“I am a village kid through and through by all means,” the entrepreneurial diva says with the diction of the Queen’s English and speaks of her inspiration by indigenous botanicals and her natural products that don’t use chemicals. “I’m inspired by a bit of activism as I’ve been involved over the years with cannabis.”
If philosophers place a premium on examining ideas in their phenomenological light, historians do occasionally explain heroic figures as nothing more than products of the incidental: being in the right place, at the right time.
This anecdote somewhat explains Philasande’s success story as a stalwart of the Eastern Cape cannabis scene but there’s a caveat: she singularly seized the moment and directed the tide of events to her fruitful favour.
“Being a woman in it is not easy, being an African in it is not easy; it’s a journey,” she remarks, reflecting on the metaphorical distance travelled thus far as cannabis activist and entrepreneur.
Her professional story starts in Johannesburg and Durban, having trained in the former as a filmmaker and then tried her hand at the trade in the 2000s. On decamping home to the Eastern Cape, however, she discovered that filmmaking as a profession had yet to find a foothold.
She found herself in a different space and morphed from being a philosopher of the camera lens à la Alfred Hitchcock to a philosopher of plants. “The year 2015 ended with me working at a friend’s nursery. From about a week after the start of my involvement with the nursery I was obsessed. I went into cultivating plants, observing how they behaved and what their requirements were.” She honed her knowledge of therapeutics and other plant properties and by 2009 she no longer was a worker but an owner of the nursery.
This background is instrumental to her station as a recognised businesswoman, activist and public speaker in the cannabis sector.
Her range of cosmetics has proved a hit with consumers looking to maintain good skin health in tropical conditions. “People are loving the products’ effects on the skin and are coming back for more. I formulated my products with the intention of assisting those with conditions such as acne, eczema and others. I have developed a constant routine in my formulation”. She is pursuing the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) within the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSI), to assist with the technical and scientific support for her formulations, as they have an indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) division.
Her plant-based oil cosmetics and health products use among others the popular traditional plant mpepho (Helichrysum petiolare) and the cannabis sativa plant.
Consumers just can’t get enough
From body butter, lip balm, massage oils for pain relief and incidentally, proven ideal as a mosquito repellant as well, the line of health products is quite impressive. It includes dried botanicals for steaming face and body as well as chest ailments; throw in spiritual cleansing into the bargain, and the health offering is quite extensive.
“I like working with mpepho as it has also satisfied the scientific standard over and above its popularity as a divining plant. It’s an excellent skin fixer, it’s anti-infection, anti-bacterial and anti-allergy.”
She’s concerned about soil erosion, the extinction of certain plant species and other environmental hazards and intends to reach out to traditional healers and other harvesters to share awareness around sustainable harvesting.
A detour as a farm manager in Umzimkhulu overseeing the growing of fruit trees and vegetables has also been instrumental in shaping her current worldview and abilities.
Each new space, another stepping stone and asset gained, so has been her professional trajectory. This is amply illustrated by her return to Eastern Cape in 2005, living among traditional growers in Port St. Johns. “At that time the price of cannabis was dicey and people were looking for new varieties. People were occasionally coming across certain gem seeds.” However, cloning was a novelty the growers had to learn from her.
It was here that she also earned her stripes as an activist, as a member of a pioneering group resisting the destruction of cannabis by SA Police Service spraying helicopters. Called Umzimvubu Farmers Support Network, the group, led by attorney member Ricky Stone, seminally won a case against the SAPS in the High Court in Mkhondo (formerly Grahamstown). “It was an ongoing exercise that was systematic, aimed at a certain time when harvests were due. They were doing this consistently.” From that time on “we never saw helicopters in Eastern Cape and KZN come to spray the plant again.”
However, the privacy ruling of 2018 had members in her circle sit tight, especially the proviso that restricted the number of plants per individual to four. Many envisaged the return of the dreaded spraying helicopters but thankfully, there was no return to the dark days.
Nevertheless, the green-lighting of recreational use brought new challenges. To some, establishment stakeholders not excluded, it appeared a new cannabis industry had arisen. It did not sit well for Philasande and her comrades that they found themselves sidelined by a burgeoning and segmented cannabis market enabled by the mainstreaming of a thriving commercial sector that seemed to overshadow those who had toiled in the underground during the era of total prohibition, as they saw it. The voices of traditional growers were now drowning in a euphoric haze of pseudo-liberation, complicated by an opaque regulatory framework.
This further sharpened Philasande’s consciousness, leading to her co-founding of the community-based Abalimi Bomya [Cannabis Growers] Association. “We said ‘let us form a voice for farmers to speak for themselves’, a vehicle to tackle the various challenges across the legal framework. It looked as if people were making their plans on our behalf. I’m not saying it is wrong. We have a lot of organisations that sympathise with us. But they were basing their plans on our existence. We have our own plans as the indigenous growers.”
One of the push factors for the association’s emergence was the safeguarding of local strains. “We want to preserve our indigenous genetics, which are pretty much endangered. They are being left behind. The only value is medicinal and their being cultivated for recreational purposes.” Philasande believes more uses can be researched as these strains have a centuries-old history in the region. There was need to ensure their continued survival with assistance from government.
“We need government’s help to process and manufacture. Right now the licensing system is unattainable for us.” Philasande expresses a wish that the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) wraps up and inaugurates a binding policy framework. “It’s been a long journey,” she says, considering legalisation came way back in 2018.
However, legalisation has not been universally welcomed by the indigenous growers amid high suspicions prices will drop further.”Most of the members have been used to cultivating only for the flower. Government backing can help broaden the horizon and assist in branching out into medicinal, edibles and the industrial.” An awareness drive is therefore essential for farmers to enjoy the full spectrum of offerings across the value chain, like counterparts in Nepal and California, she reflects. “Working with the dtic might help to open up things,” she says.
In the interim, Ncebakazi Galada’s Township Cannabis Incubator (TCI) has proved very helpful. Philasande is grateful for the marketing assistance and exposure the TCI partnership has enabled. Instrumental in the partnership is the Mpondoland Cannabis Belt Association (MCBA), which Philasande helped co-found in 2023. “We consolidated the historic dagga-growing belt, mobilising farmers from nine different municipalities, including Alfred Nzo and O.R. Tambo. We incorporated areas not necessarily in the growing belt proper, such as the King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality.”
The association includes growers from Bizana, Ntabankulu, Flagstaff, Lusikisiki, Port St. Johns and Nyandeni and works closely with the Eastern Cape Rural Development Agency (ECRDA) where Dr Sunshine Blouw is the project manager for cannabis development. Its strength was on display at the 2025 Cannabis Expo held in Sandton in May where quite a few MCBA members were among the exhibitors.
“It was the first time that we were able to exhibit at the Expo. Instead of popping up as a single entity, we showed up as a collective from the Eastern Cape and a lot of people took very nicely to it.”
The drawn out process to solidify cogent policy is uppermost on her mind for now. To some of her members, it’s a perpetuation of the trauma of the flying helicopters. “The traumas that people are living through are real. They cannot just vanish or be swept under the carpet.” The well-resourced seemed to be faring better running cannabis clubs and retail outlets while the poorest suffered the most by the delay of a solid legal framework. “As civil society, we need to take our campaign to government and make sure government prioritises a commercialisation framework that suits our needs as traditional growers. It’s taking too long.”
The voice of the activist echoes, subsuming that of the entrepreneur and with that, the exclusive Cannabiz Africa interview comes to an end.
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