DTIC Minister Parks Tau said six months ago, that one of his new year priorities was to implement a framework that would allow for the commercial trade in cannabis. His DG, Simphiwe Hamilton said last year that a commercialization policy would be put to Cabinet in April and that it would then be put out for public comment. The Justice Minister said regulations for the Cannabis Act would be finalized this year, but since the deadline for public comment closed on 5 March 2026, there’s been no sign of the final guidelines.
Govt has Retreated Behind a Wall of Silence on the Policy Front
Parliament was given an update of the NCMP on 6 March 2026 (at which meeting the Justice Department reaffirmed its views the private cannabis clubs are illegal and there was no intention to legalize them in terms of the Cannabis Act).
At that meeting, MP’s on the Parliamentary Portfolio on Trade Industry and Competition noted that a draft bill would need to be put to the legislature before the session closed in June, if it was to be passed in 2027. They also promised to get stakeholder input before drafting a final law governing trade in cannabis and related products.
Since then, there have only been echoes of silence from Government as yet again loses its the grip on the reform process.
In the wake of last year’s disastrous hemp industry ban fiasco, there was some optimism in the industry that government was sincere about acting urgently and transparently in producing clear guidelines. However, SA Cannabis Development Council chair Gareth Prince, believes there is ‘no good faith’ on government’s part.
“The Department of Justice could have amended the Drugs Act eight years ago, the day the Constitutional Court ruling that legalized use and possession. They could have removed cannabis from the Act then”, Prince told me at the Cannabis Expo, “Why are they still stalling?”
The point has repeatedly been made by stakeholders that no meaningful reform can take place as long as cannabis continues to be defined as a narcotic, and until it is removed from the Drugs Act, there will be no serious private sector investment in either the hemp or cannabis industries.
Writing in Cannabiz Africa, cannabis influencer Rory Keane Young says that the reform is being implemented piece-meal and that legislators need to look at the bigger picture: “Most importantly, the eventual law must include the whole route to market. From cultivation and aggregation to processing, transport, clubs and retail, every legitimate role in the chain should be recognised. A legal system that protects only the capitalised end of the market will preserve illegality by design. Inclusion is not charity; it is the only realistic path to shrinking the black market.”
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All the Action is Off-Script
Yet while there appears to be implementation paralysis on government’s part, there is plenty of action happening off-script – and it does not bode well for the DTIC, which is lead partner in implementing cannabis reform.
· There is a serious legal challenge underway on the Cannabis Act by veteran activist Gareth Prince, who has called the legislation a “slap in the face for the dagga community” – the likelihood of the Act coming into being this year, is receding;
· Cannabis arrests continue apace with 200 000 reported last year, according to Prince, who launched an urgent application to halt such arrests in April this year. The application has become bogged down in court processes and will only be heard again on 31 July 2026.
· Prince has also said the SACDC’s participation in the National Cannabis Steering Committee has been a “waste of time”, and that he no longer believes Government is acting in good faith;
· The DTIC’s hopes of being able to introduce ‘interim measures’ to regulate the ‘Grey Zone’ appear to be fading as the Small Business Development Department is reluctant to include cannabis licensing in the new Business Act due to be published in the next few months;
· The Department of Health has not issued the draft regulations on cannabis and foodstuffs that it promised over 12 months ago, even though the SA Medical Research Council has drawn them up;
· Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen made no mention of hemp in his recent budget speech and there appears to be no budget allocation at a national level for hemp development;
· Operation Vulindlela, which the President tasked four years ago with fast-tracking the regulatory bottlenecks facing the cannabis industry, does not even mention cannabis on its web-site, and
· Crucially, legacy growers and cannabis communities remain locked out of the legal framework, four years after the President said they were to be the main beneficiaries of cannabis reform.
In the meantime, the cannabis retail ‘Grey Zone’ is expanding rapidly, beyond government control, and this is likely to continue for at least the next 12 months. Canna-Connect salespeople told me at the Expo that their market research indicated there were 6 000 cannabis outlets in Gauteng alone – thus the scramble by point-of-sale service providers for market share that is unfolding now.
No Hope for Any New Cannabis Law Before 2028
The TIC Parliamentary Portfolio handling cannabis, responsible for drafting a commercial cannabis bill to put to the legislature, has not had a single meeting since March 2026 as far as Cannabiz Africa can ascertain. The MP’s who were meant to be debating that Bill during the current session will rise for the recess at the end of June.
Now that the legislative deadline has almost passed to enact new cannabis legislation for next year, the soonest the industry can realistically expect the ‘omnibus’ cannabis act that the DTIC is working on, is during the course of 2028.
The Cannabis Act is also likely to remain out of the picture for the rest of the year. Theoretically, the Act could come into force tomorrow if the final regulations are published in the Government Gazette, but whenever it is published, it’s now almost certain it will be contested on constitutional grounds, now that the Prince legal case is underway.
The long and the short of it is that government has lost control of the cannabis reform process which is now in the hands of the courts – again. Prince’s Western Cape High Court urgent application has taken away the proverbial ‘whip hand’ from the government and handed it to the judiciary. This is likely to further erode government’s capacity to implement any regulatory measures in the short-term and the cannabis sector should expect no further clarity on rules for the local market in the foreseeable future.
Nor should there be any expectation of a halt to cannabis arrests any time soon.
Cannabis Summit organizer Trenton Birch agrees government does not appear to have the political clout to implement reform and is not unduly surprised by it missing its own deadlines.
He tells Cannabiz Africa that this puts extra responsibility on the private sector.
“It is time for our industry to grow up. We need to hold people accountable for their actions, mobilise, formalise and self-regulate. The government is never going to push this industry forward, that is crystal clear and while we demand that they enable us, we should expect no more. If we want to become the global powerhouse for Cannabis & hemp, that we have the potential to be, then we need to collaborate, share knowledge and pull our socks up ! “
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