Four years into the National Cannabis Master Plan it’s become clear that government has lost control of cannabis reform. There has been little to show since the DTIC was appointed lead department to drive commercialization in August 2024, and it’s time for government to change its approach.
That’s the view of Professor David Katurere, one of South Africa’s leading cannabis researchers based at the Tshwane University of Technology, where he also heads the TUT/CSIR Cannabis and Hemp Research Hub. He has proposed six steps that Government needs to take before to get cannabis reform back on track, and one of them is the urgent establishment of a Central Cannabis Authority to regulate the sector.
Katurere proposes the following action steps that Government urgently needs to take to regain control of the sector:
1. Clarify the legal difference between hemp and cannabis
2. Enforce existing laws, don’t just add new ones
3. Support hemp farming for economic and social development
4. Create a centralised cannabis regulatory authority
5. Raise the THC limit for hemp
6. Set clear limits on cannabinoids in food
The DTIC envisages setting up an overarching cannabis regulator but its processes are agonizingly slow and legislation effecting such an institution is likely to surface in 2027 at the earliest.
Prof Katurere says the establishment of an independent CCA with vested powers over policy, licensing, regulation and powers of enforcement would cut through the multi-departmental fracas that is paralysing government’s ambitions to make cannabis a new sunrise sector.
He wrote in ehealth News on 7 October 2025 that :“At the moment, cannabis regulation is divided between the departments of Health, Agriculture, and Trade in addition to the medicine regulator and the police. A single, well-organised agency could streamline licensing, production, sale and exports. This would attract investors and reduce policy uncertainty – as seen in countries like Malawi and more, recently, Botswana” says Prof Katarure.
“Such an agency should be multi-sectoral in structure, including public health experts, agronomists, smallholder farmer associations, indigenous knowledge holders, and trade policy specialists to ensure inclusive and science-based governance. It should also establish a unified national register for hemp and cannabis operators to improve traceability and compliance”
The precedent has already been set by almost every other African country intent on legalizing cannabis. The establishment of a dedicated cannabis authority to oversee the sector has been the first logical step in reforms in Morocco, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Lesotho.
Botswana, which passed its first cannabis laws in September 2025 is setting up a central authority before embarking on widespread licensing.
Meanwhile, South Africa remains stuck without such an apex institution, even though its formation is on the DTIC’s cards.
