Advocates of ‘an unpopular cause’: Frances Ames, Helen Suzman and Cannabis Decriminalisation in South Africa

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-8392/2023/v68n1a6

Keywords:

cannabis, dagga, drug policy, medical cannabis, Frances Ames, Helen Suzman, drug decriminalisation

Abstract

Two South African professional women were early advocates of cannabis decriminalisation during the second half of the twentieth century. Frances Ames (1920-2002) was a neurologist and psychiatrist based at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town. Helen Suzman (1917-2009) represented the Progressive Party for 36 years as an opposition member of parliament. This article documents their individual – later allied – activities and arguments, initially in relation to National Party (apartheid) drug control measures and then into the democratic era of the African National Congress. A social history approach reveals continuities and changes in the cannabis policy rationales of successive governments and the challenges made to these policies.

Author Biographies

  • Lebohang Seganoe, University of Johannesburg

    Lebohang Seganoe is a PhD student in the Department of History, University of Johannesburg. This research was funded by the NRF (Grant no. 129301). See chapter two in L. Seganoe, ‘A Medical Biography of Frances Rix Ames’ (MA, UJ, 2022); and T. Waetjen ‘“A Benign Drug for a Free Country”: Helen Suzman’s Campaign for Dagga Law Reform in South Africa’, Paper presented at the Alcohol and Drug History Society Conference ‘Rethinking Alcohol and Drugs: Global Transformations and Local Practices in History’, Mexico City, 15-17 June 2022.

  • Thembisa Waetjen, University of Johannesburg

    Thembisa Waetjen is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Johannesburg. This research was funded by the NRF (Grant no. 129301). See chapter two in L. Seganoe, ‘A Medical Biography of Frances Rix Ames’ (MA, UJ, 2022); and T. Waetjen ‘“A Benign Drug for a Free Country”: Helen Suzman’s Campaign for Dagga Law Reform in South Africa’, Paper presented at the Alcohol and Drug History Society Conference ‘Rethinking Alcohol and Drugs: Global Transformations and Local Practices in History’, Mexico City, 15-17 June 2022.

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Published

2023-06-26

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Section

Articles

How to Cite

Advocates of ‘an unpopular cause’: Frances Ames, Helen Suzman and Cannabis Decriminalisation in South Africa. (2023). Historia, 68(1), 142-175. https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-8392/2023/v68n1a6