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Heritage Day is the one day of the year South Africans are asked to think about where they come from. For a plant that has been growing in this country far longer than the laws written about it, that question is more interesting than most.
The short answer: Cannabis has been part of South African life for centuries, criminalised for less than a hundred of them, and legal for adults in private since 2018. Cannibisters opened at 65 Regent Road, Sea Point in December 2021 as a members-only herbal apothecary — the first club of its kind in the country to pair a curated cannabis cabinet with a registered Chinese Medicine practitioner, and one of the few from that era still standing. This Heritage Day we are marking it with Cape Town Candy, our Flower of the Month, named for the city the Club calls home.
What Is Heritage Day, and Why Does Cannabis Belong in the Conversation?
Heritage Day falls on Thursday 24 September. It asks South Africans to celebrate the cultural wealth of the country — the languages, the food, the music, the traditions that arrived here and the ones that started here.
Cannabis belongs in that conversation because it has been here for a very long time. Dagga, as it is known across the country, was woven into daily life among Cape and Transvaal labourers through the nineteenth century, and into traditional medicine long before that. The Cape Malay community's relationship with the plant goes back centuries.
What is comparatively recent is the prohibition. Cannabis was fully criminalised across the Union of South Africa in 1922 — roughly a century of restriction layered over several centuries of use.
How Did South African Cannabis Law Actually Change?
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| Pre-1922 | Dagga in widespread traditional and everyday use across the country. |
| 1922 | Cannabis fully criminalised throughout the Union of South Africa. |
| 1965 | The Medicines Act reclassifies cannabis as a substance that can be prescribed in certain circumstances — the first crack in the wall. |
| 2018 | The Constitutional Court rules that criminalising private adult use is unconstitutional. Possession, use and cultivation in private are decriminalised. |
| December 2021 | Cannibisters opens at 65 Regent Road, Sea Point. |
| 2024 | The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act codifies those personal-use rights in legislation. |
Between the 2018 ruling and today, a great many South African cannabis ventures opened. A number of them closed again, some of them shut down. The framework rewarded operators who took the legal structure seriously and punished those who treated it as a technicality.
Where Does Cannibisters Fit in That Story?
Cannibisters opened its doors in December 2021, and Business Insider described it at the time as Cape Town's newest cannabis club. We were not the first club to open in South Africa. What we were — and what the About page has always said — is the first of our kind.
The model was different from the start. Pierre Sarembock spent twenty-eight years in clothing manufacturing before opening the Club, and what he wanted was not a counter with a queue. He wanted the cannabis equivalent of a good coffee ritual: something curated, something considered, somewhere people would actually want to spend an afternoon.
So the Club opened with a registered Chinese Medicine practitioner, Dr Andre Sorger, working alongside the cabinet. It opened with a coffee bar, a lounge, and an insistence on knowing exactly what was in every jar — THC and CBD ratios, terpene profiles, the lot. It opened with a ventilation system engineered so the building would not announce itself to Regent Road.
That combination — apothecary, club and hospitality space in one room, with a practitioner on site — did not exist in South Africa before. Other clubs in the country later followed the blueprint.
The Club grew to seven thousand members in its first eight months. Tens of thousands today. Four years on, we are still at the same address, which in this industry is its own kind of achievement.
A Room of Many Heritages
Heritage Day asks what you come from. Stand in the lounge at 65 Regent Road on an ordinary afternoon and you will hear several answers at once.
The membership is not one kind of person. It is Capetonians who grew up ten minutes away and people who arrived last year. It is Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, isiZulu and a steady run of languages from further up the continent and further across the world. It is members who came to cannabis late and through a practitioner, and members in their twenties who came to it through friends. It is artists, chefs, nurses, students, builders, people between jobs, people who own the business down the road. Sea Point has always been a neighbourhood where a lot of different lives sit at the same table, and the Club ended up looking like the neighbourhood.
