Pictured here: Zambian cannabis regulator Dr Prosper Sievu and film-maker and DRC cannabis expert Kris Kongo at ICS 2026
The crystal clear message emerging from the high level international policy think tank that took place in Cape Town last week, is that global cannabis legalization has been hijacked by multinational interests of the Global North, and unless the Global South takes action to counter a skewed regulatory environment the potential for their people to enjoy the plant’s benefits will never be realized.
ICS 2026’s theme was Back to Basics, and the three day event held at UCT Law School from 25 – 27 June 2026, was an ambitious exercise in re-imagining cannabis policies to benefit people rather than the interests of Big Pharma.
In a nutshell, ICS 2026 was a gathering of powerful and influential individuals, united by both a passion for the plant and a desire to see a dramatic reconfiguration of the global rule book.
The high level panel led by US cannabis policy specialist Prof Garrett I. Halydier, in discussion with global economist Beau Whitney and the ‘Cansigliere’, Bob Hogan of Greenbridge Proven Strategies, succinctly unpacked the rationale for why a reconfiguration of the rules is essential for the long-term sustainability of developing world cannabis economies.
Hoban said bluntly that cannabis regulations throughout the world were imperfect, and that local policymakers should study cannabis reform through the lens of what doesn’t work, rather than copy other models. He said the missing link in most regulations was how to incorporate social justice into the equation and emphasized that public health safety was increasingly important in developing cannabis guidelines he saidand the notion of justice and
The panelists all agreed that as cannabis legalization continued its march across the world, there’s a growing divide between the interests of the cannabis countries of the Global North (North America, the UK, Europe and Israel) and those of the Global South (Africa, South America and Thailand) with Australia and New Zealand somewhere in-between.
The pattern that’s emerged is that the corporate giants of the Global North have had a disproportionate influence in shaping the regulations that have been adopted by the countries of the developing world. Regulators in the Global South have bought into the concept that Europe is the ultimate cannabis market and have implemented export-orientated policies that undermine the development of domestic markets.
This has resulted in regulations that create high barriers to entry for local market participants with capital-intensive compliance requirements and expensive license fees. The outcome is that local farmers are locked out of the upstream value chain.
Simplistically put, it is in the interests of the Global North for an international regulatory environment whereby it can extract cheap biomass from the Global South, add the value through processing, thereby boosting its own economies and rewarding its own stakeholders who export finished products back to the nations that provided the raw resources in the first place.
Ras Gareth Prince, chair of SA Cannabis Development Council made the point repeatedly through the conference that Africa’s leaders should be deeply sensitive to the history of resource extraction from the continent, which had been a systematic part of its relationship with the outside world since the days of slavery. And yet, he warned, that by copying first world regulations for their cannabis industries was tantamount to falling into the same trap again.
Speaker after speaker at the conference emphasized the importance of new cannabis jurisdictions focusing on local market development and not to base their policies on satisfying European medical cannabis market requirements only.
In his opening address, the ‘godfather’ of US cannabis, Steve D’Angelo, founder of the One Plant Alliance, said South Africa and the Global South should work more closely to develop their own trade in cannabis to reduce reliance on the Global North. He said three ‘golden pillars’ were critical to developing cannabis policies for local markets:
1. Test products – consumers need to know they are safe;
2. Accurate labelling and packaging – the products going into the market need to be what they say they are;
3. Promote diversity – encourage the development of different genetics and growing cultures and to avoid channelling all product through EU GMP facilities which removed critical elements such as sunlight and soil.
D’Angelo said these ‘golden pillars’ were universal and should serve as regulatory foundations in all countries legalizing cannabis.
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