Editorial: Nuance is absent from cannabis conversation
The constitutional court’s decision to decriminalise the private use of cannabis in 2018 was a seminal moment in South African history. It undid a law that was built on ill intent and bad reasoning; a discriminatory law that had needlessly turned people into criminals.
Amid the celebrations of then deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s decision, there was a prevailing understanding that the work was far from over.
Such is the ubiquity of cannabis that personal consumption is only a single facet of the issue, one intractable from questions of production, distribution and economy.
Yet many saw opportunities in those questions — a robust commercial framework would not only reform a gangster-controlled industry but potentially add a new element to the economy, one with a high potential for growth.
It has been painful to watch the government continually squander that opportunity in the years since.
The latest gut punch arrived earlier this month with Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi gazetting a blanket ban on edible cannabis products.
Much outrage has already elucidated why it is a terrible decision but suffice it to say here that the typical lack of nuance is greatly troubling. There has been no distinction made between strands of cannabis, the parts of the plant or the distillation of its chemicals.
Such stark generalisation suggests that lawmakers are still imprisoned by antiquated ideas, unable to conceive of cannabis as anything but a demonic shrub.
The lack of deliberate purpose breeds uncertainty which, in turn, begets dysfunction — something we have seen time and again on the cannabis question.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act into law last year but it remains out of operation due to a lack of a regulatory framework.
The media is inundated with anecdotes of what the confusion has wrought over the years, with users, entrepreneurs and even law enforcement operating in a perpetual grey-coloured limbo.
Full-scale commercialisation is another matter entirely. The seeds of a “master plan” were planted in 2018 but it quickly lost momentum. It was moved to the department of trade, industry and competition in November and the onus now lies with that ministry to table sensible legislation in parliament.
While separate from that process, the foodstuffs ban indicates that there is still no coherence in the national thinking around cannabis; or at the very least that there are large gaps in legislative thinking.
Until the government demonstrates that it has reached ideological consensus — one in the spirit of the 2018 concourt decision — the supposed master plan will remain nothing but a misnomer.