Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read More Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read More Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read More Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read More ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read More Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read More Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read More Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read More A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read More Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read More Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read More Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read More There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read More Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read More eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read More The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read More A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read More

BREAKING South African News Cannabiz Africa brings you the hottest breaking South African cannabis news right here! From crucial developments in laws and reform to socio-economic changes in the industry. Find your latest dose of breaking news right here and stay onto of the earliest developments! Wednesday, 19 February 2025 marks 100 years of cannabis prohibition. In 1925, the Geneva Opium Convention declared 'Indian Hemp' as a banned substance. Although there are sweeping gains across the world, the prohibitionist mindset is far from over. Activist Myrtle Clarke, co-founder of FGFA says that unfortunately, when it comes to cannabis legalization, prohibitionist thinking remains alive and well in South Africa. Read The owner of Durban private cannabis club Rooftop 420 has been arrested with three other club managers and all have been charged with illegally selling and distributing THC products four years ago. Read The Lusikisiki Agreement between legacy growers and government agencies has fallen apart before the proverbial ink has dried. Mpondoland farmers have accused Government of breaking its word that no hemp would be introduced into the area without consultation and intends mobilizing local communities to resist Medigrow’s plans to distribute hemp seeds in the area. Read The quiet announcement by the DTICC that product testing will be compulsory in funding applications is hugely significant says Qure's Brenda Marx. She says this requirement signals the start of a standardization process across the industry and will encourage laboratories to work more closely together. Read The DTIC has issued new guidelines for entities seeking funding and has appointed Afriplex, NAFS, Qure and Vinlab as its official cannabis testing labs. The Department says funding applications for product development has to be accompanied by product test results from one of these four service providers. Read The Department of Public Works tore down the ramshackle residence of self-styled King Khoisan SA, this week. This effectively ends the King’s seven year protest occupation at Pretoria’s Union Buildings, where he became a tourist attraction, championing cannabis and indigenous rights. Read Private sector cannabis stakeholders have taken an upbeat view of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s brief reference to cannabis and hemp in last week’s SONA. The fact that the word ‘commercial’ passed the President’s lips, has elicited an initial positive response from a fragmented industry awaiting guidelines on the way forward. Read Since the landmark 2018 Concourt ruling, South African cannabis sector has been shaped by court decisions rather than driven by Government policy-makers. This has resulted in conflicting spheres of influence behind the scenes, the consequence of which is today’s seriously dysfunctional cannabis industry. Read The first hemp seeds have been distributed to a select group of Eastern Cape farmers as part of Medigrow’s ambitious Coega-based industrial cannabis partnership with the provincial government. Read Leading South African cannabis activist, Ras Gareth Prince, says 'whites and Indians' are the main beneficiaries of the cannabis ‘grey zone’ retail boom while police continue their persecution of indigenous communities. He has accused Government of deepening South Africa’s racial divide by its lack of regulation around the cannabis industry. Read In the last week police in Mpumulanga have arrested four men and seized a total of 1,6 tons of cannabis in stop-and-search operations in the area between White River and Louw’s Creek. Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in strategy by moving into the IT space through the acquisition of Classic International Trading. He will be replaced by Irfaan Mohammed, who says the group will be reviewing the risks associated with the cannabis sector and decide on the appropriate way forward. Read Cape Town cannabis lab Eco Green Analytics has entered the traditional medicine research field by partnering with the Pretoria-based Southern Centre for Indigenous Psycho Pharma (SCIPP). It will offer its services to analyse medicines used by traditional healers and psylocibin mushrooms in a quest to unlock the therepeutic benefits of indigenous plants. Read A grassroots initiative between local and central government to develop a cannabis economy in Mpondoland in the Eastern Cape is being spearheaded by the provincial development agency ECRDA. The development has now been formalized with an agreement at Luskisiki that brings together seven municipalities in the heartland of cannabis country into a common cannabis vision. Read Police have arrested two men in a raid on a ‘grey zone’ producer of cannabis and related products outside Newcastle in KZN. They seized a range of consumer products and dismantled a hydroponics lab and processing equipment. Read Medigrow’s billion rand Coega industrial cannabis project gets underway this month as equipment arrives on site in the Eastern Cape and the first hemp seeds are ready for delivery to small-scale rural growers. Read One of South Africa’s key medical cannabis players is pulling its CBD range from the local market completely because of the regulatory morass. Cilo Cybin says until such time as Government issues clear regulatory guidelines for the cannabis industry, it will pursue an export-only strategy. Read Cilo Cybin Holdings has about R60 million in available capital as it goes into the new year. The group has just released its latest financials showing a healthy return on its investment income to date, but now that it has bedded down its assets, shareholders have high hopes this capital will be put to good effect in the year ahead. Read South Africa’s ‘Medical Cannabis Ambassador’, Dr Shiksha Gallow, recently trained and certified 40 doctors in medical cannabis in the Philippines where the practice is generally outlawed. She was keynote speaker at a conference pushing to legalize medical cannabis and urged the Manilla government to accept the legitimacy of cannabis as a healing plant. Read There has never been more choice and greater convenience for South African cannabis consumers than what the retail ‘grey zone’ is offering right now. Although this sector is completely illegal, it has grown rapidly enough for credible consumer behaviour trends to emerge. These are the three to look out for. Read The DTIC must urgently take regulatory action to level the playing field in South Africa's cannabis industry and prevent the ‘wild west’ situation from spiralling further out of control. This is the plea from Silverleaf Investments, which argues that the current ‘grey zone’ is a significant setback for legitimate companies striving to earn an honest income in the cannabis sector. Read Leading agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo (pictured here) has called on South Africa’s provinces to pressurize national government into putting the right regulations in place to develop South Africa’s cannabis industry. Regulations, he emphasizes, are essential to guiding the market in an orderly way. Read King Khoisan SA had become a tourist attraction at Pretoria’s seat of state where for years he paraded semi-naked and grew cannabis in a protest for indigenous rights. Now he has been formally evicted by Public Works only to be badly injured in a car accident in the Eastern Cape Read A quarter of South Africa’s SAHPRA-licensed cannabis growers have been deregistered in the past three months. This reflects the difficulties export cultivators are facing in their struggle to crack international markets, tied-up capital and surplus inventory. Read The SPCA tracked down a Limpopo man, who went viral for smoking dagga from a bong containing a live snake, and got him sentenced for his "reprehensible "actions. Read The South African cannabis industry has gone through a painful few years, constrained by Government’s slow and shambolic approach to regulatory reform. The irony is that to date the ‘grey zone’ appears to have benefitted the most so far from the Constitutional Courts 2018 decision to legalize private consumption, while other sectors of the cannabis economy have lagged behind. So what lies in store for SA cannabis in the year ahead? Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber has a look ahead. Read Police are allegedly targeting Rastafarians and other cannabis users on the N7 highway that serves the Cape West Coast. Veteran cannabis activist Garth Prince says there have been numerous reports that police make the arrests to ‘steal’ the suspects’ cannabis, a practice that has been going on for years. Read The legal swords are being drawn in a new Constitutional Court challenge around plant medicine – this time psilocybin, also known as ‘magic mushrooms’. The apex court application to have psilocybin decriminalized along the same lines as cannabis was lodged last year. Now the State has given notice it intends to fight this as part of its ‘war against drugs’. Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. On 31 December 2024, the JSE lifted its 14 month suspension on the trading of the group’s shares after it finally posted its outstanding financials. Read The ‘grey zone’ domestic cannabis retail market has exploded in 2024 has left regulators trailing in the dust. Although the sale of cannabis illegal unless it’s prescribed under Section 21 of the Medicines Act, thousands of ‘informal’ traders have brazenly opened shop across South Africa’s, selling cannabis flower and a host of related THC and CBD products. Read JSE-listed Cilo Cybin Holdings has just concluded its first major acquisition – the anticipated purchase of CC Pharmaceuticals. The multi-million rand deal will result in CCH taking control of the company’s Gauteng cultivation and processing facility and sets it up for growth in the cannabis healthcare space. Read The South African Human Rights Commission has raised alarms over ongoing arrests of Rastafari and cannabis users despite cannabis being decriminalised in South Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to servicing the domestic market. It’s done so to meet the huge consumer demand generated by its expanding CannAfrica nationwide retail footprint. Read Now that cannabis is to be removed from the Drugs Act, the next big challenge is how it is incorporated into a new National Drug Master Plan. The old one has just expired and a review is underway on how cannabis should be dealt with in substance abuse and crime prevention strategies and laws going forward. Read Central to government’s cannabis development vision is the concept of public/private sector partnerships. One such venture that has successfully emerged in Gauteng is VitaCann Pharm’s incubation by the provincial agriculture department which has turned its Carltonville facility into a fully-fledged export business. Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up to date. It’s lost a ton of money in its quest to be South Africa’s cannabis heavyweight as it tries to find the right business mix to navigate unfavourable regulations. Read The NPA says the Traditional Healers Act is being used as a front for cannabis retail and is illegal. This may be the case now, but there’s a whole debate coming about what constitutes medicine as the Government moves to bring traditional healers into the mainstream via a new set of regulations. Read A young Gauteng entrepreneur, Moishe Schneider, has introduced South American plant medicine into the South African alternative plant therapy scene. He is championing the the Huachuma cactus plant from Peru as a ‘heart opening’ medicine in his initiative, the Healing House. Read KZN’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) has put out a call to prospective hemp farmers in the province who need support, to make contact by the end of January 2025 at any of their local offices. Read Free State University geneticist Dr Marieka Gryzenhout, the author of the first formal study of psilocybin in South Africa, has been recognized by Stanford University as among the top 2 % of scientists in the world. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Who knows what the National Cannabis Master Plan’s Steering Committee is up to? Well, whatever that is they should put it aside immediately to consider an “urgent” request by the Marijuana Board of South Africa to hold an “inquiry” into leading cannabis law firm, Cullinan and Associates in the interests of ‘transparency’. Read President Ramaphosa must think cannabis reform is in for a bit of song and dance because he’s appointed Nelson Mandela’s ‘Imbobgi Yesizwe’ to represent traditional leaders on the National Cannabis Master Plan’s Steering Committee. Read Heaven help any poor prosecutor trying to make sense of “Dagga Shops Dealing in Dagga, a Practical Guide’, prepared by the National Prosecuting Authority in KZN. The document, prohibitionist by nature and confusing in presentation, indicates the NPA’s approach to cannabis offences now that the Drugs Act is on the way out. Read The first signs have emerged that South Africa is heading for a fentanyl crisis. Clinics in KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape report that patients have, for the first time, tested positive for the opioid that has caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States. Read Cheeba Africa has formed a partnership with the Township Cannabis Incubator to set up a cannabis training and market development drive in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. The aim to match skills and business incubation to take on poverty in the heartland of South African cannabis. Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is not half as bad as the previous corresponding period. It’s also changed its company secretary at the insistence of a third party who may provide financial assistance. Read The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act will replace the Drugs Act as the main tool in the Justice Department’s kit to punish cannabis offences – as soon as that law is promulgated. Here’s a summary of the new sanctions contained in the Act Read Section 21 of the Medicines Act is the only way South Africans can buy cannabis legally so there's obviously been a surge of new ‘grey zone’ operators offering this service. Given that Section 21 itself is being so widely interpreted, where does the line of compliance lie? Cannabiz Africa spoke to market leader Synergy Wellness to find out more. Read ARC has spent the last two years studying the diseases affecting cannabis and hemp. Field trips in Limpopo and Gauteng have identified a number of threats to mono-cultural cannabis cultivation and government researchers are using this data to put together appropriate crop health strategies. Read E Cape Premier Wants a "Regulatory Sandbox" in Place Urgently to Enable Medigrow's Multimillion Rand Coega Cannabis Investment Read Cheeba Africa operates at a foundational level in cannabis development, providing the basic skills, training and education that is the bedrock of any sunrise industry. After years of persistence it has finally clinched official recognition for its Higher Certificate in Cannabis Production & Management course, providing a new basic industry standard. Read The DTIC is putting together a “hemp value-change development plan” which will be put to the private sector and other ‘social partners’ to sign off. A