All photos by Nicky Newman.

Thousands gathered outside Parliament in Cape Town on Saturday for the annual Cannabis Walk 2018, organised by Bongalong and part of the global movement for legalising cannabis from stringent and outdated laws as evidence grows of its many and highly effective medicinal uses, both physically and mentally. Research shows that much of what has been offered as fact about this ancient plant is untrue.

Speakers from a broad range of stakeholders shared information about the economic, medical and social implications of changing the law and hundreds smoked openly in front of a heavy police presence, as the crowd, most often divided by social, racial and economic realities, were happily unified under the call for things to speed up on a governmental level. DM