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If asked by someone who is not from here about the South African Cannabis scene, I always reply, “How much time do you have?”. My white colonial education had me imagining it started with old Jan van Riebeek toking with our original inhabitants on Fish Hoek beach around 1652ish. However, where did they get it from? Must have been the industrious traders from the East who sailed the oceans with their Holy Herb. I’m sure those early explorers had it quite rough and needed to get high en route… Fast forward to a weed shop on every corner while users, cultivators and traders are, literally, locked up in cages every single day. What happened in between? The best way to fill in centuries of adventures with our favourite plant is to look at how we use it here on the tip of Africa. Adult use is a given. Smoke it, eat it, dab it, drink it and everything in between. This is the thing that has governments’ knickers in a knot. You want to do what? Get high? Because you enjoy it? Oh no! What about the children? Isn’t it a gateway drug to the dark side? It is exhausting to defend my (and millions of South Africans) use of Cannabis for pleasure – and the side effects of calm,
clarity and concentration. The Adult Use of Cannabis is the cornerstone of our campaigns and by far the sector with the most economic promise. Remember the weed shop on every corner? I wish I could herd the bureaucrats who are holding up the process into a Dagga Private Club and show them what community looks like. Everyone getting by and getting high. Great décor, good munchies, cool music and good coffee, of course. Hemp. Or Industrial Cannabis, as we prefer to call it. There has never been a tradition of using Cannabis for building, textiles, etc in Southern Africa. We have landrace cultivars that could do the job. This use of Cannabis has never been internationally prohibited but very few countries have large scale Hemp industries. It is complicated that the flowers contain cannabinoids. Things get murky when you want to use the whole plant. Industry and “medicine” collide as everyone wants a piece of this unicorn pie. I wager it will take twenty years to get off the ground. Let’s chat about Hemp in 2046. We salute those who are trying. South Africa has the highest THC threshold in the world at 2%. It’s a start. All Cannabis use is for Health. Physical, mental, spiritual and environmental. The
problem comes in when you call it medicine. The pharmaceutical side of things needs to stay in its corner, which is a very legitimate corner. Patients need standardised, registered, safe products for specific ailments and the doctors and pharmacists need to be trained. However, I will never lie to get high. The Traditional, Cultural and Religious use of Cannabis warrants serious consideration. It is a stark reality that our legacy Cannabis communities are struggling since there’s a weed shop on every corner. We emerged from the dark days of apartheid in 1994 yet, as recently as 2015, our “democratic” government sprayed glyphosate poison from helicopters onto the Dagga fields in Mpondoland. They sprayed the fields, the food gardens, the homesteads, the livestock. Yet our President bleats on about the economic potential and rural farmers. Where’s our apology for this Human Rights atrocity? Here in SA it’s exciting and challenging at the same time. Thanks to our amazing Cannabis people who keep things going, here and around the world. You know who you are. Thank you for the vibes, the lank dank and the good coffee. By Myrtle Clark