Talk:Lesotho dagga trade

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Page scope

Lesotho dagga trade treats the movement of cannabis grown in Lesotho to South Africa and beyond: the colonial background in Basutoland, the smuggling into the gold-mining districts from 1947, the growth of commercial cultivation from the mid-1980s, the two routes to Johannesburg and Durban described in 1997, the goods and the people who traded them, the estimates of scale, police and international enforcement, and the licensed export of medical cannabis since 2017. Cultivation, preparations and the law in Lesotho itself belong to Lesotho and its growing-region and growing-area pages; the South African side of the market to Cannabis in South Africa. Routes are described at the level of country, province or city that the cited sources use.

Data verification

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Discussion

Sources

• Field studies. Laurent Laniel's survey for UNESCO (1999), based on fieldwork in the summer of 1997, is the source for the two routes, the grades, the buyers, the prices and the hashish seizures; his article in Seminar (2001) rests on the same fieldwork. Julian Bloomer's article of 2009 rests on fieldwork in one foothills village from 2005 to 2007; his article of 2019 surveys the trade's history and the licensed regime. Manthatisi Moremoholo's thesis (University of Natal, 1998) on links between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal gives a South African Police Service figure for KwaZulu-Natal.
• History. Craig Paterson's thesis (Rhodes University, 2009) rests on interviews with growers, smugglers and dealers and on earlier literature; it is the source for the Marashea, the Highveld market and the argument over the name Durban Poison. Phumla Nkosi, Richard Devey and Thembisa Waetjen (Historia, 2020) give the Basutoland proclamations of 1924 and 1929. The Basutoland annual reports for 1935 and 1951 give the prosecutions and the 1951 proclamation.
• Reports. UNODC's World Drug Report for 2006 and 2011 and its Bulletin on Narcotics review of 2006; the INCB's annual reports for 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2018 and its statistics of licensed cultivation (Narcotic Drugs 2022); Peter Gastrow's paper for the Institute for Security Studies (2003), which cites the United States Department of State for Botswana; Gary Kynoch and others for the Southern African Migration Programme (2001) on the southern border.
• Press and company statements. The Cape Times (2017), the Lesotho Times (2018), Public Eye (2019), Business Day (2021), the Sunday Express of Maseru (2021), the Mail & Guardian (2006) and IOL (2013). Statements by Medi Kingdom, MG Health and Drapalin Pharmaceuticals are given as the companies' own.
• Not yet read. Gary Kynoch's book on the Marashea, We Are Fighting the World (2005), and his article "Marashea on the mines" (Journal of Southern African Studies, 2000), which Paterson cites for the gangs' trade in cannabis; Brian du Toit's Cannabis in Africa (1980); and the Observatoire géopolitique des drogues report on Lesotho (1998–1999) that the Bulletin on Narcotics of 2006 cites.