key part of the plan is to raise the acceptable THC percentage in hemp from 0,2% to 2%. Read It’s official: the President’s cannabis advisor Garth Strachan has admitted that the fledgling South African cannabis industry is in a ‘free for all’ because of a “crisis of ‘illegality’. Read Cannabis consumption in shared areas of sectional title schemes is not on, but what about growing plants on your balcony or smoking in your living room? Well, that depends on the rules of the complex you’re in and the definition of ‘nuisance factor’. Read JSE-listed Labat Africa is to acquire a 75,55% stake in IT company Classic International Trading in a paper deal worth R16,75 million. The purchase is contingent on Labat producing its outstanding financials, and if the JSE lifts the suspension of its shares, Classic will underwrite the group's liabilities going forward. Read A man has been arrested during a raid on an illicit R10 million hydroponic cannabis grow op near Potchefstroom in North West Province where home-made weapons were also seized. Read South Africa’s vibrant cannabis club culture continues to face legal uncertainty after hopes that a SCA ruling in the THC case would provide finality. However, a last-minute out of court settlement put paid to that and the legal advice to private club owers is: tread carefully and stick to the Prince Judgement. Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read The Haze Club has reached an out-of court settlement with the Justice Department on its appeal court application to have private cannabis clubs legally recognized. The details of the settlement are confidential and in the absence of a court ruling, the legal status of cannabis clubs remains uncertain. Read GrowOneAfrica is one of South Africa’s leading cannabis service providers and the dominant enabler in the private cannabis club movement. Based in the Western Cape, G1A has pioneered a self-regulating club model that has created millions of rand in value, over a thousand jobs and serves over 9 000 members. Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber takes a deep dive into the GrowOneAfrica story with CEO Kobus Schoeman and GM Vanessa de Sousa (pictured above). Read Sika is a name that has cropped up over the past few months in the cannabis ‘grey zone’ where a number of outlets have signed up to their specialized services. Who is Sika and what do they do? Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber speaks to Sika founder and CEO Sandy Gounder to find out more Read An undated press release from SAPS and SAHPRA says no cannabis retail outlets are allowed except in terms of the Medicines and Related Substances Act. It also says businesses operating under the Traditional Health Practitioners Act are illegal. Read The Cannabis Expo makes a return to Gauteng in May next year. It will coincide with the Cheeba Cannabis and Hemp Summit marking the emergence of the cannabis industry from a difficult few years. Read Presidential cannabis advisor Garth Strachan acknowledges the pace of cannabis reform has been slow but says that now the DTIC is in the saddle, there should be more momentum. Here is his summary of the current state of regulatory play in the cannabis sector. Read As most of the cannabis community that has borne the brunt of the law is strongly aware: police are not trained to think. SAPS is about to embark on a mass recruitment drive but until such time that recruits are taught not just to obey orders but to make decisions, there will be no curbing South Africa’s high crime levels. Read South Africa’s new Trade and Industry Minister, Parks Tau has been given the task of bringing other Government departments into line on cannabis policy. He’s also going to be responsible for drawing up appropriate legislation to enable cannabis reform. Read SAHPRA says authorities have raided ‘grey zone’ cannabis outlets in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and have taken ‘appropriate enforcement actions’ against them. It says there is no such thing as a dispensary license and anyone selling cannabis to the public should face the ‘full might of the law’. Read Despite billions of rands in investment, South Africa’s medical cannabis industry continues to face an uphill battle, not least of which are a surplus of unsold inventory and a lack of return. New cannabis player Nexus Pharma has built its business model around tackling these challenges to market South African medical cannabis internationally. Read Extracting active compounds from cannabis for medicinal purposes is a fast-growing industry world-wide. The enormous impact this could have on the local cannabis industry has seized the imagination of a Stellenbosch University chemical engineering team who have developed and patented a unique extraction process involving the purification of plant wax to preserve active compounds Read The oKhahlamba (Bergville) local municipality in the far KwaZulu Natal Midlands has harvested its second low-THC cannabis crop and has secured central government funding for a cannabis processing facility in the area. Read SAHPRA’s government grant has been declining for years and the regulatory authority is increasingly reliant on fee income, which it says is a “high risk situation”. It has appealed to Treasury for further funding saying that it is understaffed and needs to invest in technical infrastructure. Read It has come to light that the Presidency set up a committee of non-government stakeholders a year ago to help rebuild the National Cannabis Master Plan. However, the committee, which was set up in secret, has been meeting behind closed doors with no communication to the broader cannabis community as to what it has been discussing. This has raised concern among activists and the business community, as the Presidency had promised to be transparent. Read Authorities urgently need to come up with regulations to govern the hundreds of “grey zone” cannabis outlets that have emerged in the past 12 months. Hempvest CEO Zaid Mohidin has called for a cannabis retail licensing system to be implemented allowing licenced growers to supply licenced outlets – otherwise organized crime is going to move into this space to enhance its own interests. Read Sources close to SAHPRA say a clampdown on the ‘misuse’ of medical cannabis prescriptions is on its way. The regulator is concerned that many ‘Section 21’ medical cannabis patients are actually using their prescriptions for ‘recreational’ purposes and intends taking remedial action. Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The legalization of cannabis is forcing businesses to change their labour policies. Being tested positive for cannabis is not sufficient in itself to bring disciplinary charges against an employee, there has to be a degree of ‘impairment’ for action to be taken. Read South Africa’s former Finance Minister and Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni passed away on Saturday, 11 October 2024. Although he will best be remembered for his fiscal discipline and political integrity (and his atrocious kitchen antics), he will also be remembered as a long-time proponent of cannabis legalization. Read The deadly opioid fentanyl is now firmly part of the South African ‘drug conveyer belt’. This is the warning from the head of the Hawks who expects substance abuse levels to increase. This comes at a time when two major Gauteng private rehab centres have closed doors because of Government 'funding challenges', leaving hundreds of patients stranded. Read Hemporium has struggled against the odds to establish itself as the leading hemp retail chain in the country. The Cape-based company recently opened its flagship store in the Cape Town’s Hemp Hotel, offering the largest range of hemp products in Africa. Marketing Manager Shale Tinkler (pictured above) spoke to Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber about the trials and tribulations of pioneering hemp retail and what advice he has for entrepreneurs looking to enter this sector. Read New Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says “implementing the Cannabis Master Plan is a critical priority” but it is “being hindered by the lack of legislative alignment which needs urgent