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Small players ‘not considered’ in South African cannabis Bill – Free Market Foundation

President Cyril Ramaphosa is either unaware of his administration’s activities regarding cannabis or was simply using rhetoric when speaking about the industry as a societal good through job creation in his State of the Nation address, says Zakhele Mthembu, a legal researcher at the Free Market Foundation (FMF).

In an article on the FMF website, Mthembu says Ramaphosa, in his address, mentioned cannabis and its economic potential while police were arresting people for cannabis-related offences on that very day.

“This contradictory attitude from the state does not inspire confidence in the economic potential of this industry,” says Mthembu.

He writes that the president mentioned rural cannabis farmers while his government, through the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill, has set out to exclude them through onerous regulatory barriers. He adds in places like Soweto, the illicit cannabis market has its own character and dynamics.

“The National Cannabis Master Plan devised by the state as well as the Bill before National Assembly do not fully consider the peculiar nature of the economics of a township.” Mthembu cites the regulatory jargon of quantities for use and quantities for commercial sale found in the Bill, saying this will be troublesome to the existing illicit township market. He adds the problem of yard sizes in former black areas, which influence the “private use” and cultivation of cannabis as a plant, is not considered by the Bill.

“The president is either unaware of the activities of his administration regarding cannabis or he was simply using rhetoric when speaking of the cannabis industry, and none of these options bodes well for participants in the SA cannabis market.” That attitude needs to change if any benefits of the industry, economic or otherwise, are to devolve to the average person, he adds.

“Jurisprudentially, distinguishing between cigarettes and cannabis for purposes of criminality is nothing more than an arbitrary exercise, grounded in nothing else but a legal edict that says it is criminal. This distinction between these two substances is arbitrary because the evidence suggests that cannabis is less harmful than cigarettes, while being subject to stricter regulation. Beyond the case permitting private use, the general decriminalisation of all cannabis-related activities ought to be the policy of the SA government.”

 

Free Market Foundation article – The cannabis industry inhibited by state action from the outset (Open access)

 

See more from MedicalBrief archives:

 

SADPI: Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill not reflecting spirit of 2018 Constitutional Court ruling

 

ConCourt reserves judgment on decriminalisation of child use of cannabis

 

Lobby group: End the legislative barriers stifling SA's cannabis industry

 

Medical cannabis – SA’s high hopes of a cash cow that blunts pain

 

Committee told that cannabis use Bill is ‘racist and outdated’

 

DoH: Cannabis Bill ‘a slippery slope’

 

 

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