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Prophet’s communication with the Public Protector centered around five of the state’s affidavits which can be referred to as the first propaganda affidavits (see volume 5 and volume 6, page 419 to 496). Prophet complained to the Public Protector that these documents existed in his civil trial as propaganda.

Erasmus relied on extracts from these propaganda affidavits to justify the forfeiture of Prophet's home.

Propaganda is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “organized scheme for propagation of a doctrine or practice”. According to section 16 of the Constitution “freedom of expression”… “does not extend to propaganda for war”.

The five affidavits here in question do not exist as evidence about anything concerning Prophet and were submitted to intimidate and influence the judge towards the doctrine of civil forfeiture in particular the Prevention of Organized Crime Act and the presence of such documents in a civil trial such as Prophet’s can therefore only be interpreted to be propaganda which is constitutionally illegal.

Documents “4, 5, 6, 7 and 8” which have been submitted by M Kagee in the Constitutional Court consist of 51 pages and are also identifiable as propaganda. By submitting these documents into Prophet’s trial Kagee violated section 16(2) (a) of the Bill of Rights.

Prophet is not responsible for the human condition of addiction to drugs and to the best of his knowledge he has had no dealings with the people who signed the annex of Nabewija Cassiem and it is clear from Gadija Moseley’s affidavit that she is a sad mother and she is unable to contain the violent behavior of her own children and she lives in fear of what her 13 year old child is going to do next. When children become a burden to society then there are deep seated problems within society that cannot simply be explained away by illegal drugs. In a healthy society there would never be a need for children to ever so much as contemplate a journey into illegal drugs.

In total the state has submitted 10 documents entailing 126 pages that exist as text book examples of propaganda. This is constitutionally illegal. 

The first two propaganda affidavits that were submitted by Rabaji and Gastro were supposed to highlight the effectiveness of civil forfeiture but without the authors realizing it the statistics that they used did not reveal any such thing but the latest propaganda statistics also, without the authors realizing it, now show a clear indication that civil forfeiture is promoting crime and in terms of prevention it is in complete failure.

In 2001 we were led to believe that civil forfeiture is an effective crime fighting mechanism and we were also led to believe by Rabaji, Gastro and Legget that the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street would have been an effective crime prevention technique. These claims were added by the state to strengthen in the mind of the judge some reason to forfeit 54 Balfour Street but 5 years later we now know that the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street has not had any effect in preventing methamphetamine crime related activities. The statistics show the opposite and that is that by the middle of 2006, the illegal involvement of methamphetamine had escalated by more than 7 500 %.

Before Jeremy Gauntlet referred to Prophet’s home as a drug factory, methamphetamine, in South Africa, was practically unheard of and a 7 500 % increase within less than 5 years  is worth mentioning and one can say with conviction that the implementation of the Prevention of Organized Crime Act against Prophet coupled with the pursuing publicity has single handily ignited the fire beneath methamphetamine. The Prevention of Organized Crime Act has not curtailed the illegal use of this drug in South Africa. The Asset and Forfeiture Unit has compounded the problem and as a nation we must stand together and we must not allow our civil liberties to be torn asunder by false claims and short sighted intentions coming from people who are misguided.

The first propaganda affidavits consist of 75 pages and contain 24 unsubstantiated claims that asset forfeiture is an effective crime fighting mechanism.

The state tells us that civil forfeiture does work: Rabaji (from volume 5, page 424) paragraph 13, paragraph 16, paragraph 17, paragraph 18, paragraph 19, paragraph 21,  Gastro (from volume 5, page 442) paragraph 13, paragraph 31, paragraph 51, paragraph 54 , paragraph 55, paragraph 56, paragraph 58,  Leggett (from volume 6, page 483) paragraph 16.

The state also tells us that criminal forfeiture does work: Rabaji paragraph 10, paragraph 15, paragraph 16, paragraph 20, Gastro paragraph 7, paragraph 12, paragraph 20, paragraph 31, paragraph 36, paragraph 53.

The authors do not present us with a single fact that shows that asset forfeiture has reduced the availability of illegal drugs. Their claims are without basis and consequently must be rejected. 

In the same propaganda affidavits Rabaji and Gastro make 7 unsubstantiated claims that criminal asset forfeiture does not work: Rabaji paragraph 13, paragraph 17 (3 times), Gastro paragraph 17, paragraph 31, paragraph 49, paragraph 50, paragraph 55.

The 7 unsubstantiated claims that criminal asset forfeiture does not work contradict the 10 claims that asset forfeiture does work. What are they trying to tell us?

Unsubstantiated claims are presented whenever called for each time the authors present a line of reasoning. When they want to make a different point they present different unsubstantiated claims without considering that the second set of claims contradict the first set of points they are endeavoring to convince us of. Their claims are unsubstantiated nonsense and must be rejected.

The first propaganda affidavits present only one case history of asset forfeiture concerning drugs. In paragraph 18 Rabaji tells us that “R54 000 was found in a sports bag together with dagga and a large quantity of mandrax but the investigators were unable to establish to whom the bag belonged. A preservation order was obtained and after due notice to all possible interested parties, an unopposed forfeiture order was obtained.” This is an absurd case history because Rabaji is unable even to identify the offenders much less show us how civil forfeiture is effective in preventing crime or reducing the availability of illegal drugs.