attention”. He says the Agriculture Dept is bears overall responsibility for the Plan, the DTIC will “oversee” it, Read There has been a huge upsurge of Section 21 medical cannabis patients in the last year, with SAHPRA expressing concern that many ‘dispensaries’ offering this service are actually just a front for ‘recreational’ sales. Just what is the current legal landscape in terms of medical cannabis in South Africa? Bassani Medical Cannabis CEO Mike Stringer lays down the line. Read In the last year there has been an explosion of private cannabis shops, clubs and dispensaries across South Africa’s metros. Most of the so-called “grey zone” consumer-orientated cannabis outlets are actually very much ‘black’, and against the law. Even though police appear to be turning a blind eye to this thriving ‘wild west’ sector, stakeholders have called for legal clarity on how commercial cannabis will be regulated. Read Afriplex, a subsidiary of the investment group, Impilovest, has invested R150 million in upgrading its scientific technology capacity in the past four years and has entered a completely new space in the cannabis industry. It has invested in highly-specialized equipment that uses cannabinoids as building blocks to create new compounds and processes. These have nothing to do with traditional cannabis applications but have a wide range of industrial and other uses. Read Industrial cannabis (hemp) is where all Government’s energy is going and this is clearly where the most entrepreneurial opportunities lie. Control over non-medical cannabis is being handed over to the Agriculture Department and the plant will soon be dropped from the Drugs Act. This changes in the regulatory framework are slowly coming into place. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read On 19 November 2024 the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein will finally hear the case of The Haze Club (THC). This is almost two years after a Western Cape reserved judgement on the matter which has implications for the legal status of South Africa’s scores of private cannabis clubs Read KwaZulu Natal is at the forefront of provincial cannabis reform and says it will support hemp farmers with permit applications, provision of seeds and will endeavour to find markets for their crops. Read The Medicines Act has been amended, allowing control over non-medical cannabis to be passed on to the Agriculture Department. This means that future decisions, such as acceptable THC levels for various cannabis products, will ultimately be decided on by Agriculture, and not by the Health Department. Read Government’s cannabis strategy has been lopsided to date with too much focus on cultivation and not enough attention on pairing farmers with markets. This is the view of legal expert Shaad Vayej who says he’s concerned about the lack of processing capacity for this year’s industrial cannabis (hemp) season. He says until offtake agreements are put in place for the 1 100 farmers with hemp permits, they faced an alarming build-up of biomass with no market. Read A suspected cannabis dealer was shot dead near Umhlali north of Durban after an exchange of fire with police. Seven bags of cannabis were recovered from his vehicle after the shootout on the N2. Two alleged accomplices are on the run. Read A Mpumulanga Judge has set aside a cannabis conviction based on a section of the Drugs Act that was declared unconstitutional 30 years ago!. He also wants the Chief Magistrate “to help identify areas in need of training and refresher courses” regarding cannabis law. Read Police raided a property near Port Alfred last week, seizing what they estimate as R30 million worth of cannabis and related products. Five people were arrested, three of whom were foreign nationals, in further evidence that international crime syndicates are infiltrating the local drug market. Read The Gordon School of Business Science and Cheeba Africa’s Cannabis academy have teamed up to offer entrepreneurs and professionals a ‘business mastery’ course in cannabis that spans the plant’s value chain. Read The Haze Club (THC) director Neil Liddel has been the fall-guy for the Private Cannabis Club (PCC) market since his arrest in 2021 for ‘dealing in cannabis’. Last year a Western Cape magistrate found him guilty under the Drugs Act, and the case was taken on appeal. However, the new Cannabis Act may have a bearing on the case and Liddel's legal team is in discussion with the state to explore the prospects of a settlement. Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Three months after the President signed off on the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act it is yet to be enacted into law. One of the delays is understood to be the Justice Minister’s awaited clarification on regulations, such as how many plants you may grow at home. Until such time as the Cannabis Act is signed off (again) by the President, the Drugs Act remains in force. Read Private sector cannabis stakeholders are in disarray with no umbrella body representing their interests as government drives reform forward. With the Presidency announcing that consultations will begin soon on how to commercialize cannabis, non-government stakeholders should urgently get their act together to collectively lobby for market-friendly policies. Read The Department of Agriculture has committed to funding the Agriculture Research Council with R146 million for cannabis research. This emerged from a Cabinet briefing on progress on the National Cannabis Master Plan in which it was agreed that stakeholder consultation would begin soon on a policy to commercialise cannabis. Read South Africa’s Cabinet has been briefed on the Cannabis Master Plan and the new Government of National Unity has committed itself to developing the industry. The Presidency says its taking steps to enact the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act and that Trade and Industry will “soon commence consultations on the Cannabis Commercialisation Policy.” Read

Botswana is to kick off its part-legalization of cannabis with a hemp business summit in Gaberone in April, at which international companies and banks will be in attendance. The meeting’s main objective is to chart a regulatory way forward. Read Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read

Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read More Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read More Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read More Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read More ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read More Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read More Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read More Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read More A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read More Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read More Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read More Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read More There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read More Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read More eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read More The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read More A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read More

