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Cannabeginners: How To Legally Use Cannabis In South Africa
The Do’s and Don’ts of Dagga
Cannabis is known by different names around the world; in South Africa, it is most commonly referred to as “dagga” (in Afrikaans) or “umthunzi wez’nkukhu” (in Zulu), which translates to “chicken shade.” While South Africa, like Japan, has a long history of cannabis cultivation, cannabis is not yet fully legal for adult use, but is decriminalized and generally tolerated so long as it is consumed in private.
Can You Bring Cannabis to South Africa?
Before getting into South African cannabis laws, a word on bringing cannabis to South Africa — Don’t. While a 2019 directive to domestic police clarified that cannabis can be carried on domestic flights within South Africa (so long as the amount is “small,” for “personal consumption,” and possessed “by an adult”), that same directive is very clear: “Cannabis cannot be permitted on an international flight.” Bringing cannabis into South Africa or out of South Africa remains a criminal offense.
Long History of Cannabis Growing In South Africa
While the cannabis plant is believed to have originated somewhere on the Tibetan Plateau, it came to Africa early enough where Africa developed cultivars widely regarded as “landraces,” those bred by the land and not by people. Some of the most famous African landrace cultivars are Red Congolese and Durban Poison. Durban Poison originally came from the region around the port city of Durban, South Africa. This cultivar is known to have exceptionally high levels of THCv and its genetics have been featured in some very famous cultivars, like the Cookies.
The Pondoland area of Eastern Cape (right next to KwaZulu-Natal province, where Durban is located), can be thought of as South Africa’s Emerald Triangle. It is home to nearly a million small-scale unregulated farmers who have been growing for generations and have faced constant threats by the government’s war on drugs. In this region, you’d be more likely to hear cannabis referred to in Zulu than Afrikaans.
Limited Medical Cannabis Program
Medical cannabis use in South Africa is regulated under the 1965 Medicines and Related Substances Act, which splits up substances into schedules from 1 to 8, with 8 being the most toxic and least medically useful. The Medicines Act originally had both plant-derived THC and CBD listed as schedule 7 substances, but in 2019 it was amended and CBD is now a schedule 4 substance, or potentially unscheduled. Schedule 4 substances need a prescription and are purchased at pharmacies but unscheduled CBD products are widely sold across South Africa in a variety of businesses, but have a very low cannabinoid content.
THC products can be used medically but are regulated as a schedule 6 substance and, like Schedule 4 CBD products, can be used only with a prescription from an authorized prescriber and only purchased at pharmacies or a business that holds a dispensing license under the Medicines Act. THC products additionally require a permit from the Department of Health. It is very important to understand the limitations of the Medicines Act, as violations of its provisions around cannabis could carry up to a decade in prison and a fine.
Cannabis is Decriminalized for Personal Use, But Not Legal
The case that ultimately decriminalized cannabis for personal use began with a police raid in 2010 on the home of Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs, who were charged with possession and distribution charges as a result of the raid. Clarke, Stobbs, and a rastafarian named Ras Garreth Prince sued the government in 2017, and a year later in September 2018, the South African high court ruled in their favor, decriminalizing cannabis possession and use in private. The definition of “private” the court used was broad enough where privacy was not just in their home but any private location. While raw plant cannabis was decriminalized, pure isolated THC is still regulated under the Medicines Act. So if you want to use cannabis as legally as possible in South Africa, that means using herbal cannabis or whole plant extracts, and specifically only using them in private spaces. The 1992 Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act is still in effect and still criminalizes any cannabis use that is not in a private space, so make sure any consumption happens in private or you could be looking at between one and two years in prison (and possibly a fine).
Adult Use Legalization Could Pass This Year
As soon as the case decriminalizing cannabis was settled, activists like Clarke and Stobbs were already pressing for more, actual legalization that could create a cannabis industry and help those million traditional farms become legal businesses. Now, it seems like legalization could become a reality in South Africa sometime this year, as a bill is working its way through the legislature for full adult use legalization.
The Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill (CPPB) has been in the works since 2020, and after being stalled for years, is supposed to be voted on sometime during the 2022-2023 legislative session, which gives parliament just four more months to pass it. During the years the CPPB was stalled, the South African Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) created a “cannabis master plan” in the summer of 2021 to address concerns around legalization.
Unfortunately, criticisms of the CPPB were not quelled by the release of DALRRD’s master plan. Cannabis consumption clubs, private spaces for consumption outside the home that exist under decriminalization, are wondering what will happen to them after legalization. Those clubs are joined by traditional farmers, specifically the Umzimvubu Farmers Support Network which represents cannabis farmers in Pondoland, has been openly critical of the CPPB. The farmers and consumption clubs have been joined by the Rastafarian community, and most recently South Africa’s largest union, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Source: https://hightimes.com/guides/cannabeginners-how-to-legally-use-cannabis-in-south-africa/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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