South Africa occupies a unique position in the rapidly developing legal cannabis market. With a government that seeks to legalize and develop the cannabis and hemp sectors as a sunshine industry and a private and community sector desperately willing to engage, this should be a match made in heaven. Yet the country finds itself in a regulatory quagmire with market forces, both legal and illegal, now in control. Cannabiz Africa is your front row on the torturous journey towards a regulated adult-use commercial market.
South Africa’s rapidly growing cannabis sector faces a new wave of criminal opportunism as counterfeiters exploit grey-market retail channels to sell fake cannabis products disguised as legitimate medical brands.
SAPS Phoenix says it is to begin clamping down on unregulated cannabis outlets and has warned the public that although it is legal to consume cannabis privately, there can be no commercial trade in cannabis flowers or edibles.
Cannabis entrepreneurs be warned: SAPS and the Justice Department still see you as the enemy. In one of the clearest signs yet that the security cluster does not buy into the reform process, a Secunda man has been sentenced to five years with the option of a R100 000 fine for producing cannabis oil.
‘Narcos South Africa’ must be a frontrunner for the next Netflix series as the depth of Mexican infiltration into the South African underworld emerges from the revelations emerging from the Madlanga Commission and ongoing police seizures of cocaine shipments and drug-producing factories in the platteland.
Cannabis has become such a part of the contemporary urban landscape that it’s become the New Normal. Tolerance has led to complacency around law enforcement, but hey, this is South Africa. The rest of the rest of the world can be a dangerous place for cannabis users, like Indonesia, where a US basketball player may face the death penalty for being in possession of gummies.
Four significant South African cannabis associations have banded together to establish a paradigm-shifting model that connects legacy growers to private clubs. Project Indlela is being pitched jointly by The CannaClub, SACCA, SACHIDA and MBOSA to the DTIC to recognize an ‘Indigenous Knowledge Systems Sandbox Pilot Project’ in the Eastern Cape.
The illegal cannabis market, with an estimated value of around R36 billion, is about 77 times the size of the current legal market. That’s according to Euromonitor, which says a third of the illegal market could be brought into the tax net if government put the right regulations in place.
Euromonitor’s Christopher Day says that despite the lack of clear regulations, the private club movement is shaping South African cannabis culture and breaking down stigmas of social acceptability.
A well-known courier company is said to be under investigation after this week’s major cannabis bust in Linbro Park, Gauteng. JMPD officers allegedly found evidence of company’s packaging during their raid in which 52 bales of cannabis with an estimated street value of R21 million was seized.
Labat has abruptly shown its external auditors the door, blaming them for its failure to submit the group’s latest financials to the JSE on time. Labat has appointed a new company to bring its books up to date as the threat of share trading suspension looms.
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