How dagga decriminalisation changed criminal convictions

Since cannabis was decriminalised, the number of drug-related convictions in South Africa’s courts has plummeted, and it may be having a positive effect on serious crime convictions.

A 2018 Constitutional Court judgment decriminalised the possession of cannabis for private use. Before the judgment, more than half of convictions in the courts were related to dealing or possessing drugs.

The NPA reported 156,158 convictions in 2017/18. This dropped to 41,404 in 2018/19, before increasing slightly to 46,876 in 2019/20, and dropping to 13,570 in 2020/21 during the covid pandemic.

There is a gap in the data between 2021 and 2023 because the NPA’s annual reports for those years did not contain figures for total drug-related convictions. In the NPA’s 2024/25 annual report, only 5,575 drug-related convictions are reported.

This means there has been a small increase in convictions for other serious crimes since 2019. In 2019/20, there were 170,591 convictions not related to dealing or possessing cannabis. In 2024/25, there were 178,009.

But this is nowhere close to the more than 239,000 convictions in 2009/10, which shows the NPA is still struggling to recover from capture during the Zuma years.

Chart produced in partnership with The Outlier.

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