of cannabis in South Africa.
I first met Myrtle Clarke, one-half of South Africa’s infamous Dagga Couple, in 2018 at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. She and her husband, Julian Stobbs, were a welcome break from the generally stodgy, bureaucratic vibe. Their sharp, often hilarious, perspective emphasized cannabis policy designed to benefit society’s most vulnerable members—children, women, the elderly, and indigenous legacy farmers.
Later that year, I spoke about gray-market medical marijuana in New York City and Los Angeles at Cannatech, a global gathering of cannabis industry leaders held in Cape Town, and again at Cannabis Expo in Johannesburg. At both events, the Dagga Couple stole the show with polished, insightful presentations to hundreds of cannabis insiders from around the globe.
Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs Address Cannatech in Cape Town, November 2019. Photo by John Veit
After the conferences, I visited the Dagga Couple at the Jazz Farm on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Their garden is a living library of the globe’s best cannabis strains and entheogenic cacti. For a few days, I observed how their non-profit, Fields of Green for All (FGA), navigates the chaotic thrall of cannabis politics in …
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Author: John Veit / High Times
