The longest holidays of the year are now over for most South Africans. The summer holidays are a long break for kids and parents alike. Johannesburg all but empties in December as families head off to the coast for some well earned R&R. We trust everyone had a great break, welcome to 2014!

The DC took a few days off during Christmas but also took the opportunity to get some serious planning and logistics done while everything else was quiet. No phones and very few emails helped to keep us focused.

A lot of things happened for our campaign towards the end of the 2013.
We said goodbye to the man who got us to where we are now in the courts. Ferdi Hartzenburg – we are indebted to you for achieving our legal precedent in the Pretoria High Court. Ferdi’s office was just too small a company to tackle such a massive legal challenge so we are delighted to announce that Schindlers Attorneys in Johannesburg have decided to take up the challenge of getting us to the South African Constitutional Court. We have been in negotiation with them for some time, getting our plan of attack straight in our minds (and theirs)  and 2014 is all systems go. This is incredible news and we are extremely relieved and delighted that such a reputable legal firm has taken us seriously enough to represent us at the highest level.

Excitement levels are rising.

For the whole of 2013 we waited for a High Court date. The wheels of South African justice system grind along very slowly. Just before the Christmas break we were given news that our North Gauteng (Pretoria) High Court trial is set for March 2015. We have one year to get all our finances in place to get a barrage of expert witnesses to South Africa to testify on our behalf. Most of our expert witnesses have been contacted and we wait with baited breath as to who locally and from around the world will take us seriously and come to the party. Our number one priority this year is to fundraise the enormous sum of money it will cost to get these experts to SA to testify.
Challenges challenges.

We are also in pre-production with a script for another Dagga Couple short documentary, Dagga: The Cost. This will be an expose of how much the war on dagga users is costing the South African taxpayer. Shoot  in early Feb and we will roll the finished product out by mid February. Watch this space.

Myrtle and the office crew have been putting an inordinate amount of time into the establishment of South Africa’s very first Non Profit Company to deal with legalising the Cannabis plant in SA. They are putting the finishing touches to the website as we plan to launch the NPC at  a gala event in Johannesburg and Cape Town very soon. The objective of the NPC, called ‘Fields of Green For ALL’ is to provide a legitimate umbrella for all aspects of the  plant in SA and all parties interested in the legalisation of the plant. This is a very exciting development and our hope is to attract more investment for our challenge, legitamise the DC even further and to open a dialogue between all concerned parties. Details will be made available shortly.

Our ‘Know Your Rights’ 18 page arrest guide was downloaded over 2000 times in 2013. By using this handy little book we can tell you a number of DC supporters managed to get themselves out of police cells and through a first appearance in Magistrates Court.  Keep it in your bag or in your car. You never know. The DC deal with dagga bust emails most weekends – and as a lot of you know, you’ll never forget a weekend in an SA police cell for a gram at a roadblock. Make sure you have the knowledge. Knowledge is power and importantly, helps you to transcend your fear. Prohibition is designed to make you fearful and a dagga arrest is up there with the rest for pure intimidation and thuggery.

We  have come out firing on all six for 2014. We’ve also been at it and very focused during the summer break. We intend keeping it that way. This is a very important year for the cannabis plant both domestically and internationally with some US states and even whole countries legalising the most used illicit substance on our planet.

And finally, a huge ‘Happy and prosperous 2014’ to all of you, our support base. Those people who have ‘come out’ and are openly supporting us on social media and by signing the Dagga Couple Re-legalisation Petition.

Our Facebook Page now has over 21000 onlookers & we have nearly 2000 followers on Twitter, so the message is getting out to ever more South Africans. We can’t do this without you.

And to those of you who haven’t ‘come out’ yet – maybe this will be your year to stand up and be counted. Supporting the Dagga Couple and The Dagga Party of South Africa, or by signing the petition doesn’t mean you USE dagga, it means you support our efforts to stop the crazy, expensive, harmful prohibition that surrounds the plant. As a user we reckon you owe it to the plant.

Here’s to 2014.