We now have another case history in Prophet’s case and it can be shown that the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street has within less than 5 years caused a 7 500% increase in the number of methamphetamine cases being sent to the South African police. What is Rabaji and Gastro and Leggett and the rest of the “gang” going to make of this as a statistic and a case history?

The illegal propaganda affidavits were a brilliant move on the part of the state and Prophet lost the case when he did not reply with an exhaustive denial of what was contained in the first 5 propaganda affidavits. The content is nonsensical but it was presented with such force that Erasmus, the judge in the first civil trial, was swept off his feet and failed to see it for what it is and in the first sentence of his concluding remarks (volume 7, page 591, paragraph 28) he says “There is no doubt that civil forfeiture is a controversial mechanism but it has been accepted by many nations as a legitimate law enforcement tool to combat serious crime.” Judge Erasmus is talking rubbish because it has never been used to combat terrorism or murder. Civil forfeiture is disgraceful and its acceptance by any high court in the absence of a criminal conviction is a sign that our legal system is in a state of moral collapse.

Juliana Gatelane Rabaji has been the director of public prosecutions of the Republic of South Africa and in her affidavit volume 5, page 420 paragraph 11, line 19 she said “As explained in more detail in the affidavit of Gastro, the experience of law enforcement agencies and elsewhere has been that ordinary measures and procedures are generally ineffective against organized crime and against criminals…” Peter Gastro has been the director of the Cape Town office of the Institute of Security Studies and was appointed as special advisor to the minister for Safety and Security. 

The public positions held by both of these people are impressive and Rabaji quotes Gastro with an ambiance of confidence. Rabaji does not stop to consider that within the Republic of South Africa, safety and security are at such pitifully low standards that private citizens are compelled to employ security companies to protect themselves within their own homes. Safety and security hardly exists in South Africa and Gastro who is the advisor to the minister of such issues would be afraid to take his wife or Rabaji window shopping on any street in Cape Town on any ordinary night of the week.

Rabaji may never have considered that the person who she quotes is an outright failure in terms of his job description but is she or is Gastro aware that the penalty for violating section 5(b) of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act carries a possible jail sentence not exceeding 25 years plus a fine? 

Are Rabaji or Gastro sadistically insane enough to refer to locking a person in jail for half of his or her adult life as ordinary measures? Are they further sadistically insane enough to suggest that this is an "ineffective" punishment?                  

Are Rabaji or Gastro so stupid to present an absurd argument that civil forfeiture is going to halt drug dealing when 25 years plus a fine has failed? Rabaji and Gastro are both psychologically sick and deluded. Selling drugs is an insignificant crime according to the general public and also it is not a serious crime.

Millions of South Africans smoke dagga every day and tens if not hundreds of thousands of other drug related offences occur everyday in South Africa. According to the CIAC crime figures supplied by Schonteich less than 125 of these crimes are reported on a daily basis (volume 6, page 472) (36 756 divided by 300 days, January to September).  

When more than 1 000 000 crimes are committed everyday and only 121 of those crimes are reported to the police then it is reasonable to conclude that the general public do not consider those crimes to be serious. Crimes that are considered serious do not go unreported.

Detonating a terrorist bomb is a serious crime and such would always be reported. Who doesn’t report car theft or murder? These crimes can be said to be serious. 

The illegal propaganda affidavits work arduously to present drug dealing as a crime that must be stamped out at all cost. These affidavits ignore other common crimes. Let’s for example make a comparison between drug dealing and road speeding violations. If you were caught driving your car at 110 km per hour on a public road with a speed restriction of 80 km per hour, do you think it would be reasonable if you were made to pay a fine but you were also made to serve a jail sentence of 25 years? What would your wife and children have to say about that? Is it reasonable to imprison a motorist for 25 years for speeding? Does this sound nonsensical? 

The comparison below reveals how little people consider what they take for granted and to what extent they allow governments and the media to do their thinking for them. 

“In 45 days between 1/12/1997 and 15/1/1998 nine hundred forty two people died in traffic accidents. More than 20 dead people every day! According to the statistics from which these figures were taken speed was the main contributing factor” (http://www.transport.gov.za). The facts presented with the speeding motorist are irrefutable. Over a period of 45 days 942 people died on the road mainly because of the abuse of speeding.

How many people died from drug abuse during the same 45-day period?

Even if you consider the entire history of South Africa then how many people have died from drug abuse? Even if you include death resulting from gang related warfare and violence, you can’t come close to the danger of a speeding motorist. There is no comparison between the mortal danger of a speeding motorist and an illegal drug dealer. Recreational drugs like dagga have never caused the death of any South African at any time in our entire history much less 942 deaths in a forty-five day period. It’s high time the courts started rejecting emotionally distorted opinions and pulled themselves into line with statements that are based on truth rather than political fables. Car manufacturers promote speed and they rely heavily on the speed factor to sell their products. Should we now start forfeiting their assets?

The daily average of the CIAC statistics of 121 silly drug related crimes being reported every day compared to 20 people being killed on South African roads every day has to be a wake up call for somnambulists and Rabaji and Gastro and Erasmus.

Punishing drug dealers does not eliminate the problem of why children turn to drugs and strictly speaking this problem has nothing to do with the state and in any event the state does next to nothing to alleviate the hardships that families experience when confronted with the problem of their children turning to drugs to escape their boredom or their misery. At the end of the day it is always the families themselves who must contend with the real issues.

