As our Police Reform project gains momentum, we held a successful workshop yesterday to discuss and strategise the community guidelines that form the foundation of our approach to law enforcement.

Despite power and connectivity issues (thanks to those who tuned into our live stream) we have the full video of our wrap up of the day’s events with our experts HERE.

You can download a summary of the community submissions from the first workshop in February HERE.

In short, there are two sides to this story as we have two audiences: Our beloved communities and the vast law enforcement bureaucracies. On the community level, there were interesting discussions around Know Your Rights but also KNOW YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES! Whether you are a user, cultivator or a trader there are certain standards that should form the basis of your relationship with Cannabis. If you are a member of Fields of Green for ALL, you probably know these by now. The basis of this project is harm reduction and this balancing act with law enforcement needs to be managed from both sides.

On the law enforcement side of things, our challenge is to push for the maintenance of very specific conditions for arrest. The ultimate aim is to remove Cannabis arrests from the SAPS KPIs (Key Performance Indices) – a Cannabis arrest should no longer be a positive indication of good performance.

The next step is to draft the guidelines and we will publish these for comment before deciding on the final text. We will also continue to identify the correct channels for dialogue with law enforcement. Due to the current situation with the Madlanga Commission, we might not be able to start at SAPS head office but we have made some progress on a regional and local level.

Thanks to everyone for their support as we frame the guidelines really carefully so as not to create barriers to entry or overburdensome responsibilities for our people but also prevent any stonewalling from law enforcement.