CNN’s Marketplace Africa explores South Africa’s cannabis industry
CNN International investigates the growing cannabis industry in South Africa. On the verge of becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry, countries around the world have started to legalise cannabis. In South Africa, farmers are trading in traditional crops in favour of growing cannabis. But navigating this expanding industry is challenging. Like many countries, cannabis regulation in South Africa isn’t black and white – it’s many shades of green. CNN’s Eleni Giokos travels to a Cannabis Expo in Pretoria, South Africa to explore the legal issues around cannabis, and to meet farmers and sellers who are benefitting from the growing industry.
In 2018, South Africa decriminalised smoking and cultivating cannabis in private spaces, with the caveat that all cannabidiol (CBD) products must be registered. CNN meets Griffith Molewa, the Legal Compliance Manager for the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAPHRA), who explains the process to register, “You’ll take it to an accredited lab and once it’s done we will register it.” So far, SAPHRA have awarded four medical cannabis cultivation licences with the aim to eventually produce locally made CBD oil.
A further forty three research permits have been awarded, and Giokis meets with Dr. Ahmed Jamaloodeen who secured one of these permits. Jamaloodeen is a fourth-generation farmer and talks about his decision to move from growing traditional crops, and how he explained this move to his father, “Historically we’ve always been cropping and a livestock farmer. Soya…maize. (…) Well he [Jamaloodeen’s father] said the thing about the middle son is you keep me on my toes – then we discussed the possibilities.”
Jamaloodeen explains how his plans would help the local economy, and would bridge both agricultural and pharmaceutical cannabis, “If you take industrial hemp it goes into fabric, plastic sheeting – name it, we could quite easily create just in our little town 70,000 jobs from the leftover remnants of what hemp produces, let alone the medicinal side.” On the medicinal side, Jamaloodeen plans to work with his wife, Dr. Regina Hurley. She details their plan to CNN, “My husband decided that he would grow it, and I would prescribe it.”
The cannabis industry in South Africa is a big opportunity that’s feeding into a global marketplace. Jamaloodeen tells CNN he sees it as more than just a business, it’s a philosophy, “It’s people with similar thoughts and that their desire to work in collaboration in unity to create value for each other … and it’s like-minded thinkers who think that there’s an abundance in the world, a canna-abundance, canna-fever and there’s no shortage.”
A timely reminder – The Risks of Driving under the influence of cannabis; cocaine; ecstasy…
https://t.co/b2Jcr9qRw7 #ArriveAlive #Dagga pic.twitter.com/AeGVGYBLVY— Arrive Alive (@_ArriveAlive) March 31, 2017