Putting people into jail or issuing fines entails scant effort on the part of the state and changes little. If anything jail sentences and fines only compound the problem for the families concerned.

Big drug busts are always highlighted by the media to bolster state ego but drug dealers are only the symptom of an existing social problem. The state, through sheer laziness and the vision of failure, is conveniently evading the real problem of not addressing the root cause of the problem.

The state is deceiving the public by pretending to be waging a war against drugs by arresting drug dealers. When a drug dealer is arrested from a place where drugs are sold then the sale of drugs from that place is resumed as soon as the police leave the place.

Cassiem highlights this reality in paragraph 18 of her propaganda affidavit. According to her “…(drug) dealers are arrested but are seen back in the community three or four hours later”. The drug police are aware of this and the state is aware of this and they all know there is nothing that can be done about it because incarcerating drug dealers only changes the chain of command and does nothing to halt the sale of drugs. Similarly forfeiting property will only move the point of drug sale or manufacture to a different location.

In paragraph 22 of Pluddeman’s propaganda affidavit he says that “a high proportion…use methamphetamine”. In paragraph 24 we discover that he considers 12.5% as being “high”. If he considers 12 people out of 100 people as being a high number of people then how would he interpret 22 people out of a hundred or 32 people out of a hundred or 42 people out of a hundred? 

What would happen to his adjective “high” if the statistics read that 92% of grade 8 pupils had used methamphetamine? His statistics are useless information. His adjectives do not take us anywhere.

His statistics are actually low when you consider that according to Cassiem in paragraph 15 of her affidavit we learn about a drug dealer who is dressed in school clothes and that drug dealers are making methamphetamine available for free. 

In paragraph 17 Cassiem says “the police must act to rid the community of tik dealers and manufacturers”. Her statement borders on hate speech and the submission of her affidavit into Prophet’s trial can easily be interpreted as an action that according to section 16(2) (c) of the Bill of Rights “constitutes incitement to cause harm”.

The state’s senseless wasting of money to support the Drug and Drugs Trafficking Act cannot be justified so the tax payer must put pressure on the state and force the state to channel those resources in directions where it is sorely needed. South Africa is a rich country so the cheating public officials have no excuse for the poverty that is immediately visible on the front door step of every South African city and every country dorp. Poor people would sooner see the distribution of cash from a helicopter over the squatter camps of the Cape Flats than see money being wasted on the fruitless exercise of catching drug dealers.

Does the punishment fit the crime?

Prophet is not a drug dealer but if the arbitrary deprivation of his property is going to be continued to be tolerated then a platform will be created whereby it can and if the state is victorious in this trial it is going to be said that it is not cruel to deprive a person of his property if on a balance of probabilities it is suspected that he planted a dagga bush in his garden or on his farm. The right not to be treated in a cruel way is a non-derogable right; section 12(1) (e).

We must expose the myth contained in the state’s claim that drug dealing is a serious crime. The penalties for convicted drug dealers are certainly cruel but regardless of what we hear from the police, the courts and what is presented by the media we must in honesty admit that according to the general public, illegal drug consumption is not a serious crime because there are literally millions of people in South Africa who violate the drug laws every day and if the public considered it to be so serious then there would be millions of complaints but complaints to the police are negligible.

Cassiem is the founder of Families Against Substances Abuse which was founded in 2004. She seems to be a dedicated adversary against illegal drugs and after two years of having founded her organization she had, according to her propaganda affidavit, collected a list of signatories who have been supporting her endeavours. They number exactly 100 people and a few of them use the same telephone.

100 people from a pool of millions who live within 20 minutes by car from Cassiem speaks for itself.

Prophet has collected 10 000 signatures from people in Cape Town who disagree with forfeiture laws even when these laws are directed at alleged drug dealers. http://www.simonprophet.com/sigs.htm

Crimes that are considered by the public to be serious do not go unreported. Crimes that are considered serious are always reported. Consider murder, car theft or terrorist bombs. The general public do not see drugs as serious and this observation is supported by the statistics supplied by Schoentech because according to his statistics (volume 6, page 472) less than 125 such crimes are reported on a daily basis (36 756 divided by 300 days, January to September).

If literally millions of South Africans violate the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act on a daily basis (how many indigenous people do not smoke dagga?) then the irrational and emotional reaction coming from the state and the judges that drug crimes are serious cannot be supported by statistics that show that there exist less than 125 reported drug cases from the millions of violations that happen on a daily basis. Claims of seriousness rely on the barbaric penalties that are prescribed by the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act.

Claims coming from state funded rehabilitation facilities must be cautiously considered because the patients in these institutions represent a minority in the total volume of drug law offenders and the institutions themselves rely on state funds for their survival. Many such patients are there only to reduce their possible criminal prosecution in pending drug trials.

The mere existence of a law does not mean that such law is endorsed by the public and simple and graphic examples of such were the laws of our apartheid past. A truly humane society with any aim to uphold the South African Constitution would look at the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act with the same distaste as it would look at apartheid.

The consumer demand for illegal drugs is staggering so is it any wonder that in a society such as the Western Cape where unemployment exceeds 50% that there will always be people who will fill the role of drug dealer no matter who goes to jail for however long? 

