By Solly Phetoe
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa assented to the long-debated Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill into law this week.
This has been a product of much engagement and one of the most extensive parliamentary public participation processes in recent times.
The result is a good foundation act that legalises an emerging sector. Further supplementary work will need to follow down the road.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has supported government’s efforts to shift South Africa to a new legal regime with regard to cannabis.
The act is a welcome step forward to decriminalise cannabis for private purposes as required by the Constitutional Court judgment finding the existing criminalisation of personal use to be unconstitutional.
Key provisions of the act and the basis for Cosatu’s support for it, include:
- It provides a rational legal framework for the use of cannabis for private purposes.
Cannabis within set limits may now be consumed for personal uses at home. This includes limited cultivation. It sets strict limits on this. This includes not consuming cannabis in front of children or the public.
- It will end the obligation to needlessly arrest and imprison persons using cannabis for personal use in the privacy of their homes while serious crimes run unabated.
This will be important to allow the SAPS to focus on priority crimes. More importantly, it will be an important step forward to removing cannabis from the clutches of criminal syndicates.
- It establishes clear legal provisions for the use of cannabis for medical purposes, providing relief for thousands of persons with serious illnesses.
This is important for a nascent medical and pharmaceutical sector and to exploit its uses for medicinal purposes. This is good for patients but also for jobs in the value chains.
- It recognises the need to provide legal space for religious institutions, e.g. Rastafarians whose religious practices include the use of cannabis.
The Constitution provides space for freedom of religion. Again, setting parameters for legal consumption removes the need to police Rastafarians unnecessarily.
- It finds the right balance between complying with the Constitutional Court judgment, decriminalising cannabis and regulating the development of the medical and commercial sectors.
The cannabis sector is growing rapidly internationally. Investors are positioning themselves to take advantage of its medical, personal and commercial uses. This includes in South Africa, and in particular in the Eastern Cape.
Decriminalisation will help remove the industry from the control of criminal and often violent syndicates, create badly needed jobs and provide useful medical, commercial and industrial goods for the economy.
Cannabis and hemp, in particular, have a variety of commercial products that can be used for medicine, clothing, construction, vehicles, manufacturing and other legitimate commercial uses.
The act provides a positive boost for this emerging and jobs-rich sector as well as the Hemp Master Plan being developed by government, business and labour and co-ordinated by the Presidency.
This will have a particularly positive impact in traditional farming communities such as the Eastern Cape, boosting the local economy and creating jobs and economic value chains.
Cannabis has been grown in the Eastern Cape for generations. Its legalisation opens the opportunity to unlock the sector, open space for emerging farmers to tap into financing and other support and open space for investors to enter to connect local farmers to domestic and international markets.
This is yet another affirmation that under the ANC-led government, rural communities and the marginalised will be brought into the mainstream economy and obstacles to growing the economy are being systematically tackled with greater speed.
Now that elections have concluded, its critical that the seventh administration be constituted under President Cyril Ramaphosa, a new Cabinet be appointed, that competent ministers be deployed to key economic portfolios, and additional attention and support be given to the Master Plan.
The Master Plan needs to provide clear time frames for the remaining legal steps for the legalisation processes, e.g. the promulgation of the act, drafting and enacting its regulations, and most importantly the financing, technical, logistical and marketing needed to enable emerging farmers to sell their products to manufacturers and retailers in the medicinal, motor, clothing and manufacturing sectors as well as for personal consumption.
These steps and precise actions, time frames are critical to give the impetus for this emerging sector to grow, survive and thrive. It is key that these be undertaken with a sense of urgency to avoid taking too long only to find the market space is then taken over and occupied by imports from overseas.
Not only do we need to want to grow this sector to supply domestic needs but also to export to the African and international markets.
We need to unlock every possible economic sector and to create every possible job. We cannot afford, with a 41% unemployment rate, to leave any sector, business and, most importantly, worker and their family behind.
Solly Phetoe is the general secretary of Cosatu.