Government needs to speed up cannabis law reform, say protesters
“We’ve been given the constitutional right to grow and consume it, but we haven’t been given the right to trade with it”
GroundUp (South Africa)
Monday, September 19, 2022
Various groups protested on the lawns of the Union Buildings over the slow pace and haphazard approach to cannabis law reform and regulation in South Africa.
Under the umbrella of the Cannabis Mass Action Committee a memorandum of demands was handed to a representative of the office of The President. Cannabis legalisation and regulation, necessary to unlock the industry and change lives, is “disjointed, unfocused, and taking too long”, it says. In 2018 the Constitutional Court declared that certain sections of the Drugs Act and Medicines Act were unconstitutional and gave Parliament 24 months to fix the defects. Some progress has been made in the drafting of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill, but no actual legislation has been passed in four years since the ruling.
