The National Cannabis Master Plan (NCMP) was released with great fanfare on 26 August 2021, with the promise of job creation, poverty elimination and increased revenue for the fiscus. Instead it has become the main obstacle to cannabis reform as it is completely out of touch with reality. It has failed spectacularly in representing the interests of legacy growers and the rural poor or facilitate collaboration between different Government departments.
Instead of a burgeoning sunrise sector as envisaged by the Soviet-styled grand plan, cannabis reform has turned into a cesspit of criminality that has become a free-for-all.
Despite the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition being appointed the lead Ministry in implementing the Plan it remains stuck in interdepartmental bureaucracy with the Justice Department being the main culprit.
After the fiasco earlier this year of the ban on hemp foodstuffs, President Ramaphosa promised that no regulations would be passed without stakeholder comment. There are three sets of regulations that are in the pipeline, but none have yet been aired for public comment:
· Regulations empowering the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act of 2024 – Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has set a deadline for end February 2026 for these to be ‘finalized’; the regulations themselves are less significant than the fact that as soon as they are gazetted, cannabis falls outside the scope of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act of 1992.
· Regulations governing the commercial trade in cannabis: The DTIC finalized its draft commercial framework on 3 June 2025 but has only engaged with select players and is yet to release the document officially for public comment.
· Regulations governing the use of cannabis in foodstuff: the Health Department was instructed to draft a set of regulations back in March 2025 and publish them for stakeholder input. There has been no word from the Health Department despite the urgency with which the ban was introduced and then rescinded.
The DTIC says it is waiting for the Justice Department to come to the party. It says it cannot draw up a new law allowing cannabis to be bought and sold within a regulated framework until such time as the Drugs Act is removed from the equation.
In the meantime the Act is still being used to target dealers, whether they are attempting to comply with the existing contradictory regulations or outright gangsters.
The SAPS directive of August 2023 aimed to curtail cannabis arrests has all but been ignored.
The National Prosecuting Authority has for over 12 months promised to issue updated guidelines on handling cannabis transgressions, but this is yet to happen.
In the meantime the cannabis sector has become criminalized, possibly beyond repair, possibly just like the ANC itself.
In the absence of Government leadership, cannabis has liberated itself in a myriad of ways, operating what is best described as the retail ‘Grey Zone’ where transactions are dressed up as medical cannabis prescriptions or private club ‘withdrawals’ or in the main, just sold like any other commodity.
The long and the short of it is that Government has had seven years to give regulatory effect to the Constitutional Court ruling legalizing the private consumption of cannabis and has failed to do so. The NCMP should have had the Concourt ruling at the heart of its cannabis policy but developed a parallel process that avoided the whole issue of legal adult-use consumption.
Now seven years on from the Concourt ruling, four years after the NCMP was launched with much fanfare, a year after the President signed the Cannabis Act into law, the fledgling cannabis economy is in a mess. Millions of rands are passing hands on a daily basis, buying and selling cannabis, almost all of it beyond the control of the state – except for the proverbial ‘bobbies on the beat’.
Right now SAPS is the main regulator of the ‘Grey Zone’ and it’s no secret that extortion is the name of the game. Many stakeholders have voiced concern that the delay in implementing cannabis regulations is deliberate – that rogue SAPS networks are cashing in on the legal vacuum, and worse still, some of their bosses may be heavyweight dealers in cannabis and other drugs.
The Madlala Commission of Inquiry into allegations of drug dealing amongst senior security cluster officials is likely to reveal more. It has, however, been delayed by…..the Department of Justice which has not yet set up the necessary infrastructure.
The extent of the lack of Government control is evident in the revelations from Thohoyandou prison that Correctional Services management, in collusion with inmates and certain suppliers, had a large-scale distribution operation going. The DCS is investigating how cannabis was bought into the prison grounds, repackaged and sent out again for sale in the ‘Grey Zone’, but is yet to charge any individual.
It’s clear that the main beneficiaries of cannabis legalization to date have been criminal networks. Indeed it could be argued that Government has effectively criminalized cannabis reform, handicapping legitimate operators and providing lucrative revenue streams for corrupt officials.
Several stakeholders have been questioning whether the delays in implementing coherent regulations for the cannabis sector are a deliberate attempt by elements of the ‘gangster state’ to slow down reform in order to personally profit from the black market.
There is no reason for cheer at the fourth birthday party of the NCMP. The poor thing has become an embarrassment, a victim of arrested development caused by wilful neglect. The NCMP steering committee, loaded with comrades who have no clue about the cannabis industry, has not met since April – or if it has met, it has been in secret.
In its current format the NCMP will become largely irrelevant to the future of the cannabis economy, serving to facilitate the interest of big business at the expense of consumers, legacy growers, small business and township entrepreneurs. The sad reality is that the NCMP is a cut and paste job developed by an ANC led Government that assumes it knows what is best for the people and that social benefit will automatically accrue from old, centralist-thinking master plans.
The NCMP as drawn up by various Government departments is fundamentally flawed because it is not based on reality and has been overtaken by events. Instead of trying to repair a broken concept, the DTIC should go back to the drawing board and come up with a people-centric plan for developing the industry.
The sad reality that the cannabis industry faces, is that the fourth anniversary of the NCMP is no cause for celebration. Rather we should all hold a minute’s silence to reflect on lost opportunity and the continued suppression of a sector that holds so much promise – if only Government could do its job.
On this occasion, would it not be a breath of fresh air if the Government decided the best way forward would be to put the people’s interests first. Scrap the NCMP and rather put in place a framework that protects consumer safety, sets standards for quality control, licenses dispensaries, keeps cannabis out the way of children, and allows for regulated commercial trade and a differentiated medical cannabis sector.
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