Financial Mail writes that the grand vision in the national cannabis master plan includes all the government’s favourite catchwords: economic development, job creation, inclusive participation, rural development and poverty alleviation.
The department of agriculture, land reform & rural development presented its master plan to MPs on 25 August. Cannabis was said to represent "a new dawn … a global market that will uphold democratic principles such as human rights and better application of science and research". But the private sector is less than euphoric about the lack of specifics in the plan, and is growing increasingly frustrated at the glacial pace at which the government is clearing away the legal hurdles that still paralyse most of the nascent industry. Industry representatives in Nedlac, to which the plan was submitted in June, have begun the process of trying to fix it. Among them is Ayanda Bam, CEO of a cannabis and hemp advisory company. Bam believes part of the problem is that the plan was drafted by specialists in agriculture, not commerce. "We’ve not been creative enough in the master plan, we haven’t really thought about this industry as a commercial sector … There’s a real challenge with the coherence," he commented, adding that the plan needed to analyse where SA already had competitive advantages. Bam, one of SA’s foremost advocates of the potential of hemp — cannabis with low levels of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — lists a multitude of flaws in the master plan, including its failure to cut through the thicket of legislation governing the plant. The way many players in the industry see it, there are opportunities that would be easy to grasp. For example, the number of people already growing and trading dagga (illegally) in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere is estimated at 900,000. All the government needs to do is change the law to make them legal.
- Read the full original of the comprehensive eport in the above regard by Anton Ferreira at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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