President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the Cannabis Research Unit of the CSIR on 7 April 2025 to get more acquainted with Government’s R&D around the plant. He was hosted by senior researcher Phateka Ndzotoyi who told him the CSIR was currently incubating 18 businesses to bring cannabis product to market, many of them related to food and beverages.

Ndzotoyi told the president that the CSIR had incubated 23 businesses in the wake of the Phakisa and that all products were within the parameters of the research licenses granted to the CSIR and DALRRD and that none of the food-related foodstuff the CSIR had helped bring to market broke the law in any way.

At the end of the tour, the President turned to Ndzotoyi.

“I want to ask about the foods, the one Minister Motsoaledi is fighting against. You know, he came once to show me, and laid them all out….chocolates, brown and white chocolates, Durban Poison in a can you name it, everything, every food product that had cannabis in it, he laid it all out. Now what can you tell me about that?”

“As responsible scientists we work within the guidelines laid down by the DOH and SAHPRA who gave us the license to do this research in the first place” said Ndzotoyi. “So all of the products we developed and produced and handed over to our enterprises for trade, they contain CBD isolate only, that is the component that when you eat or when you drink, it won’t make you high, they are not psychoactive”

“And the other one, what do you call it, THC?” asked the President.

“We do not do that, because we are not licensed to” explained Ndzotoyi. She said the CSIR was only mandated to work with CBD which produced calming effects that helped with anxiety and depression. “But we do not develop THC products” she said.

“But there are a lot of illegal THC products on the market” interjected Science Minister Dr Blade Nzimande who was accompanying the President.

“Yes” said Ndzotoyi. ”We’ve seen in the illegal market some of the most dangerous gummies, they are full spectrum, they’re addictive, they’re …”

“And they come from outside, from offshore?” interjected the President said in what sounded more like a statement instead of a question.

“Absolutely”.

“Like the Netherlands and places like that?”

“Yes”.

“So they are not produced here?”

“No”

“Not yet?” asked Ramaphosa breaking into a grin.

“Not yet” laughed Ndzotoyi.

The tour of the CSIR was altogether light-hearted, the President seeming to relish an environment free from Trump, the DA, VAT and Paul Mashatile.

Ndzotoyi explained that community involvement was a key component of the CSIR’s philosophy, and this had been the take-out from the Phakisa discussions of 2023, which generated state funding for the CSIR.

“Which communities?” asked Ramaphosa.

“Mpondoland… Flagstaff and Lusikisiki, Limpopo, Promised Land, Songeza, Okhahlamba in KZN…we’re are across all the nine provinces. These are the communities we want to assist; we are helping them make value add products and they can trade in the market”.

“We are the real McCoy!” she said showing off a table of products for the President.

“So this is it” said the President, reaching over to the table and picking up a jar of cannabis flower – eliciting laughs all around when he pretended to put it in his pocket.

“It’s Durban Poison” Dr Nzimande added helpfully.

“It smells like Mpondoland” said the President sniffing the contents. He was then introduced to CSIR researcher Dumiso Ndlovu.

“He is the one who tests it” said Ndzotoyi.

“Oh”, laughed Ramaphosa pretending to raise a joint to his lips before being taken around the CSIR’s extraction facilities.

“It smells like Mpondoland” said the President again.

Ndlovu told the President that there were three different pillars to the plant in terms of usage – recreational, medicinal and industrial. He said that simplistically cannabis referred to recreational and medicinal usage, while hemp had industrial applications that were not psychoactive.

“It is one plant, one family, and you can differentiate between cannabis and hemp as if they are a brother and a sister” he said.

“With cannabis it’s a smaller bush and if you smoke it you can get high; hemp is taller and if you smoke it you won’t get high but you will get the medicinal benefits” said Ndlovu.

He explained to the president that THC was the active ingredient in cannabis that has a psychoactive effect, whereas CBD had an effect on the body that was not psychoactive. “THC is what gets you high”.

“What do they grow in Mpondoland?” asked the President.

“It’s cannabis, the one that gets you high” answered Ndlovu.

“And Okhahlamba?”

“It’s the landrace, it gets you high”.

Ndlovu told the President that all the traditional cannabis growing areas in the country were suited to landraces and that the Western Cape was more amenable to hemp production.

He said that across all sectors the idea was to beneficiate what farmers could grow into products that could be sold on the market at a higher value than biomass.

“High value doesn’t mean that kind of high” Dr Nzamandi said, winking at the President.

Ramaphosa appeared impressed by the sophistication of the CSIR’s extraction technology, the entity’s processing capacity and the and the fact it was developing its own seedbank.

“Wow” he said at the end of the tour when he was presented with a bouquet of cannabis-infused products developed by the CSIR.

“We’d like you take these home and try them” said Ndzotoyi.

“What do you mean try?” asked the President in mock horror. “This is not for….” making his smoking gesture again.

Phatika laughed: “We promise it won’t make you high, Mr President”.

 The dialogue and image posted here is courtesy Buffalo Extractions's Linked-In Feed recorded during the President's visit. Thank you guys.

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