The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act (CfPPA) is likely to be implanted in stages. According to a note from the SA Legal Academy, Section 8 of the Act will only be operational on a ‘date fixed by the President by proclamation in the Gazette’, and that  'different dates may be proclaimed in respect of different provisions of the Act and the different items of the Schedule to the Act'.

Read the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act here

The Academy points out that new regulations are likely to be “required to give the Act practical effect. These  will need to be released in draft form for public input before they can be finalised and the Act operationalised.”

The SA Legal Academy note reads:

Against that backdrop, once in force the Act will:

• regulate ‘the cultivation, possession and use of cannabis by adults in a private setting’

• prohibit dealing in cannabis’, and

• amend various statutes ‘to allow for the industrialisation of the cannabis sector’ and the commercial production of hemp.

It is also expected to:

• guide the medically prescribed administration of cannabis to a child’

• protect children from ‘undue exposure to cannabis', and

• ensure that, in their efforts to ‘address the issue of the prohibited use,  possession of, or dealing in cannabis by children’, the authorities consider the best interest of the child concerned (presumably on a case-by-case basis).

Read: Qure’s quick-guide as to what the new Cannabis Act means for you