“Drugs produce crime” is unsubstantiated. It is the high prices of illegal drugs that cause stealing and the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act is directly responsible for the inflated prices of all drugs. More regulations just mean higher prices which equates to more stealing.

For 30 years the world has been waging a "WAR on DRUGS".

This war has well served Rockefeller & Family but it has been an unmitigated disaster for society.  

The cruel drug laws world wide and in South Africa have had decades to prove their effectiveness in combating illegal drug use and as is evident from affidavits before the civil trials of Prophet it can be shown that even with such cruelty these laws have failed because in the Western Cape cocaine, dagga, heroin, mandrax and thanks to the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street we can now include methamphetamine, are all easily available and it is true to say that because these illegal drugs are available on a 24 hour basis and they are more readily available than most commercial goods that are sold in supermarkets and it can also be demonstrated that children who have money can more easily obtain heroin than they can buy a beer.

If this is our situation now and it is so then the drug laws have failed miserably and these laws are going to continue to fail and only an idiot in denial would suggest otherwise. 

The introduction of civil forfeiture as a means to combat these crimes is also a failure as is evident from this very case. The statistics in this case can prove that civil forfeiture has actually had the opposite effect that was intended and now methamphetamine has become more of a problem in the Western Cape than it was before the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street .

So is the public interest truly being served by violating the principles enshrined in section 25 of our Constitution? We must all admit that barbaric penalties and now civil forfeiture have failed and the time is upon us to wake up as we move into the new consciousness that is dawning that, South Africa, our nation, that is founded upon social justice and human rights should move away from the cruelty of the past and adopt a mature and progressive approach towards illegal drugs and maybe then as a society we can begin to deal with the problem of what is wrong with us that so many of our young people are selecting suicide and drugs to combat the misery of their lives?

The state has singled out the drug dealer as being the sole cause of the problem and is ignoring that it takes two to tango because the state knows full well that it must ignore the fuller picture of illegal drugs because the sheer volume of offenders is so out of proportion in terms of the state’s resources that it would take the army and the death penalty to contain these crimes.

It is time for somebody to take the stand and to admit that illegal drugs are here to stay and an approach must be implemented to get to the root cause of drug abuse so that as a society we can move into the future with dignity and compassion towards those of us who find the everyday conditions of life to be unbearable.

Forfeiting 54 Balfour Street does not change the plight of any drug addict in our present or in our future and as a conscientious society we must be cautious when looking to American court rooms for a solution to these tragedies.

The state in this trial has relied heavily on American legal history to justify the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street but it must not be overlooked that the deprivation of property by American court decisions has not saved that society from the "scourge" of drugs because as a test example America still remains the country most riddled with drugs problems in spite of the cruelty displayed by its courts and the Drug Enforcement Agency of America.

It is not true to say that it is difficult to catch drug offenders. It is easy to catch drug offenders. It is the sheer volume of drug offenders that makes apprehension problematic. According to Schontech approximately 60% of law enforcement is tied into drug syndicates. What a waste of perfectly good law enforcement resources.

The state tells us that common law is ineffective in containing the drug problem which is true and we also know from this trial that civil forfeiture has not only failed but has had the opposite effect in terms of the public interest to curb methamphetamine drug dealing and has caused methamphetamine to mushroom to the extent that in the Western Cape it is now completely out of control.

As a society we must take note because thousands of decent people are being subjected to cruel and fruitless punishment and we are wasting scarce resources on a problem that can’t be solved through state brutality when we could be applying those resources to crimes that the public consider to be serious instead of to crimes that are made into crimes because in truth the drug laws are there to protect the profits of pharmaceutical monopolies and have nothing to do with keeping illegal drugs off the street.

The WAR on DRUGS is there to exploit the sick with expensive medicine…

This is its hidden agenda. There is no other logical explanation.

 The WAR on DRUGS is a conspiracy to monopolize medicine.

Anti-retroviral drugs do nor cure aids but their high prices are manipulated via the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act of 1992.

The debate in the Constitutional Court concerning itself with the inflated prices of medicines could never have become an issue without the existence of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act. The Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act inflates the prices of legal drugs because the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act eliminates free trade. Any medicine in the absence of restrictive drug laws is easy and cheap to manufacture. It is the difficulty to comply with the legal requirements that so easily maintains the monopolies of the pharmaceutical giants who can then charge whatever price their greed dictates. Price inflation is supported by the state because the state receives tax based on how much the medicine costs and not on how many people have been cured. The  Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act is economically grounded.

Money has become a primary motive for most individuals who enter into the conventional health industry. Concern for health has been supplanted by considerations to make money and conventional health is now dependent on the availability of drugs. Remove drugs from any state hospital and that hospital will collapse.

Your modern day psychiatrist is paralyzed without mind altering drugs. Monopolizing the health industry demands control over the sale of drugs.

Drugs are cheap to manufacture and are only made expensive through the greed of pharmaceutical monopolies. Governments support this greed because of tax earned on merchandise sold.

Governments receive revenue from cost of medicine sold. The government does not receive income from number of patients cured. The number of people cured is of no concern to governments. It’s all about money.

A free market economy would drastically deflate the cost of medicine. Drug laws do not protect the public from depraved drug dealers. Drug laws are there to prevent competition in the “pills can cure“ philosophy and monopoly of conventional medicine.

The Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act does not prevent the distribution of dangerous drugs. Many of the drugs that are sold illegally are not dangerous but the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act and the publicity around the enforcement of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act produces a false sense of safety within the minds of the general public. The public tend to think that there are “bad” drugs and then there are “good” drugs and that the government has taken steps to remove all the “bad” drugs but this is not true because the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act does not stop the sale of “bad” drugs.

“An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released [recently] by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined”, Cave reports in his article. Analysis of 168,900 deaths statewide showed that cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths while legal opioids (strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin) caused 2,328. Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466, fewer than cocaine (843), more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0). 

Neither the Rockefeller Act nor the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act of 1992 could have protected these people.

People are at risk when receiving drugs via “legal” drug outlets because there is no effective legislation in place to protect the public from dangerous drugs when that abuse occurs within the legal medical framework. The victims of Thalidomide are one example. The mothers of these children were coerced by the medical profession to go out and purchase this drug. The medical industry is free of fear of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act when distributing dangerous drugs into society.

The conventional medical industry might be free of fear but it is not free of guilt. For a quick wake up call click here. 

Prozac is produced by a “legal” and “good” drug company called Eli Lily owned by George Bush. In 1987 the Federal Drug Administration approved Prozac even though controlled clinical trials had shown that the deaths of 27 people had been tied directly to Prozac. By 1991 the Federal Drug Administration had received 1 500 concerned reports about the drug. By 1992 the volume of reports had reached 28 600 which included 1 700 deaths. These figures are derived from page 357 of a book called Children of the Matrix by David Icke and if they are accurate then we are in trouble and the dangerous consequences of this drug are not open to dispute but the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act is powerless to respond. Eli Lily can continue to flourish unchallenged in a competition free market.

Cigarettes are also a legal drug and it is interesting to see how biased Smit is when he says in paragraph 19 (volume 6, page 488, line 10) that heroin is “the cause of more deaths than any of the other drugs.” Smit is mind controlled and is unable to comprehend the overflowing ashtray on his desk.  

According to .iss.co.za: “While figures are not available for South Africa, the American Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) tracks drug related deaths through 139 Medical Examiner’s offices in 40 urban areas in the US. In 1999, 11 570 deaths were tied to drug abuse. In 23% of those cases for which a cause was known, the death was due to intentional suicide. While most of these deaths were due to acute incidents and may not include those for whom drug use was a contributing factor in a decline in general health, it cannot be compared to the estimated four hundred thousand who die annually (400 000) in the US due to cigarette smoking.” 

Smit is wholly preoccupied with illegal drugs and in a frustrated effort to prove the point that he can’t prove he makes the following exaggerated unsubstantiated nonsensical claims:

dagga is “the most widely abused drug in South Africa” (volume 6, page 483, line 13, paragraph 6),

mandrax is “the biggest drug of abuse” (page 485, line 2, paragraph 11) and

crack cocaine is “the fastest growing hard drug of abuse” (page 487, line 15, paragraph 18).

What contradicting rubbish! 

Smit is being paid by the state but to the observant reader he does a lousy job of trying to sensationalize the issue of illegal drugs.

For his information the most widely abused and the biggest and fastest growing hard drug of abuse is the cigarette and the figures to prove this do exist. In 2005 it is recorded that 22 billion cigarettes were sold in South Africa. This does not include illegally imported and manufactured cigarettes. In the light of how many have died as a result of smoking cigarettes can we say that Anton Rupert was a very dangerous drug dealer and if Smit and his colleagues are still smoking then can we say that they are drug addicts and, as the Supreme Court of Appeal high court judge put it, "a scourge to society"?  

We must move away from emotionally distorted attitudes towards illegal drugs. Our society is riddled with danger; from a tourist being trampled to death by a hippopotamus to a child being killed in a school game rugby match. What about traffic disasters? More than 20 people die on South African roads everyday! Must we halt advertising the sale of cars? Must we ban motorcycles? Must we terrorize car dealers? Must we forfeit their homes.

The dangers of being alive abound and yes, no one disputes the harm caused by illegal drugs but we need to face the reality that punishing a drug dealer does not change the mind of a child who chooses to abuse drugs and the state is being hypocritical when it says that drugs are bad for people because at the same time it tolerates the prescription of drugs to children by the medical profession on a scale that has never been known to man. There was a time not so long ago that the idea of prescribing mind altering drugs to children was unheard of and would have been condemned. What happened?

The state apparently opposes drugs but at the same time it dedicates and drains public taxes for drugs to be distributed to men who have difficulty maintaining an erect penis. The rush of an orgasm is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the body.

People do become addicted to sex because they become addicted to the molecules of emotion and the chemicals in the body produced through orgasm.

Few indeed are the men who are not addicted to sex so then if the state can finance drugs for sex then why can’t the state also finance drugs for dancing at a discothèque because sex and dancing are both recreational pastimes? Being an adult carries with it a responsibility but who is the state to disenfranchise any adult’s right to make any such decision within the privacy of his or her own life? And don’t be fooled into thinking that legal drugs are safe. I have seen reports that Viagra causes blindness.

When a Supreme Court judge makes a public statement that people who engage with drugs are a scourge to society then he is not speaking the truth and he is insulting millions of people who use drugs on a regular basis. The people on the dance floor would never agree with him but their voice is silenced for fear of going to jail.

