Author launches informative book about dagga
MELVILLE– Author Hazel Crampton did extensive research about the history of the plant in its natural form.
Author Hazel Crampton launched Dagga: A Short History at Love Books, Bamboo Centre, in Melville on 9 September. The room was filled with book worms intrigued by her findings based on her extensive research.
Crampton was inspired to write her latest novel after her last bestseller The Side of the Sun at Noon gave her the opportunity to write a thought-provoking book about dagga use in South Africa. Dagga: A short history explores dagga’s origins, background during the period it was legal and when it was later criminalised.
The author did extensive research when writing The Side of the Sun at Noon where she used most of the information to write her most recent book. “The more research I did the more interested I was in the medical debate about dagga,” she said.
Journalist Sue Grant-Marshall was there to facilitate the discussion about the author’s ideology, theories and facts in the book. During the discussion, Marshall asked various questions about the outcomes of her research that explored some facts in the book. “I found that the book had a balanced point of view to the controversial question to the use of dagga in relation to medical and recreational use,” she said.
Crampton described the book as a small taster to catch on people’s interest in the plant dagga. “Based on my research, I discovered that people were smoking dagga as far back as in the 60s for all sorts of reasons,” she said.
Residents Collen Smuts said. “ I found the talk quite insightful and look forward to reading the entire book,” he said.
Thompson refers to the ideology that the function of education is not to fill the mind but to open it and that she wrote the book not to encourage or discourage society to smoke the plant, but rather to educate readers on its history.
Her next launch will be in Grahamstown on 17 September.
