Friends of Hemp South Africa (FOHSA) has appealed to Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau to intervene in the growing row over the cannabis-infused foodstuff ban.

This follows calls from stakeholders across the cannabis and hemp industries for the ban to be rescinded. Friends of Hemp co-founder Ayanda Bam says the restrictions on the sale of hemp seeds, flour and oils are “wholly unnecessary, unjustifiable and unconstitutional”.

DTIC and Presidency must sort this out

In a statement released on 14 March 2024, FOHSA said:

“We call on the Minister of Health, Honourable Dr Aaron Motsoaledi to withdraw this ban immediately. We extend this demand to Minister Parks Tau, as convenor and chair of the Cannabis Inter-Ministerial Committee and President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has promised, from 2019 up to as recently as last month’s SONA, to fully liberalize this priority sector”.

The statement continues: “Business has worked closely and collaboratively with government and other social partners to realize a sustainable local hemp industry. Such unilateral decisions erode faith in government as a trustworthy partner and exposes the government to unnecessary claim for damages, some of them irrevocable.

'Ready to litigate'

“The cannabis/hemp industry prefers to avoid “policy by litigation’, but we are mobilized and ready to challenge this ban in court of necessary. We encourage all affected parties and reasonable South Africans to voice their concerns and join our efforts in challenging this unjust decision.

Bam says there is a “deafening silence around the possible reasons for this decision” which is based on an emergency provision in the outdated Foodstuffs Act.

“In the absence of the DoH’s explanation of what such emergency is and why such announcement was signed by the Minister on January 16th but only gazetted over a month later, on March 7th, we can only conclude that this ban is intentionally ill-informed and perpetuates the DoH’s persistent, and public prohibitionist stance towards the South African cannabis/hemp industry” said Bam.

“This ban flies against stated national policy and Presidential prioritization and simply has no place in democratic South African law or economy”.

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