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- South Africa's much-anticipated cannabis bill is heading to the desk of the president imminently.
- It sets out a framework for the legal use, cultivation, and transport of cannabis.
- An industry member opposed to the bill in its current form said that members of the industry will petition the president not to sign the bill.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
A bill set to guide the regulation of dagga in South Africa is now on the verge of being written into law by the president, but a representative of a cannabis industry body with objections to the proposal says the industry plans to fight back.
The Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill contains a series of changes that are set to guide the regulation of cannabis in South Africa.
Rozayne Malyo, the co-founder of the Cannabis Development Council of South Africa - who also heads up Think Green Consulting, a cannabis consulting organisation - said that concerns raised about the impact of the legislation on traditional healers and the Rastafari were ignored during the public participation process.
"We only have one option, which is to petition the president not to sign the bill or, if he signs it into law, we ask that he may not bring it into operation pending a court challenge," she said.
On Tuesday, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) voted in favour of the adoption of the bill, meaning it will be heading to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk imminently, pending potential minor amendments. While Ramaphosa might call for the constitutionality of the bill to be tested, he will have the option to sign it into law.
READ | High expectations: Ramaphosa could soon sign dagga bill, which will weed out the details
The personal and private cultivation, possession and use of cannabis by adults was decriminalised in 2018, following a ruling by the Constitutional Court. The dagga bill has been in the works almost since then.
Paul-Michael Keichel, a specialist attorney at Cullinan & Associates, who has been involved with cannabis regulation from 2009, explained to News24 that if signed into law in its current form, the bill will remove cannabis-related crimes from the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act and change the definition of cannabis in an important way.
In terms of definition, Keichel said that the bill would define cannabis more narrowly than it is at present.
"I read it to exclude hemp, because it talks about flowering or fruiting tops, the psychoactive stuff. Everything else is excluded."
He said that narrowing the definition of cannabis in this way "will basically create an overnight hemp industry". He said the hard differentiation between hemp and the psychoactive parts of the plant will hopefully stimulate greater investment in the hemp industry.
The other big change is that cannabis-related crimes would be defined in terms of the bill, and removed from the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act.
Matters such as the punishments for dealing cannabis, the legal use of cannabis by children for medical purposes, and the consequences of having too much (an amount not yet defined) in your possession for private use purposes are all contained in the act.
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An earlier version of the bill set out the amount of cannabis that could be transported or held at a private residence by an adult; however, that segment of the bill was removed and was not present in the version of the bill assented to by the NCOP.
Keichel explained that further regulation will be required, if the bill is approved, to stipulate the amount of cannabis that can be stored, cultivated or transported in different circumstances.
Notably, under the legislation, firms will be able to apply for licences or permits to be exempt from certain conditions contained within the act, should it be passed.
Given the need for additional regulation, Keichel explained that it is difficult to pre-empt the regulations that could be brought into effect, but the act might foreshadow the introduction of trading licences.
Challenge
In explaining her opposition to the bill, Rozayne Malyo said that it makes no provision for the way in which some traditional healers and members of the Rastafari community use cannabis.
She explained that some traditional healers give people cannabis as a form of treatment. Malyo claimed that this would be in contravention of the bill if assented into law.
Despite raising this issue in public participation processes, there is no specific mention of traditional healers or Rastafari in the bill, Malyo said.
"We should not be surprised if we go back to court," she said.
Speaking at the NCOP plenary, the EFF’s Mbali Dlamini said that while the party supported the bill, it harboured concerns about the continued impact that criminalising dealing had on communities that rely on the trade of cannabis.
"The bill is still extremely limiting and does not allow for the economic exploitation of the herb," she said.