When an activity is condemned by law to be a crime then there must be some guideline laid down as to how to deal with any offender of that law.

The penalties for drug offences vary depending on the different offences. The maximum sentence in the Drugs Act for violating section 4(b) (e.g. smoking dagga) is 15 years plus a fine! The maximum sentence for violating section 5(b) (e.g. growing a dagga bush) is 25 years plus a fine!

Any person who is balanced in their attitude towards life could never agree that such silly crimes could get you into such deep trouble but society's emotionally distorted attitude towards illegal drugs does not end with a fine or a jail sentence. Sad it is to note that after you have served your time you are marked for life and your job opportunities or your travel destinations are seriously impacted.

Society should not be permitted to extend the hardship for criminal offenders beyond the guidelines of the criminal justice system but it does and one day as we evolve into becoming a nation of compassionate beings these discrepancies are going to be addressed.

We must protect our society from degrading itself into barbarism and the Prevention of Organized Crime Act is barbaric because it attacks allegations of drug related crimes in a most novel way because it is unable to distinguish between the nature of the crime and the harshness of the punishment because it makes a blanket decision. You keep your home or you loose it. There is no in between. This can never been construed as equality before the law and violates the Constitution.

The criminal justice system on the other hand always considers the merits of each case individually and considerations such as mitigating circumstances play a role in determining how the accused is to be punished (e.g. sentences will be harsher for repeat offenders). 

The Prevention of Organized Crime Act ignores the concept of "does the crime fit the punishment" but it has also created its own rules for determining criminal guilt.

Section 35 of the Constitution prohibits anyone from determining criminal guilt outside of a criminal court room but the Prevention of Organized Crime Act allows the state to circumvent the notion of guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". It allows the state to ignore the notion of "innocent until proven guilty".  What has come to pass is that in the presence of the Prevention of Organized Crime Act, it is no longer enough that you have proven yourself to be innocent.

The criminal trials have acquitted Prophet on all counts of criminal conduct so it is now a proven fact that he is innocent but that has not been of any concern to the civil court judges.

In the presence of the Prevention of Organized Crime Act Prophet must also prove that he is not a "suspicious" person because being a suspicious person can cost you your home.

The state’s case against Prophet cannot stand up in a criminal trial because there is no "evidence" of wrongdoing. The civil court judges were unable to differentiate between "evidence" and "suspicion".

Society is in a state of moral collapse if the state can determine criminal conduct on the grounds of a "suspicion". Suspicion is defined as an unconfirmed belief. It is preposterous to say that criminal guilt can be determined by an unconfirmed belief.

In Prophet's criminal trial the magistrate questioned the drug policeman regarding each and every chemical that was listed on the charge sheet and he established beyond doubt that none of the chemicals were illegal except for methamphetamine but no methamphetamine was found. The policeman was questioned and on two occasions (you can check the transcripts) and on both occasions he replied that he would not be able to charge a person for being in possession of what was found at 54 Balfour Street.

Any policeman is permitted to be suspicious of wrong doing and it his job to gather information and then, when that information is translated into evidence through the process of a proper trial, it can, depending on the evidence, be determined that somebody committed a crime.

When a drug police captain with 14 years experience in drug investigation admits under oath that what he finds in his illegal search for information is insufficient to charge a person with any offence under the Drugs Act then how in the name of God can the same information be used to secure a criminal conviction?

The Prevention of Organized Crime Act has permitted the civil courts and the newspapers to say that Prophet was acquitted on a “technicality” but that statement is not true. Everything in law is technical but be assured that the magistrate terminated Prophet’s criminal trial because it was a waste of time to try to convict him because no drugs or any illegal thing of any kind was found. Prophet was acquitted because the state did not have a case. The magistrate said in judgement; “the evidence introduced in this trial against the accused is evidence which does not even make out a prima facie case in my view”.

The Prevention of Organized Crime Act determines criminal guilt on the basis of "suspicion". The Prevention of Organized Crime Act refers to "a suspected commission of an offence". The South African Bill of Rights does not allow the state to destroy a person's life or a person's dignity because of "a suspected commission of an offence". If doing this is not a derogation of Constitutional laws then what is?

The majority of people in South Africa may be ignorant as to how the Prevention of Organized Crime Act works but it is evident from the register of petitions (click here to see) on this website that the civil courts will not for long to be allowed to get away with giving the state a green light to engage in stealing people's private property.

Prophet has communicated with thousands of people and 99.99% of those people are horrified to hear that he was deprived of his home on the grounds of a "suspicion" in the absence of a criminal conviction and in the presence of a "not guilty" verdict.

No South African person in their proper mind is going to allow the government the right to seize and sell people's possessions in the absence of a criminal conviction.

Would you pay a speeding ticket on suspicion?

Some people just pay fines when they receive them but if the day were to arrive when you decided to challenge the charge and when you got to court you discovered that the traffic department was unable to give any details about how fast you were traveling or where you were supposed to be speeding or when you were supposed to be speeding then would you pay the fine? If the traffic official argued that you must still pay the fine because according to him you must have been speeding because you were driving a sports car then would you pay the fine?

Can you imagine a scenario where the owners of fast cars are made to pay fines every month on the grounds of "a suspected commission of an offence"?  

