Cian McLelland (pictured above) is passionate about plant medicine. With his partners, he’s translated that passion into Druids Garden, a multi-purpose cultivation facility, healing centre and research hub in Gauteng. He has been instrumental in shaping the cannabis debate over the past few years; not known for holding back on his forthright opinions.

BHB: Is this Afrobotanical thing for real?

CM: South Africa has one of the largest and most diverse selection of powerful healing plants and Afrobotanicals are a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the local and international trend away from pharma and back to natural medicine.

We presented a paper on some of our products, and sat on a panel discussion at the African Phytomedicine Scientific Society Symposium at the Cape Town ICC in October and i was shocked and encouraged by how many countries attended and are looking at South Africa to lead a worldwide return to natural medicines.

The silver lining of Covid is that it made people realize that Big Pharma is not really interested in healing.

BHB: Biotika products are founded on ‘ancient healing traditions’. What does this actually mean?

CM: ‘Founded on ancient healing traditions’ means that all of the ingredients in the Biotika products are plants that have been used in traditional medicines for millennia, mostly from SA, but some from Asia. We have taken that ancient indigenous knowledge and blended it with science to formulate products that far surpass the original traditional medicines, and we make them in pharma grade facilities.

The 'functional mushrooms' are all from Asia, except for Black Hoof that is indigenous to SA. It is ancient and thought to have originated in Pangea as it is found on many continents. That is the only local mushroom in our products, except for the 2 psilocybin strains: Natal Super Strength and African Transkei….but those are unfortunately only available in Canada for now.

BHB: How did you come up with the Biotika concept and what was involved in the product development?

CM: The Biotika products have been developed from age old African and Asian healing plants that are integral parts of their Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and have also been verified by rigorous testing by academic and scientific organisations.

Our research partners are the African Cultural Heritage Trust, the largest IKS organization in SA, the CSIR, University of Pretoria, University of Free State and University of Johannesburg. All have done incredible research work on the healing properties of indigenous plants, including landrace cannabis.

We have included their previous research into our knowledge base, and have also been doing new research and product development in partnership with them.

BHB: Who’s your target market?

CM: Our target market is quite diverse from malnourished school children to aging adults with libido challenges. We provide superfoods and supplements to get and keep you healthy, and then medicine to treat your dis-eases.

BHB: You plan on introducing a new product every month, which sounds like a lot – what’s the strategy in rolling out Biotika?

CM: We are launching a new product every month, yes. We have so many that we want to share…and that society needs. People are sick and looking for natural, effective and affordable solutions. Unfortunately, a lot of the natural medicines on the market are shit and ineffective. If they are effective they are normally very expensive. We are proving high quality and effective medicine at a very affordable price.”

BHB: Does this signal a shift away from Druid’s focus on cannabis and related-products?

CM: Druid’s has always been a natural medicine company and had a range of traditional medicines long before we venture into hemp and cannabis. We have been somewhat distracted by hemp and cannabis over the past few years and the launch of the Biotika range signals a shift in focus back to the broader field of modernized traditional medicine.

Note that hemp and cannabis are traditional medicines and a part of our treatment tool box. We will still continue our research and product development with these hemp and cannabis, particularly the blending of them with other healing plants to address serious and treatable diseases that are a scourge to SA and the world like cancer, diabetes, dementia, epilepsy and many others.

BHB: What Druid’s products are up next?

CM: Our next products will be culinary: teas and coffees, and then after that we will launch some nutritional products to address malnutrition on one end, and obesity on the other.

BHB: What’s your view of the South African cannabis landscape as 2025 takes shape?

CM: My view on the cannabis landscape is that people have been fucking around for far too long.

Industry keeps pointing fingers at government, but they/we are just as much to blame. Certainly these are exciting times and we eagerly await for the DTIC’s new commercialization framework to be released before I could really comment further.

There are so many strands to the industry that the question would better be answered over a long cup of coffee.

BHB: How is this environment affected Druids?

CM: Druids has been really struggling due to too much focus on medical cannabis. Load shedding and general unstable power in our area has caused chaos and meant that we sled make export grade.

Europe and may others have made it more difficult for SA producers so that they can protect their local markets from cheaper SA flower. We need the local market to open up and develop its value chain and not just sport raw materials, or our industry will be dead in the water.

BHB: The planned introduction of hemp into Mpondoland raises all sorts of issues about compromising landraces through cross pollination and what that means to legacy farmers. What is your take on Mpondoland?

CM: Pondoland must keep growing its landraces (even if they have been contaminated with Cheese). Zoning is critical to reduce pollen drift from hemp, but the hemp should also be landrace based and feminized to reduce risk of cross pollination, especially in shoulder areas. The provision of local seeds is actually the biggest challenge facing the local hemp industry. We have bred a landrace and hemp cross, Mike Laws from Durban has done amazing work breeding a landrace for industrial hemp, another are others too, but we have all not been able to register them.

BHB: How do you think SA should approach the development of an industrial cannabis sector? Should there be geographical restrictions on where hemp should be planted?

CN: There are some places in SA that are perfect to grow medicinal/adult use cannabis and they should keep hemp out of there. There is a lot of land that is not great for cannabis but good for hemp, so there is no need for them to be on top of each other.

BHB: You feel strongy about landrace?

CM: Landrace, landrace, landrace is our future for food, medicine and many industrial applications. They are acclimatized, grow faster and bigger, are pest and disease resistant and require much less water than foreign varieties.

BHB: Everyone appears to have a personal life-changing or defining moment in their cannabis journey. Is there one that you would care to share?

CM: My life changing moment was sipping cannabis tea at age 13 and knowing that this plant would have a profoundly positive effect on my life, and that of many other too.

BHB: Where are Biotika Products available?

CM: The products are only on our website now, but we will start distribution to the Greenside, CannaClainic-SA, Eardleaf in Cape Town. We are planning a major push over the next 2 months to cannabis clubs and retail stores for them to transition to become Health & Wellness stores. This offers more to their customers, diversifies revenue and takes some legal heat off them.

People can contact Cian McLelland at cian@druidsgarden.co.za

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