BREAKING South African News Cannabiz Africa brings you the hottest breaking South African cannabis news right here! From crucial developments in laws and reform to socio-economic changes in the industry. Find your latest dose of breaking news right here and stay onto of the earliest developments! Wednesday, 19 February 2025 marks 100 years of cannabis prohibition. In 1925, the Geneva Opium Convention declared 'Indian Hemp' as a banned substance. Although there are sweeping gains across the world, the prohibitionist mindset is far from over. Activist Myrtle Clarke, co-founder of FGFA says that unfortunately, when it comes to cannabis legalization, prohibitionist thinking remains alive and well in South Africa. Read The owner of Durban private cannabis club Rooftop 420 has been arrested with three other club managers and all have been charged with illegally selling and distributing THC products four years ago. Read The Lusikisiki Agreement between legacy growers and government agencies has fallen apart before the proverbial ink has dried. Mpondoland farmers have accused Government of breaking its word that no hemp would be introduced into the area without consultation and intends mobilizing local communities to resist Medigrow’s plans to distribute hemp seeds in the area. Read The quiet announcement by the DTICC that product testing will be compulsory in funding applications is hugely significant says Qure's Brenda Marx. She says this requirement signals the start of a standardization process across the industry and will encourage laboratories to work more closely together. Read The DTIC has issued new guidelines for entities seeking funding and has appointed Afriplex, NAFS, Qure and Vinlab as its official cannabis testing labs. The Department says funding applications for product development has to be accompanied by product test results from one of these four service providers. Read The Department of Public Works tore down the ramshackle residence of self-styled King Khoisan SA, this week. This effectively ends the King’s seven year protest occupation at Pretoria’s Union Buildings, where he became a tourist attraction, championing cannabis and indigenous rights. Read Private sector cannabis stakeholders have taken an upbeat view of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s brief reference to cannabis and hemp in last week’s SONA. The fact that the word ‘commercial’ passed the President’s lips, has elicited an initial positive response from a fragmented industry awaiting guidelines on the way forward. Read Since the landmark 2018 Concourt ruling, South African cannabis sector has been shaped by court decisions rather than driven by Government policy-makers. This has resulted in conflicting spheres of influence behind the scenes, the consequence of which is today’s seriously dysfunctional cannabis industry. Read The first hemp seeds have been distributed to a select group of Eastern Cape farmers as part of Medigrow’s ambitious Coega-based industrial cannabis partnership with the provincial government. Read Leading South African cannabis activist, Ras Gareth Prince, says 'whites and Indians' are the main beneficiaries of the cannabis ‘grey zone’ retail boom while police continue their persecution of indigenous communities. He has accused Government of deepening South Africa’s racial divide by its lack of regulation around the cannabis industry. Read In the last week police in Mpumulanga have arrested four men and seized a total of 1,6 tons of cannabis in stop-and-search operations in the area between White River and Louw’s Creek. Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in strategy by moving into the IT space through the acquisition of Classic International Trading. He will be replaced by Irfaan Mohammed, who says the group will be reviewing the risks associated with the cannabis sector and decide on the appropriate way forward. Read Cape Town cannabis lab Eco Green Analytics has entered the traditional medicine research field by partnering with the Pretoria-based Southern Centre for Indigenous Psycho Pharma (SCIPP). It will offer its services to analyse medicines used by traditional healers and psylocibin mushrooms in a quest to unlock the therepeutic benefits of indigenous plants. Read A grassroots initiative between local and central government to develop a cannabis economy in Mpondoland in the Eastern Cape is being spearheaded by the provincial development agency ECRDA. The development has now been formalized with an agreement at Luskisiki that brings together seven municipalities in the heartland of cannabis country into a common cannabis vision. Read Police have arrested two men in a raid on a ‘grey zone’ producer of cannabis and related products outside Newcastle in KZN. They seized a range of consumer products and dismantled a hydroponics lab and processing equipment. Read Medigrow’s billion rand Coega industrial cannabis project gets underway this month as equipment arrives on site in the Eastern Cape and the first hemp seeds are ready for delivery to small-scale rural growers. Read One of South Africa’s key medical cannabis players is pulling its CBD range from the local market completely because of the regulatory morass. Cilo Cybin says until such time as Government issues clear regulatory guidelines for the cannabis industry, it will pursue an export-only strategy. Read Cilo Cybin Holdings has about R60 million in available capital as it goes into the new year. The group has just released its latest financials showing a healthy return on its investment income to date, but now that it has bedded down its assets, shareholders have high hopes this capital will be put to good effect in the year ahead. Read South Africa’s ‘Medical Cannabis Ambassador’, Dr Shiksha Gallow, recently trained and certified 40 doctors in medical cannabis in the Philippines where the practice is generally outlawed. She was keynote speaker at a conference pushing to legalize medical cannabis and urged the Manilla government to accept the legitimacy of cannabis as a healing plant. Read There has never been more choice and greater convenience for South African cannabis consumers than what the retail ‘grey zone’ is offering right now. Although this sector is completely illegal, it has grown rapidly enough for credible consumer behaviour trends to emerge. These are the three to look out for. Read The DTIC must urgently take regulatory action to level the playing field in South Africa's cannabis industry and prevent the ‘wild west’ situation from spiralling further out of control. This is the plea from Silverleaf Investments, which argues that the current ‘grey zone’ is a significant setback for legitimate companies striving to earn an honest income in the cannabis sector. Read Leading agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo (pictured here) has called on South Africa’s provinces to pressurize national government into putting the right regulations in place to develop South Africa’s cannabis industry. Regulations, he emphasizes, are essential to guiding the market in an orderly way. Read King Khoisan SA had become a tourist attraction at Pretoria’s seat of state where for years he paraded semi-naked and grew cannabis in a protest for indigenous rights. Now he has been formally evicted by Public Works only to be badly injured in a car accident in the Eastern Cape Read A quarter of South Africa’s SAHPRA-licensed cannabis growers have been deregistered in the past three months. This reflects the difficulties export cultivators are facing in their struggle to crack international markets, tied-up capital and surplus inventory. Read The SPCA tracked down a Limpopo man, who went viral for smoking dagga from a bong containing a live snake, and got him sentenced for his "reprehensible "actions. Read The South African cannabis industry has gone through a painful few years, constrained by Government’s slow and shambolic approach to regulatory reform. The irony is that to date the ‘grey zone’ appears to have benefitted the most so far from the Constitutional Courts 2018 decision to legalize private consumption, while other sectors of the cannabis economy have lagged behind. So what lies in store for SA cannabis in the year ahead? Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber has a look ahead. Read Police are allegedly targeting Rastafarians and other cannabis users on the N7 highway that serves the Cape West Coast. Veteran cannabis activist Garth Prince says there have been numerous reports that police make the arrests to ‘steal’ the suspects’ cannabis, a practice that has been going on for years. Read The legal swords are being drawn in a new Constitutional Court challenge around plant medicine – this time psilocybin, also known as ‘magic mushrooms’. The apex court application to have psilocybin decriminalized along the same lines as cannabis was lodged last year. Now the State has given notice it intends to fight this as part of its ‘war against drugs’. Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. On 31 December 2024, the JSE lifted its 14 month suspension on the trading of the group’s shares after it finally posted its outstanding financials. Read The ‘grey zone’ domestic cannabis retail market has exploded in 2024 has left regulators trailing in the dust. Although the sale of cannabis illegal unless it’s prescribed under Section 21 of the Medicines Act, thousands of ‘informal’ traders have brazenly opened shop across South Africa’s, selling cannabis flower and a host of related THC and CBD products. Read JSE-listed Cilo Cybin Holdings has just concluded its first major acquisition – the anticipated purchase of CC Pharmaceuticals. The multi-million rand deal will result in CCH taking control of the company’s Gauteng cultivation and processing facility and sets it up for growth in the cannabis healthcare space. Read The South African Human Rights Commission has raised alarms over ongoing arrests of Rastafari and cannabis users despite cannabis being decriminalised in South Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to servicing the domestic market. It’s done so to meet the huge consumer demand generated by its expanding CannAfrica nationwide retail footprint. Read Now that cannabis is to be removed from the Drugs Act, the next big challenge is how it is incorporated into a new National Drug Master Plan. The old one has just expired and a review is underway on how cannabis should be dealt with in substance abuse and crime prevention strategies and laws going forward. Read Central to government’s cannabis development vision is the concept of public/private sector partnerships. One such venture that has successfully emerged in Gauteng is VitaCann Pharm’s incubation by the provincial agriculture department which has turned its Carltonville facility into a fully-fledged export business. Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up to date. It’s lost a ton of money in its quest to be South Africa’s cannabis heavyweight as it tries to find the right business mix to navigate unfavourable regulations. Read The NPA says the Traditional Healers Act is being used as a front for cannabis retail and is illegal. This may be the case now, but there’s a whole debate coming about what constitutes medicine as the Government moves to bring traditional healers into the mainstream via a new set of regulations. Read A young Gauteng entrepreneur, Moishe Schneider, has introduced South American plant medicine into the South African alternative plant therapy scene. He is championing the the Huachuma cactus plant from Peru as a ‘heart opening’ medicine in his initiative, the Healing House. Read KZN’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) has put out a call to prospective hemp farmers in the province who need support, to make contact by the end of January 2025 at any of their local offices. Read Free State University geneticist Dr Marieka Gryzenhout, the author of the first formal study of psilocybin in South Africa, has been recognized by Stanford University as among the top 2 % of scientists in the world. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Who knows what the National Cannabis Master Plan’s Steering Committee is up to? Well, whatever that is they should put it aside immediately to consider an “urgent” request by the Marijuana Board of South Africa to hold an “inquiry” into leading cannabis law firm, Cullinan and Associates in the interests of ‘transparency’. Read President Ramaphosa must think cannabis reform is in for a bit of song and dance because he’s appointed Nelson Mandela’s ‘Imbobgi Yesizwe’ to represent traditional leaders on the National Cannabis Master Plan’s Steering Committee. Read Heaven help any poor prosecutor trying to make sense of “Dagga Shops Dealing in Dagga, a Practical Guide’, prepared by the National Prosecuting Authority in KZN. The document, prohibitionist by nature and confusing in presentation, indicates the NPA’s approach to cannabis offences now that the Drugs Act is on the way out. Read The first signs have emerged that South Africa is heading for a fentanyl crisis. Clinics in KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape report that patients have, for the first time, tested positive for the opioid that has caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States. Read Cheeba Africa has formed a partnership with the Township Cannabis Incubator to set up a cannabis training and market development drive in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. The aim to match skills and business incubation to take on poverty in the heartland of South African cannabis. Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is not half as bad as the previous corresponding period. It’s also changed its company secretary at the insistence of a third party who may provide financial assistance. Read The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act will replace the Drugs Act as the main tool in the Justice Department’s kit to punish cannabis offences – as soon as that law is promulgated. Here’s a summary of the new sanctions contained in the Act Read Section 21 of the Medicines Act is the only way South Africans can buy cannabis legally so there's obviously been a surge of new ‘grey zone’ operators offering this service. Given that Section 21 itself is being so widely interpreted, where does the line of compliance lie? Cannabiz Africa spoke to market leader Synergy Wellness to find out more. Read ARC has spent the last two years studying the diseases affecting cannabis and hemp. Field trips in Limpopo and Gauteng have identified a number of threats to mono-cultural cannabis cultivation and government researchers are using this data to put together appropriate crop health strategies. Read E Cape Premier Wants a "Regulatory Sandbox" in Place Urgently to Enable Medigrow's Multimillion Rand Coega Cannabis Investment Read Cheeba Africa operates at a foundational level in cannabis development, providing the basic skills, training and education that is the bedrock of any sunrise industry. After years of persistence it has finally clinched official recognition for its Higher Certificate in Cannabis Production & Management course, providing a new basic industry standard. Read The DTIC is putting together a “hemp value-change development plan” which will be put to the private sector and other ‘social partners’ to sign off. A key part of the plan is to raise the acceptable THC percentage in hemp from 0,2% to 2%. Read It’s official: the President’s cannabis advisor Garth Strachan has admitted that the fledgling South African cannabis industry is in a ‘free for all’ because of a “crisis of ‘illegality’. Read Cannabis consumption in shared areas of sectional title schemes is not on, but what about growing plants on your balcony or smoking in your living room? Well, that depends on the rules of the complex you’re in and the definition of ‘nuisance factor’. Read JSE-listed Labat Africa is to acquire a 75,55% stake in IT company Classic International Trading in a paper deal worth R16,75 million. The purchase is contingent on Labat producing its outstanding financials, and if the JSE lifts the suspension of its shares, Classic will underwrite the group's liabilities going forward. Read A man has been arrested during a raid on an illicit R10 million hydroponic cannabis grow op near Potchefstroom in North West Province where home-made weapons were also seized. Read South Africa’s vibrant cannabis club culture continues to face legal uncertainty after hopes that a SCA ruling in the THC case would provide finality. However, a last-minute out of court settlement put paid to that and the legal advice to private club owers is: tread carefully and stick to the Prince Judgement. Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read The Haze Club has reached an out-of court settlement with the Justice Department on its appeal court application to have private cannabis clubs legally recognized. The details of the settlement are confidential and in the absence of a court ruling, the legal status of cannabis clubs remains uncertain. Read GrowOneAfrica is one of South Africa’s leading cannabis service providers and the dominant enabler in the private cannabis club movement. Based in the Western Cape, G1A has pioneered a self-regulating club model that has created millions of rand in value, over a thousand jobs and serves over 9 000 members. Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber takes a deep dive into the GrowOneAfrica story with CEO Kobus Schoeman and GM Vanessa de Sousa (pictured above). Read Sika is a name that has cropped up over the past few months in the cannabis ‘grey zone’ where a number of outlets have signed up to their specialized services. Who is Sika and what do they do? Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber speaks to Sika founder and CEO Sandy Gounder to find out more Read An undated press release from SAPS and SAHPRA says no cannabis retail outlets are allowed except in terms of the Medicines and Related Substances Act. It also says businesses operating under the Traditional Health Practitioners Act are illegal. Read The Cannabis Expo makes a return to Gauteng in May next year. It will coincide with the Cheeba Cannabis and Hemp Summit marking the emergence of the cannabis industry from a difficult few years. Read Presidential cannabis advisor Garth Strachan acknowledges the pace of cannabis reform has been slow but says that now the DTIC is in the saddle, there should be more momentum. Here is his summary of the current state of regulatory play in the cannabis sector. Read As most of the cannabis community that has borne the brunt of the law is strongly aware: police are not trained to think. SAPS is about to embark on a mass recruitment drive but until such time that recruits are taught not just to obey orders but to make decisions, there will be no curbing South Africa’s high crime levels. Read South Africa’s new Trade and Industry Minister, Parks Tau has been given the task of bringing other Government departments into line on cannabis policy. He’s also going to be responsible for drawing up appropriate legislation to enable cannabis reform. Read SAHPRA says authorities have raided ‘grey zone’ cannabis outlets in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and have taken ‘appropriate enforcement actions’ against them. It says there is no such thing as a dispensary license and anyone selling cannabis to the public should face the ‘full might of the law’. Read Despite billions of rands in investment, South Africa’s medical cannabis industry continues to face an uphill battle, not least of which are a surplus of unsold inventory and a lack of return. New cannabis player Nexus Pharma has built its business model around tackling these challenges to market South African medical cannabis internationally. Read Extracting active compounds from cannabis for medicinal purposes is a fast-growing industry world-wide. The enormous impact this could have on the local cannabis industry has seized the imagination of a Stellenbosch University chemical engineering team who have developed and patented a unique extraction process involving the purification of plant wax to preserve active compounds Read The oKhahlamba (Bergville) local municipality in the far KwaZulu Natal Midlands has harvested its second low-THC cannabis crop and has secured central government funding for a cannabis processing facility in the area. Read SAHPRA’s government grant has been declining for years and the regulatory authority is increasingly reliant on fee income, which it says is a “high risk situation”. It has appealed to Treasury for further funding saying that it is understaffed and needs to invest in technical infrastructure. Read It has come to light that the Presidency set up a committee of non-government stakeholders a year ago to help rebuild the National Cannabis Master Plan. However, the committee, which was set up in secret, has been meeting behind closed doors with no communication to the broader cannabis community as to what it has been discussing. This has raised concern among activists and the business community, as the Presidency had promised to be transparent. Read Authorities urgently need to come up with regulations to govern the hundreds of “grey zone” cannabis outlets that have emerged in the past 12 months. Hempvest CEO Zaid Mohidin has called for a cannabis retail licensing system to be implemented allowing licenced growers to supply licenced outlets – otherwise organized crime is going to move into this space to enhance its own interests. Read Sources close to SAHPRA say a clampdown on the ‘misuse’ of medical cannabis prescriptions is on its way. The regulator is concerned that many ‘Section 21’ medical cannabis patients are actually using their prescriptions for ‘recreational’ purposes and intends taking remedial action. Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The legalization of cannabis is forcing businesses to change their labour policies. Being tested positive for cannabis is not sufficient in itself to bring disciplinary charges against an employee, there has to be a degree of ‘impairment’ for action to be taken. Read South Africa’s former Finance Minister and Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni passed away on Saturday, 11 October 2024. Although he will best be remembered for his fiscal discipline and political integrity (and his atrocious kitchen antics), he will also be remembered as a long-time proponent of cannabis legalization. Read The deadly opioid fentanyl is now firmly part of the South African ‘drug conveyer belt’. This is the warning from the head of the Hawks who expects substance abuse levels to increase. This comes at a time when two major Gauteng private rehab centres have closed doors because of Government 'funding challenges', leaving hundreds of patients stranded. Read Hemporium has struggled against the odds to establish itself as the leading hemp retail chain in the country. The Cape-based company recently opened its flagship store in the Cape Town’s Hemp Hotel, offering the largest range of hemp products in Africa. Marketing Manager Shale Tinkler (pictured above) spoke to Cannabiz Africa publisher Brett Hilton-Barber about the trials and tribulations of pioneering hemp retail and what advice he has for entrepreneurs looking to enter this sector. Read New Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says “implementing the Cannabis Master Plan is a critical priority” but it is “being hindered by the lack of legislative alignment which needs urgent attention”. He says the Agriculture Dept is bears overall responsibility for the Plan, the DTIC will “oversee” it, Read There has been a huge upsurge of Section 21 medical cannabis patients in the last year, with SAHPRA expressing concern that many ‘dispensaries’ offering this service are actually just a front for ‘recreational’ sales. Just what is the current legal landscape in terms of medical cannabis in South Africa? Bassani Medical Cannabis CEO Mike Stringer lays down the line. Read In the last year there has been an explosion of private cannabis shops, clubs and dispensaries across South Africa’s metros. Most of the so-called “grey zone” consumer-orientated cannabis outlets are actually very much ‘black’, and against the law. Even though police appear to be turning a blind eye to this thriving ‘wild west’ sector, stakeholders have called for legal clarity on how commercial cannabis will be regulated. Read Afriplex, a subsidiary of the investment group, Impilovest, has invested R150 million in upgrading its scientific technology capacity in the past four years and has entered a completely new space in the cannabis industry. It has invested in highly-specialized equipment that uses cannabinoids as building blocks to create new compounds and processes. These have nothing to do with traditional cannabis applications but have a wide range of industrial and other uses. Read Industrial cannabis (hemp) is where all Government’s energy is going and this is clearly where the most entrepreneurial opportunities lie. Control over non-medical cannabis is being handed over to the Agriculture Department and the plant will soon be dropped from the Drugs Act. This changes in the regulatory framework are slowly coming into place. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read On 19 November 2024 the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein will finally hear the case of The Haze Club (THC). This is almost two years after a Western Cape reserved judgement on the matter which has implications for the legal status of South Africa’s scores of private cannabis clubs Read KwaZulu Natal is at the forefront of provincial cannabis reform and says it will support hemp farmers with permit applications, provision of seeds and will endeavour to find markets for their crops. Read The Medicines Act has been amended, allowing control over non-medical cannabis to be passed on to the Agriculture Department. This means that future decisions, such as acceptable THC levels for various cannabis products, will ultimately be decided on by Agriculture, and not by the Health Department. Read Government’s cannabis strategy has been lopsided to date with too much focus on cultivation and not enough attention on pairing farmers with markets. This is the view of legal expert Shaad Vayej who says he’s concerned about the lack of processing capacity for this year’s industrial cannabis (hemp) season. He says until offtake agreements are put in place for the 1 100 farmers with hemp permits, they faced an alarming build-up of biomass with no market. Read A suspected cannabis dealer was shot dead near Umhlali north of Durban after an exchange of fire with police. Seven bags of cannabis were recovered from his vehicle after the shootout on the N2. Two alleged accomplices are on the run. Read A Mpumulanga Judge has set aside a cannabis conviction based on a section of the Drugs Act that was declared unconstitutional 30 years ago!. He also wants the Chief Magistrate “to help identify areas in need of training and refresher courses” regarding cannabis law. Read Police raided a property near Port Alfred last week, seizing what they estimate as R30 million worth of cannabis and related products. Five people were arrested, three of whom were foreign nationals, in further evidence that international crime syndicates are infiltrating the local drug market. Read The Gordon School of Business Science and Cheeba Africa’s Cannabis academy have teamed up to offer entrepreneurs and professionals a ‘business mastery’ course in cannabis that spans the plant’s value chain. Read The Haze Club (THC) director Neil Liddel has been the fall-guy for the Private Cannabis Club (PCC) market since his arrest in 2021 for ‘dealing in cannabis’. Last year a Western Cape magistrate found him guilty under the Drugs Act, and the case was taken on appeal. However, the new Cannabis Act may have a bearing on the case and Liddel's legal team is in discussion with the state to explore the prospects of a settlement. Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Three months after the President signed off on the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act it is yet to be enacted into law. One of the delays is understood to be the Justice Minister’s awaited clarification on regulations, such as how many plants you may grow at home. Until such time as the Cannabis Act is signed off (again) by the President, the Drugs Act remains in force. Read Private sector cannabis stakeholders are in disarray with no umbrella body representing their interests as government drives reform forward. With the Presidency announcing that consultations will begin soon on how to commercialize cannabis, non-government stakeholders should urgently get their act together to collectively lobby for market-friendly policies. Read The Department of Agriculture has committed to funding the Agriculture Research Council with R146 million for cannabis research. This emerged from a Cabinet briefing on progress on the National Cannabis Master Plan in which it was agreed that stakeholder consultation would begin soon on a policy to commercialise cannabis. Read South Africa’s Cabinet has been briefed on the Cannabis Master Plan and the new Government of National Unity has committed itself to developing the industry. The Presidency says its taking steps to enact the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act and that Trade and Industry will “soon commence consultations on the Cannabis Commercialisation Policy.” Read

Botswana is to kick off its part-legalization of cannabis with a hemp business summit in Gaberone in April, at which international companies and banks will be in attendance. The meeting’s main objective is to chart a regulatory way forward. Read Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read

Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read More Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read More Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read More Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read More ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read More Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read More Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read More Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read More A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read More Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read More Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read More Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read More There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read More Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read More eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read More The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read More A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read More

Botswana is to kick off its part-legalization of cannabis with a hemp business summit in Gaberone in April, at which international companies and banks will be in attendance. The meeting’s main objective is to chart a regulatory way forward. Read Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read

Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read More Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read More Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read More Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read More ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read More Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read More Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read More Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read More A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read More Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read More Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read More Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read More There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read More Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read More eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read More The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read More A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read More

Botswana is to kick off its part-legalization of cannabis with a hemp business summit in Gaberone in April, at which international companies and banks will be in attendance. The meeting’s main objective is to chart a regulatory way forward. Read Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read

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Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read More Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read More Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read More Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read More ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read More Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read More Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read More Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read More A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read More Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read More Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read More Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read More There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read More Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read More eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read More The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read More A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read More