Speaking during a panel discussion on cannabis and environmental issues at the ICS 2026 event at UCT Law School on 26 June 2026, Ricky Stone (pictured here) of Cullinans and Associates said that it made no sense for a country like South Africa, with abundant sunshine and land, to fashion its medical cannabis legislation around artificial cultivation practices.
“How did we get to this situation?” asked the Eastern Cape lawyer who specializes in cannabis and environmental issues. “Growing outdoor cannabis is 50 times more environmentally friendly. People don’t like the advice I give, because it’s what they don’t want to hear. The medical cannabis framework is a façade. Most medical cannabis patients are signing up for access to recreational cannabis. Most cannabis consumed is for general adult use, not to treat a medical condition. We should call out these shams”
Stone said that the reality is that most cannabis flower being consumed in the country is for ‘recreational’ or self-medication purposes, and this would best be served within an outdoor cultivation regulatory framework.
Such a system would allow legacy growers to be legalized fairly easily. “Then indigenous people would have a place in the sector. They could be ‘grandfathered into the legal system”.
Stone said South Africa ran the risk of “destroying ancient practices by not designing regulations around them”. He said that by making “outdoor the default”, the thousands of traditional growers could be incorporated into the mainstream in a way that also served social justice. He said cannabis rights and human rights were interlocked and from a policy perspective should be treated as such.
He said there was increasing evidence of the crucial role that sunlight played in unlocking the medicinal benefits of cannabis and that it made no sense for South Africa to base its licensing systems on indoor cultivation.
Stone said that from an environmental perspective, outdoor cultivation had a lower impact on the environment, unless it was prohibited, in which case the danger of indigenous forests or bush being destroyed by outlaw growers became a risk. He pointed out that SAHPRA licenses did not require any environmental assessment impact assessment whereas traditional farmers had developed sustainable practices over generations.
“From an environmental perspective, we are facing a critical choice here” said Stone. To base a system on indoor as opposed to outdoor has far-reaching consequences down the line”.
His fellow panelist, Christophe Lardinois (aka ‘Kris Kongo’), who’s documentary film on cannabis versus mining development in Mpondoland premiered at ICS2026, agreed and said this was a problem throughout Africa.
Sunshine was a crucial part of agriculture generally, he said, and the same should apply to cannabis. “You don’t farm cattle under artificial light!”.
He said the DRC was entering the international medical cannabis market by licensing indoor facilities only and this was not ecologically or economically sustainable.
“How can parts of Kinshasa be put in the dark to keep an indoor facility electrified when the DRC has so much sunshine?” he asked.
Panelist Peter Nel, founder of GES Labs in the Cape, was in strong agreement that an outdoor cultivation framework was the most environmentally sustainable model for the future.
He said the conventional wisdom that indoor cultivation for medical cannabis was the only pathway did not square against reality. By way of example, he pointed out that FW Holdings, one of the UK’s biggest medical cannabis grow ops, was entirely outdoor.
Stone said that international cannabis regulations had been influenced by the economic interests of giant corporates: “Cannabis is a teacher plant, the corporate lens distorts that. But how you retrofit regulations? That is the question!”
Stone said he remained hopeful about the regulatory future in South Africa. “There is movement” he said. “For a start there has been innovation around the Plant Improvement Act and I think Government is sensitive to the dynamics of what is going on”.
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