'I would have said no to dagga smoking': Bheki Cele

While the debate rages over people being allowed to grow and smoke dagga in private‚ that would not have been the case if police minister Bheki Cele had his way.

“If the judge had asked me‚ I would have said no dagga smoking‚” Cele told students at the University of Zululand on Tuesday.

He visited the crime scene where first-year student Sazi Ngubo was stabbed to death during an argument on the campus in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday. Moments after the fatal stabbing‚ fellow students beat and severely injured his alleged killer in an act of mob justice.

The Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that adults were legally able to cultivate and smoke dagga in a “private space” – which has yet to be clearly defined.

Cele told students that he believed dagga was effectively a gateway drug.

“Dagga smoking is an entry point of serious other drugs. They start with dagga‚ mandrax and cocaine. Which means now‚ everybody is on the same path to start drugs‚” he said in a recording broadcast by SABC television.