Everyone complains bitterly about receiving a traffic fine but if you get caught you get caught and the old adage of "if you don't want to do the time, then don't do the crime" applies.

Your car can exceed the speed limit and if you get caught exceeding the speed limit then you have to pay a fine and that’s OK but for a policeman to say that according to the speedometer in your car you could exceed the speed limit and because of that on a balance of probabilities that you did exceed the speed limit to the maximum speed of what is shown on the speedometer and that therefore you must be punished by having your car forfeited to the state because it is the instrumentality of a very serious speeding offence is an insane proposition.

Such a scenario of the speeding motorist would never be tolerated by any motorist and it would not be tolerated by any person in your office so why should you or how could you tolerate a civil court order to deprive any person of his property that follows the same line of reasoning.

The Prevention of Organized Crime Act is "inconsistent" with the Constitution or is there some idiot out there who is trying to argue otherwise? If the Prevention of Organized Crime Act  is inconsistent with Constitutional law then supreme law dictates that the Prevention of Organized Crime Act  is invalid.

Danger lurks on every corner…

There is only so much any state can do for its people but there must come a time in any person’s life when he or she must decide for themselves to what extent they wish to engage life. The world is wrought with danger. Who is not aware of the dangers of being alive? Overflowing graveyards testify to the dangers of being alive.

The state does have an obligation to serve and protect its people from dangers of all kinds but we are not born into this world to be separated from the dangers of life by a state. We are here to engage life and it is only through experience that we gain the pearls of what we call wisdom.

Prophet lives on an insignificant planet situated in the boondocks of the Milky Way and it comes to him as an insult that a state that is unable to manage its own affairs has been (you can say) self appointed to protect him or anyone, including you, from the personal choices that we make within the privacy of our own lives. At one half of a century in years of age Prophet does think that he has earned some right to determine to what extent he wishes to engage in the world that he finds around him.

When this action was brought against Prophet, the state’s desk was not overflowing with complaints about him. He never held a gun to anyone’s head and forced them to sell phenylacetic acid. All that he had done was to buy a legitimate chemical. He was not being a nuisance to people around him so there was never any justifiable need for the state to interfere in his private life.

Mrs Ntandandi has limited all of Prophet's rights in section 25(1) because she is unable to comprehend that the Prevention of Organized Crime Act is legalized theft. Civil forfeiture is legalized theft because it allows an exchange to occur in the absence of an exchange of energy. She has ignored all of Prophet's civil rights as contemplated in section 25(2) (b) and section 25(3). The supreme law makes allowances for compensation. It insists on an exchange of energy.

Not only has the Constitutional Court ignored supreme laws but the decision to uphold the forfeiture of 54 Balfour Street has evolved into First National Bank being charged with fraud and theft. Prophet laid criminal charges against the bank for having violated his contractual agreement with the bank. The money that he has been paying on his home loan bond since after his home was sold has disappeared. Somebody has stolen his money and he is accusing the bank of being directly implicated in that theft.

Although the police do not consider First National Bank to be at fault of criminal conduct, Prophet is not convinced. With limited resources and influence there isn't much he can do about the disappearance of his hard earned money but at some point in time who is going to be held accountable for his loss?

On the 8^th of April 2005 Prophet was acquitted of all wrong doing and he can prove that he is the legitimate owner and the innocent owner of his own property. Initially the Supreme Court of Appeal was never made aware of these conditions as being facts beyond dispute because he rendered his replying affidavit prior to his acquittal.

This should not have made any difference because in any event Prophet was according to section 35(3) (h) an innocent person to which the Supreme Court of Appeal was made aware of in several paragraphs of his replying affidavit but all judges chose to ignore his status as an innocent person and brazenly continued to ignore his innocent owner status even after this had become an indisputable fact through his acquittal.

Being charged under the Prevention of Organized Crime Act does not limit his rights to citizenship as envisioned in section 3(2) (a). In the absence of a crime the full value of his rights is retained.

In the absence of proof, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the forfeiture and even up until today there has never been any physical presentation of proof that what the state is saying is true. Affidavits are not proof and by no stretch of the imagination can you say that speculation constitutes proof. Not a single word has been uttered from Prophet's mouth in any of the civil trials? How in all honesty can anyone say that he has been given a fair “hearing”?

The Prevention of Organized Crime Act was supposed to have been established to attack organized crime groups.

In 10 years we must enquire as to its success. Has it removed one organized crime group? Did the forfeiture of Prophet's home impact on any organized crime group? Did the Chinese triads, the Nigerian syndicates or the Russian mafia or any criminal organization disband after Prophet's home was forfeited? Has the Prevention of Organized Crime Act sent out a "clear message"?

Within the guidelines of the preamble of Prevention of Organized Crime Act it is obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to read it that this law was never intended to replace existing law enforcement. It was intended to attack organized groups that by their nature are untouchable by normal law enforcement.

Does Hofmeyr have the guts to use this law in the direction to where it is intended?

How easy is it for Willie Hofmeyr to attack peace loving people like Prophet?

Jacob Zuma was implicated into organized crime activities and one of his associates has been sentenced to 15 years in jail partly for having paid a bribe to none other than Jacob Zuma himself! Why has Willie Hofmeyr not used the Prevention of Organized Crime Act in the direction to where it was specifically intended to go or is Willie Hofmeyr just a chicken shit?

