Some people hear “cannabis” and think this is simply about people wanting to smoke weed.
It isn’t.
Look at Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, an IFP MP and constitutional lawyer who challenged the criminalisation of medical cannabis in Parliament while battling terminal cancer.
His fight became part of the political and constitutional journey that led to the 2018 Constitutional Court judgment declaring the criminalisation of private adult cannabis use unconstitutional.
Parliament then had to change the law.
That’s politics.
But today’s question is bigger:
Who owns the cannabis economy?
Who gets the licences?
Who gets finance?
Who owns the land?
Who cultivates, processes and manufactures?
Who exports?
And most importantly:
Where are the people who were criminalised by prohibition in this new economy?
Cannabis reform must go beyond private use and address the economic exploitation and ownership of cannabis.
Because what good is legalisation if small farmers can’t access finance?
What good is it if township entrepreneurs can’t enter the formal market?
And what good is it if rural communities have land but no licences, infrastructure or market access?
And what good is it if those who were criminalised remain consumers while those with capital become the owners?
Legalisation without economic transformation is not liberation.
Cannabis is connected to:
• Land
• Black ownership
• Jobs
• Small farmers
• Township economies
• Rural development
• Criminal justice
• Economic freedom
Ambrosini helped bring the cannabis question into Parliament.
The Constitutional Court challenged prohibition.
Now we must fight over who benefits from what comes next.
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