That mix is the reason the room is built the way it is. Not everyone wants the same thing from the plant, so the cabinet is not curated for a single palate. Some members come for a practitioner's advice and a low dose of something gentle, some for something bright before a walk, some for the coffee and the company and no cannabis at all that day. The staff are trained to ask rather than assume, and nobody is made to explain themselves.
Cannabis in this country has never belonged to one culture. It arrived, it was adopted, it was used in traditional medicine and in daily life, it was criminalised across every community and, eventually, decriminalised for all of them. A club that served only one type of member would be telling a smaller story than the plant's own.
Cape Town Candy: September's Flower of the Month
Flower of the Week has become Flower of the Month, and September belongs to Cape Town Candy — which, in the month we mark Heritage Day, is a name that earns its place.
South Africa has given the world plenty where this plant is concerned. Landrace varieties that grew up in this climate, adapted to it, and then travelled out into growers' hands everywhere now sit in the genetics of a long list of modern flowers you would recognise. Few countries can claim that kind of reach. Cape Town Candy is the other end of that story — not what we sent out, but what we keep at home, named for the city itself.
It is an 80/20 indica-dominant at 28% THC: bright, sugary sweetness with fruity, candy-shop notes, and a high that lands warm and beaming before it sinks into heavy, relaxed contentment. An evening flower, and a golden-hour one.
The picture at the top of this article is the flower in one image. Every Capetonian knows the tablecloth — the cloud that rolls over the summit of Table Mountain and spills down the front face on a south-easter afternoon. Here it is drawn as candy floss, pouring off the mountain and into the City Bowl, with the bud sitting where it lands. A Cape Town flower, named for the city, wearing the city's most famous weather.
Cape Town Candy is R200 a gram, and it earns double loyalty points for the whole month it holds the title.
How Is the Club Marking Heritage Day?
The way we mark most things: with the room open and something worth coming in for.
Heritage Day is a Thursday this year, which in Cape Town means a long weekend for a great many people. The Club is open 365 days a year, 09:00 until midnight, public holidays included, and Night Owl takes 15% off online orders placed between midnight and 7am for anyone whose plans run later than that.
Expect the local end of the cabinet to be well stocked, Cape Town Candy in particular. Follow Cannibisters on Instagram for what lands in the week leading up to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Cannibisters the first cannabis club in South Africa?
No. Clubs existed before Cannibisters opened in December 2021. Cannibisters was the first of its kind — the first to combine a curated members-only cannabis cabinet with a registered Chinese Medicine practitioner, a coffee bar and a full hospitality space in one room. Several clubs later followed that model.
When did Cannibisters open?
December 2021, at 65 Regent Road, Sea Point. It grew to seven thousand members within its first eight months.
Is cannabis legal in South Africa on Heritage Day?
Cannabis is legal for adults in private, every day of the year, following the 2018 Constitutional Court ruling and the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act of 2024. Public consumption is not covered by that protection, including on public holidays.
What is the Flower of the Month?
Cape Town Candy, an 80/20 indica-dominant at 28% THC with candy-shop sweetness and fruity berry notes. It is R200 a gram and earns double loyalty points for the month it holds the title.
Is the Club open on Heritage Day?
Yes. Cannibisters is open 365 days a year, 09:00 until midnight, public holidays included, and Night Owl covers online orders between midnight and 7am.
How long has cannabis been used in South Africa?
Centuries. It was in widespread traditional and everyday use long before it was criminalised in 1922 — a prohibition that lasted just under a hundred years before the 2018 ruling.
How do I join Cannibisters?
A day pass is R20, and longer memberships run from R100 for 30 days to R1,000 for a year. Join online or at the door at 65 Regent Road. Members are 18 and over.
Come and Spend Some of It With Us
Heritage Day is a good excuse to think about where things come from — the plant, the country, and the room you are standing in. Ours is at 65 Regent Road, Sea Point, and the coffee is on.
— The Cannibisters Team