Where the sources disagree

• The Marashea. In Paterson's thesis the footnote to Kynoch's article of 2000 is attached to the sentence on the gangs' trade in cannabis, liquor and prostitution. The following sentences, on smuggling cannabis in from Lesotho and its predominance in the mining areas, carry no footnote: they are Paterson's own statements.
• When commercial cultivation grew. Laniel, following Stephen Gill's history of Lesotho (1993), dates the increase to the mid-1980s; Bloomer, writing about 2008, speaks of pressures over three or four decades. Paterson links a further upsurge to the European boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, with hedging.
• Quality. Paterson calls Lesotho cannabis low in quality; Gastrow calls Lesotho a well-known source of high-quality cannabis; Bloomer (2019) calls it "apparently poorer quality".
• Durban Poison. Laniel (1999) thought the top grade probably sold under the name, and the Bulletin on Narcotics (2006) repeated the suggestion without a source. Paterson reports an explanation from Durban port stamps on packages arriving in Europe, credits it to Laniel, and argues from traders' accounts that the name began in South Africa as a packaging term in the mid-1970s.
• Share of the South African market. UNODC's World Drug Report 2006 (p. 160) gives the estimate that 70 per cent of the cannabis entering South Africa was grown in Lesotho without saying who made it or how; UNODC's Cannabis in Africa (2007) repeats it. The World Drug Report 2011 gives South Africa's own assessment of 80 per cent for Lesotho and Swaziland together in 2009. A separate figure in the Bulletin on Narcotics (2006), that South African exports grew from 15 to 70 per cent of South African production between 1991 and 1996, concerns South Africa's exports, not Lesotho's share.
• The first licensed exports. Medi Kingdom's own account in the Lesotho Times (2018) dates its samples to Canada to 26 March 2018; an amaBhungane report of 2019 dates a first export of flowers to Canada to June 2017; Bloomer (2019) says that most of Medi Kingdom's first production was destined for Australia. Accounts of the first licence also differ (2015 or 2016 in the company's account; 2017 in Business Day, Thetsane and the national development corporation).
• Number of licences. Reported counts range from 33 (Thetsane, citing the minister for 2017) to about 50 (2020), 140 and 145 (2019–2020), with four or five operating; Thetsane also reports eight registered and licensed companies.
• Seizure figures. Gastrow's table of United Nations data gives no figures for Lesotho for 1995 and 2000, and figures for 1996 to 1999; the 1996 figure matches the police figure Laniel reports. UNODC's annex of 2007 gives three Lesotho figures for 2000–2005 whose years cannot be read from the text.

Georeferencing

A town on the route is given a point where two gazetteers, Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, put it within about 2 km of each other. Points are entered to two decimal places.

• Bloemfontein: -29.10, 26.22. Wikidata -29.100, 26.217; OpenStreetMap -29.116, 26.215; 1.8 km apart.
• Ficksburg: -28.87, 27.88. Wikidata -28.874, 27.878; OpenStreetMap -28.874, 27.879; 0.1 km apart.
• Johannesburg: -26.20, 28.04. Wikidata -26.204, 28.042; OpenStreetMap -26.205, 28.050; 0.8 km apart.
• Durban: -29.86, 31.03. Wikidata -29.858, 31.025; OpenStreetMap -29.862, 31.010; 1.5 km apart.

Lesotho, the Maloti Mountains, Mokhotlong, KwaZulu-Natal and the Highveld, and the destination countries (Botswana, Namibia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany), are given without a point: a country, province or region has no single point.

Infobox

• Places. The origin is Lesotho, with the Maloti Mountains and Mokhotlong for the eastern first-grade districts (Laniel). The places on the way are those of Laniel's two routes: Bloemfontein and Ficksburg on the way to Johannesburg, and KwaZulu-Natal on the way to Durban; they share one stage because they are alternatives. The destinations are Johannesburg and Durban (Laniel), the Highveld (Paterson), Botswana (Gastrow), Namibia (Maree), the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (Laniel; Paterson), Canada (Medi Kingdom's samples, 2018) and Germany (MG Health and Drapalin, 2021–2022). The Netherlands and the United Kingdom were reached by export from Durban; the map draws them as destinations because the sources do not describe that leg.
• Route type. Overland: the sources describe the movement from Lesotho into South Africa by road and on foot. None of them says how the exports from Durban or the licensed exports travelled.
• Start year. 1947, the year from which Paterson dates the Marashea's smuggling into the mining districts. The Basutoland reports mention dagga smuggling earlier, in the 1930s, without saying where it went.
• Status and legal status. Still in use. Changed over time: the trade was illegal throughout, and since 2017 a licensed export of medical cannabis has existed beside it.
• Scale. UNODC's estimate of 2006, given with its year; the other figures are in the Scale section.

Images reserved in the article

• Under The route: a schematic map of Lesotho and the surrounding part of South Africa showing the two routes Laniel described in 1997, west and north through Ficksburg and Bloemfontein to Johannesburg, and east into KwaZulu-Natal to Durban. The lines are schematic and the caption says so.
• The lead photograph, of Matsoaing village in Mokhotlong District, does not show cannabis; the caption says so.