Authorities in Zimbabwe have now classified the notorious substance mutoriro or methamphetamine as a dangerous drug.
This has been a legal issue over the past three years, with lawyers arguing that crystal meth is not a scheduled drug under the Act yet the State was applying it to punish alleged offenders.
Statutory Instrument 167 of 2024 published in the Zimbabwe government gazette dated October 11, the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe in consultation with the Minister of Health and Child Care Douglas Mombeshora made public amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act.
This listed methamphetamine among many other substances as a scheduled drug in the Act.
The State has been charging people caught possessing methamphetamine or dealing in it for violating the Dangerous Drugs Act. Several people have been convicted, jailed and others serving various sentences.
Legal experts said this is likely to open floodgates of legal challenges as the State has been charging people under a non-existent law.
Harare lawyer Admire Rubaya took issue when his clients were arrested. He has been locked in a fierce battle with the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe over the issue after the prosecutors charged his clients for dealing in dangerous drugs while referring to methamphetamine.
While representing his clients Prince Samuriwo and Humphrey Banda in October 2023, Rubaya argued that the charge was defective as the Act does not cater for the said drug.
“The State alleges that crystal methamphetamine that the accused was allegedly found in possession of is a dangerous drug yet there is no such drug listed in the relevant schedule to the Dangerous Drugs Act.
“A drug does not become a dangerous drug simply because the general populace, the State and politicians want it to be treated as a dangerous drug whose alleged possession is punishable in terms of the criminal law.
“A drug can only be dangerous in terms of the law if it is one which fits into the definition of a dangerous drug in terms of the law,” Rubaya argued.
Rubaya also made similar arguments on July 2, 2021, when he represented one Anisha Brenda Gumbo who was charged for allegedly dealing in dangerous drugs having been found in possession of 89 sachets of crystal meth.
He argued that crimes are created through statute and not by the courts simply because there is need to address the abuse of crystal meth by the younger generation of the Zimbabwean population.
“The responsible Minister ought to specify crystal meth as a dangerous drug in terms of section 14 of the Dangerous Drugs Act failing which the law as it currently stands does not create a crime from the alleged possession of crystal meth or any dealings in crystal meth,” he argued.
It now remains to be seen how prosecutors will react to the latest development in as far as the court challenge is concerned and action they will take on several pending cases before the court.
The biggest question is what will happen to the several people incarcerated over the defective law as it has been shown that before October 11, crystal meth was not listed as a dangerous drug?
