It’s not clear when the Justice Department will release the long-awaited regulations that will empower the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 2024. The Department has been sitting on them since the Act was signed off by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2023 and has been promising for at least six months that they would be released 'soon'.

However, that 'soon' is likely to be a little later as the proposed regulations will first have to be run past the public before they are gazetted - as per last week's instruction by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Only when the regulations are gazetted will the CfPPA come into law.  

Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber asked Paul Michael Keichel of Cullinan and Associates what the significance of Cabinet announcing that public input will be sought before the CfPPA regulations are gazetted?

PMK:  It is significant in that it is government doing the right thing. These regulations will provide detail to laws that will bind us - and which could possibly have our conduct criminalised.

So, part of the social contract involves that we should debate these things between government and business/civiilians before they are implemented, or just sprung on us. 

BHB: What are the most contentious parts of the anticipated regulations? 

PMK: I must speculate, as I do not know what they will look like beyond some hunches, but I should think those would be the prescribed maximums, as also whether they will be per person with an interest in cannabis, or per private property. If it is per private property, that would create difficulties, whereas per person with an in interest in cannabis would be more grounded in reality. 

BHB: Does comment on the CFPPA open up the debate for a commercial framework? 

PMK: If there will be debate, it should be pursuant to what will trail section 1(2) of the CfPPA, which I do not think that these regulations should address. It’s a discussion separate from the scope of the CfPPA, which regulates personal and private cultivation and use – being the opposites of ‘commercial’ or ‘open trade’.  

BHB: What can the industry realistically expect this year in terms of the legislative reform process? 

PMK: I don’t wish to venture a guess, as I’ve been cautiously optimistic before, but have then been proven naïve/wrong. Ask government, haha!  

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