Since a trade in dagga is a future reality for South Africa, then it stands to reason that this should be fast-tracked without delay as it will legitimise the livelihoods of the estimated 900,000 small-scale farmers, writes Nicholas Heinamann, co-ordinator of the SA Cannabis Lobby.
On Daily Maverick, Heinammn writes: “The new hemp regulations recently announced by Minister of Land Reform & Rural Development Thoko Didiza are her department’s attempt to harvest the perceived low-hanging fruit of industrial cannabis. And yet they serve only to create additional elitist barriers to entry and entrench the colonisation of cannabis by the global north.”
We should rather address the government’s hesitation to effect meaningful change and effective legislation to unlock the cannabis industry. “One also must wonder about the quality of legal opinion being offered to the state on cannabis reform and regulatory frameworks.”
The Garreth Prince Constitutional Court cannabis privacy ruling has already laid the groundwork for a legal recreational cannabis market and it is just a question of time before the government “comes to its senses” and allows a reasonable trade in cannabis or is forced to that position by further litigation in the resumption of the ‘Stobbs/Clarke – Trial of the Plant’ in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria).
“If we can assume that a reasonable trade in dagga is a future reality for SA, then it stands to reason that this should be fast-tracked without delay as it will legitimise an illicit industry and allow the fiscus to substantially benefit through tax revenue generation. It will also legitimise the livelihoods of the estimated 900 000 small-scale farmers mentioned as the potential beneficiaries in the government’s draft ‘Cannabis Master Plan’. As the government is scrambling to create jobs this is an absolute no-brainer. What else offers the opportunity to create at least tens of thousands of jobs in the short to medium term with minimum costs and government interventions?”
What is government doing?
Heinamann points out that the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development’s “low-hanging fruit solution” is to import low-THC cannabis cultivars from Europe and North America with the additional onerous condition that these seeds cannot be bred out in SA, tying us into the global seed supply market until we can develop our own capacity to produce low-THC industrial hemp seed.
He says it is “a comedy of errors that only serves to entrench the cannabis community’s view that the government and its agencies don’t know what they are doing”. The department’s model stipulates farmers wanting to participate in the industrial hemp space will need to pay a licence fee to get a permit, fence their land for a non-narcotic crop, report their activities to and get permission from the police, and report on their production to the department.
As there are no low-THC industrial cannabis seeds currently available in SA, these will need to be imported from the northern hemisphere, with additional seed import certificates. “Nothing like throttling and over-regulating the industry before it even begins,”says Heinamann, adding: “For a country with spiralling unemployment and joblessness among the young that pose a direct threat to national security, it’s a travesty that our democratic government can continue to perpetuate thinking and policies from the dark days of the apartheid regime.
“Where is the justice? What will it take for the people’s voices to be heard and for meaningful, proactive cannabis reform to create opportunities for the rural poor? It amounts to nothing less than gross human rights violations by denying people access to their natural wealth and right to meaningful work and opportunities.”
Draft Cannabis Plan for SA (Open access)
Garreth Prince Constitutional Court cannabis privacy ruling (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Medical cannabis – SA’s high hopes of a cash cow that blunts pain
SA medical and recreational cannabis industry poised to take off
SAHPRA grants first cannabis cultivation licences
DoH: Cannabis Bill ‘a slippery slope’ because of potential harm to adolescents