The National Assembly has called on interested stakeholders to write submissions on the proposed amendments to the Bill by no later than Friday, 28 April 2023.
Qure's response:
Qure was established in 2019 to provide accurate, accessible, and affordable Cannabis analytics to the fledgling South African Cannabis industry. As the first Cannabis-specific analytical laboratory in South Africa, we have unique insights into the industry.
Our customers range across the spectrum, from SAHPRA-licensed growers and hemp farmers, to dispensaries, private clubs, healers, and private growers. Our management team is actively involved across most sectors of the industry which include genetics, hemp and Cannabis agronomic research, medicine, Cannabis farming, marketing, and training and education. We therefore believe that our comments on the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill come from an informed and practical base.
We are of the opinion that the entire process to get to the Bill was flawed and that the wrong approach was used. The following points are to motivate this argument:
- Definition – there is no botanical or scientific basis to separate the Cannabis sativa plant into separate species based on the Cannabinoid content. Industrial Cannabis (or hemp) should be defined as a product from the plant. A suitable definition would be “Hemp refers to the non-psychoactive parts of the Cannabis sativa plant”.
- The farming of Cannabis for industrial purposes has no place in the Private Purposes Bill. The constitutional court ruling by interpretation includes the growing of Industrial Cannabis (hemp) for personal, non-commercial purposes. Cannabis farming for commercial purposes should be seen as primary agriculture and regulated by the DALRRD.
- Cannabis can be used to produce many products across a variety of sectors. These products should be regulated within their sectors, for example food, textiles, chemicals, energy, construction material, traditional and pharmaceutical medicine, and beverages. Adult recreational consumption of Cannabis should be regulated similarly to tobacco and alcohol.
- An enforcement system based on high fines and short jail terms only penalises the poor – i.e., the demographic that we want to empower through this process.
- Cannabis for cultural and religious purposes should automatically be included under the interpretation of the Constitutional court ruling. The commercialisation of it should be regulated by the DTIC, with secondary departments involved as they are affected. The proposed regulation creates unsurmountable barriers to entry to the target citizen and will allow for fronting activities from big companies with the necessary resources to deal with the proposed regulation.
- Regulations based on Cannabinoid content cannot be enacted without detailed guidelines regarding sampling and testing procedures. The analytical industry in South Africa must be included in defining this before regulations are formulated.
Based on the above points of illustration and many other inconsistencies and impracticalities within the tabled legislation, we reject the entire Bill, including the recent amendments.
We are interested in making a verbal presentation.
Yours sincerely,
Directors of Qure (Pty) Ltd
