The government is due present the national cannabis master plan to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) on Wednesday, almost three years after the Constitutional Court decriminalised the use of the plant.

Matthew Parks, a Cosatu representative at Nedlac, reportedly told the Sunday Times this week's meeting was a step forward, but it had been ‘a long waiting game’.

He said of the 50 master plans in play, the cannabis industry's road trip had been one of the tardiest out of the starting blocks. ‘We've been advocating for greater progress on the matter for the last six months,’ he said.

‘We don't have the luxury of waiting.’

With the medicines portion of the road map already laid out, Parks said the recreational and related value chains could be unlocked quickly.

‘We are looking forward to participating in the process and bringing clarity to the strategy,’ he said.

The Constitutional Court ruled in September 2018 that the use, possession and cultivation of cannabis in private should be allowed. It gave parliament 24 months to bring legislation in line with the ruling. The Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill was developed to address the court's directive.

An attorney has noted some problems with the process.

Ricky Stone, of Cullinan & Associates in Gqeberha, who represents some of the estimated 900 000 small-scale farmers in the Eastern Cape and parts of KZN, reportedly told the Sunday Times that if the National Assembly passed the Bill, it would mean that SA could declare hemp an agricultural crop, and would develop new policies and legislation to commercialise cannabis.

Stone said rural growers had complained that the government's announcement on the master plan was in a form and language inaccessible to the predominantly Xhosa-speaking communities, which made the overly tight timeframe of one week allowed for public comments impossible to meet.

‘All we ask is to be kept updated on the formal public participation process,’ Stone said.

To date, only 16 cannabis cultivation licences have been issued by the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.

The president of the Black Farmers Association of SA, Lennox Mtshagi, said the system had provoked an angry backlash from traditional growers and aspirant black farmers who felt they were being deliberately excluded by the high-cost barriers to entry.

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