Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade.

Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products.

Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future.

eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen.

cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities.

Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export.

Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters.

eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition.

All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation

The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market.

A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time

The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent.