South African Cannabis Activist Killed Near Johannesburg

South Africa’s Dagga Couple: Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs

Julian Stobbs was murdered during an armed robbery at his farm in South Africa on the morning of July 3. He and his wife Myrtle Clarke were known as the Dagga Couple after they challenged the country's pot laws in 2010. Clarke survived the attack in the Sunrella suburb north of Johannesburg.

“They stole everything in the house, came back and went into the bedroom and shot and killed the husband," reported Head of Community Safety at AfriForum Ian Cameron.

Stobbs and Clarke were arrested in 2010 for possessing 115 grams of dagga (South African for cannabis). They fought the charges and eight years later the Constitutional Court decriminalized marijuana for private and personal consumption. 

A retired British Royal Navy air traffic controller and TV and movie art director who moved to South Africa in 1994 (where he met Clarke), Stobbs said in 2017: “You forget to realize that everybody that uses any drug has rights as well. They are not animals and should not be put in jail.”

Together, Stobbs and Clarke ran the organization Fields of Green for ALL.

Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.