The South African Police Service’s National Air Wing spent more than three weeks spraying dagga plantations with a chemical called Kilo Max in the greater Lusikisiki area, the police announced in Pretoria on 19 February 2015.[1] Flying helicopters, the team sprayed over 500 hectares of plantations, which the police said had a potential street value of billions of rand.[1]
The fields lie in hills and valleys along the Mzintshana River that cannot easily be reached by road, and the police said pulling plants by hand would take fifty people two days per hectare.[1] Dagga in the area had been sprayed from the air for over twenty years, and the police said no one had ever been reported ill from the chemical.[1]
No arrests, and a dispute over safety
No one was arrested, because the growers cannot be identified: the plants stand in communal areas, so possession can practically never be proved.[1] Unknown people had distributed “I love dagga” stickers and pamphlets calling the spraying unsafe and bad for the environment, which the police dismissed, saying the dose only kills the dagga plant while surrounding vegetation survives.[1]
A second account confirms the three-week operation and the figure of more than 500 hectares poisoned around Lusikisiki, quoting the police spokesman’s line that the exercise “nips the dagga problem in the bud”.[2] It adds that the local crop was considered for export and sought after internationally, and reports allegations from activists who visited the area that household food crops were destroyed as well, quoting a mother of two as saying the spraying cost her everything.[2]
