Parliament’s Justice & Correctional Services Committee heard last week that an amended Bill does not legalise commercial production of cannabis and can delay President Cyril Ramaphosa’s vision for this industry to create more than 130 000 new jobs.

A Business Day report says the committee was told that the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill in its current form does not provide for the commercialisation of cannabis.

The amended Bill says commercial cannabis activities ‘are authorised subject to the enactment of national legislation’.

Several presenters urged the committee to include commercialisation of cannabis in the Bill. That would make Ramaphosa’s vision – expressed in his February State of the Nation Address – a reality.

Umzimvubu Farmers Support Network director Ricky Stone argued there should be a single, all-encompassing law catering to all legitimate uses of cannabis – including medical, non-medical, adult and industrial uses.

Cullinan & Associates lawyer Paul-Michael Keichel said there was a need to go back to the drawing board to fix the ‘fatally flawed Bill’.

Karoo Bioscience CEO Doron Isaacs said two deficiencies in the Bill were that it seemed to tie any future ‘commercial activities’ to the notion of ‘recreational cannabis’ when it should also allow for medicinal use, and that it envisaged a future law to permit commercial activity in recreational cannabis.

Isaacs said while the revised Bill purported to expand access on medical grounds, it granted only those who obtain the required medical certificate the same rights to private cultivation, possession and use, as have been enjoyed by the public since the Constitutional Court judgment.

Those with medical prescriptions will still not be permitted to buy cannabis.

Full Business Day report