The National Prosecuting Authority cannot explain away its failure to criminally charge Jacob Zuma at exactly the same time that charges were brought against Shaik and Jacob Zuma is correct to say that the delay demonstrated by the National Prosecuting Authority is unconstitutional but does such a delay prevent Willie Hofmeyr from using his funny law to seize Jacob Zuma's assets? Can Jacob Zuma defend himself against a civil charge that he is suspected of having commissioned a crime? The "time delay" does not apply under the Prevention of Organized Crime Act because if you read it you'll find that if you are suspected of having crossed the line even before the Act was even made into law then this law can still be used to seize your assets. Do you think that that is "fair". 

What about the Travel Gate scandal? Can Willie Hofmeyr say that those politicians are suspects? Is Willie Hofmeyr hiding behind their having been pardoned? Do they remain criminal suspects after having been pardoned of their criminal conduct? So why is Willie Hofmeyr dragging his feet? Maybe he feels that since they have been pardoned that they have all learned their lesson?

Simon Prophet was not pardoned of wrong doing. The need for the President to pardon Simon Prophet was never called for because Simon Prophet was acquitted and he was acquitted on all counts of wrong doing! Simon Prophet was tried in no less than two criminal trials (on the identical charge) and the outcome of both of those trials was a "not guilty" verdict!

What part of the 2 criminal court findings is Willie Hofmeyr and the civil courts unable to understand?    

Erasmus was bullied by the state into making a judgment against Prophet in a time frame that violated non-derogable supreme laws (see section 35(3) (h)).

Someone is going to have to admit this to the demise of Erasmus which means that his reputation as a judge is tarnished forever.

The state did not find anything illegal in Prophet's home and Prophet is not connected to any criminal gang or even any singular member of any criminal gang. A presence of criminal guilt does not automatically call for the Prevention of Organized Crime Act. When there is no presence of guilt at all because the accused has been acquitted of all criminal wrongdoing then how can the civil courts have tolerated what has happened to Prophet and his family?

Not only is the Prevention of Organized Crime Act out of place in an action against Prophet but the action of the state and the civil court judges themselves is fraught with lies and deceit. 

In order to make him look guilty the state tried to panel beat the Drugs and Drug trafficking Act and by following this erroneous lead, Erasmus was caught out with a grammatical contradiction in his judgement. What an embarrassment for a high court judge!

Erasmus lied about Prophet in his judgement. He said that Prophet fell within the definition of importing a drug. Phenylacetic acid is not a drug and moreover the state never accused Prophet of importing this chemical. The state identified B & M Scientific as “die invoerder”.

Prophet has never imported a drug and it is clear to anyone who takes the trouble to read the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act that the act of buying phenylacetic acid is not a crime under any circumstances. It is a perfectly harmless chemical used in the production of perfume.

Even within the unbelievable wide berth of section 34 of schedule 1 of the Prevention of Organized Crime Act it is not a crime to buy or to be in possession of or to experiment with a chemical listed in schedule 1 of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act.

Phenylacetic acid is listed alongside acetone which, for those who don’t know, is nail varnish remover. In terms of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act these chemicals fall into the same category and to say that a person can be determined to have dealt in a dangerous dependence producing drug for having bought or used nail varnish remover is absurd to the extreme. Erasmus has really made a fool of himself.

 Hello…it’s time to wake up!

The complicated text book formulae submitted by the drug police forensic scientist called Venter on how methamphetamine is manufactured were not found in Prophet's home. Venter has never said that he found these formulae in Prophet's home because he knows full well that he got them somewhere else but through the association of related information that he submits it appears as though the formulae were found in his home. These text book formulae were not found in Prophet's home. The handwritten notes that the state has presented do not show how to make drugs. They are unintelligible scribbles and are unrelated to drugs. If Venter wants to say that Prophet was manufacturing methamphetamine then why doesn't he just show us the methamphetamine?

The state doesn't show us the methamphetamine because there wasn't any methamphetamine to show.

The day after Prophet was arrested in 2001, Johan Schronen published a crime report in the Argus that quoted narcotic squad acting chief Riaan Redelinghys as having said that Prophet and his "girlfriend" had been running the clandestine drug laboratory for at least two years.

If what Redelinghys had been saying was true then it is inconceivable that the drug forensic scientist of the drug police could not find methamphetamine in the "clandestine drug laboratory". Trained drug forensic detectives from the drug squad searched Prophet’s home over two days and found nothing. Not even a molecule of any illegal drug. The forensic report dispels Redelinghys's lies.

54 Balfour Street is not an instrumentality of a crime because it has not been shown that any crime has ever been committed at this address.

Four and a half years went by before Prophet was acquitted of all counts of drug dealing but he will never be able to recover from the damage to his dignity created by such articles. The role played by the media in the destruction of his life has been consistent over the years and the evidence is there to show how the media has influenced the civil court judgements.

When the matter was before the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, Prophet paid for an advertisement to be placed in the local newspaper called Die Volksblad. Prophet was trying to balance out some of the unfairness of the reporting but the day before the ad was to run he received a phone call from the editorial department telling him that his request to run his ad had been denied.

Prophet's money for the ad was returned to him but the denial to run his ad left him questioning the concept of a "free" press in South Africa.

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