Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane says the commercialisation of cannabis can create jobs and grow the South African economy.
Mabuyane says the issue will be raised in the proposed economic development master plan which will outline how small scale cannabis farmers will benefit from the formal commercialisation of the plant.
Last year, the Constitutional Court approved the growing of cannabis for private use but buying it remains illegal. Mabuyane says it’s high time to formally commercialise cannabis.
He says,”It’s not a question of being premature, it’s a question of government raising it , society talking about it , people understand it so that we brought it out into the horizon in terms of understanding. Because the attitude that we have , we just literally think it as dagga nothing more, others to think about it as this necessary herb than can really contribute in the manufacturing and in the industrialisation of the economy .”
