1015 items found for "LABAT"
- Labat Seals CSIR Agreement to Fast-Track Cannabis Projects | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- Labat Says Store Openings Continue Despite JSE Suspension | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- JSE Warns Labat Once Again Over Late Financials | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- Labat Fires New Auditors Due to ‘Steady Breakdown’ in Relationship | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- The Phakisa is the Light at the End of the Tunnel says Labat’s Van Rooyen | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
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Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- Labat Appoints Advisory Board to Guide Its European Expansion Strategy | Cannabiz Africa
Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is
- Labat Appoints Advisory Board to Guide Its European Expansion Strategy | Cannabiz Africa
Last year Rwanda issued the first cannabis industry guidelines focusing on medical and industrial cannabis for export. Kigali has now set aside a large tract of land as a cannabis hub and is looking for investors. Read Africa has missed out on the first wave of cannabis legalization that has swept the Americas and Europe. Exports have not lived up to expectation and there has been limited local market development. African cannabis is now at an impasse and is being left further behind as international markets grow exponentially . Read Morocco is Africa’s largest exporter of cannabis, mostly hemp for industrial purposes. However, cannabis reform has faltered with record crops and lower prices, prompting traditional growers to call for a legal domestic adult-use market to be legalized. Read Namibian police are concerned that the country is becoming a “nation of drug addicts and drug dealers". This follows the arrest of 126 people in December for drug-related offences, the appearance of metamphetamine in the country and the increasing use of Namibians as ‘drug mules’. Read ZIDA has put out a call for investors to fund an ambitious US$16,9 million ‘industrial hemp and cannabis hub' at Goromonzi, 40 km east of Harare. Read Kenya has taken the first step towards realizing the potential of industrial cannabis with a landmark hemp workshopping conference planned for Nairobi on 20 January 2025. Read Cannabis reform in Africa is taking a very different route from the legalization in other jurisdictions as the continent’s policy-makers see the plant simply as a drug. That approach means that cannabis is lumped in the same category as heroin, metamphetamines and cocaine which tends to obscure the real drug problem - Africa's growing synthetic drugs crisis. Read Africa faces numerous hurdles if it is ever to realize its potential to become a global leader in medical cannabis production. Among those challenges are balancing policy, economic growth and social norms. With lazy, conservative thinking entrenched in post-colonial governments across the continent, Africa is many years away from any hope of being a player in the world medical cannabis arena. Read A ground-breakng new ‘psycho-pharma research centre has been launched at the University of Pretoria to delve into the mysteries of African psychedelics and other medicinal plants to explore their potential to treat modern mental health conditions. Read Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has noted farmers showing a growing interest in medical cannabis Zimbabwe for medicinal purposes, but production challenges are slowing the growth of the sector. Read Where have we heard this before? Well, in South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and just about every other African country that has legalized cannabis for export. Now Malawi joins their ranks in a sad but familiar repeat from the African cannabis playbook, with Invegrow being its only success story to date. Read Earlier this year Ghana’s Chamber of Commerce set up a specialist division to help establish a regulated cannabis industry in the West African country. The CCI’s CEO Mark Darko writes how Ghana is taking the regional lead in creating a commercial medicinal and industrial cannabis industry. Read There’s growing controversy in Kenya over the role and status of muguku, a variety of the popular stimulant known as khat or miraa. Government is obliged to fund farmers who grow the plant, but now there is kickback from critics who say it’s contributing to the country’s addiction crisis. Read Uganda has now become a market for heroin whereas in the past it was ‘merely’ a distribution hub. This is the story of the new colonialism sweeping Africa as international criminal organizations move in with a new form of wealth-generating oppression to inflict on the natives: substance addiction. Read The Namibian Police won’t allow a planned cannabis protest march to take place on 10 December 2024 because ‘foreign nationals’ have been invited to participate’. A top officer says this will be ‘detrimental to Namibia’s sovereignty and will only let the protest go ahead if no foreigners are involved. Read Botswana will diversify its diamond-dependent economy by launching into the medicinal cannabis market and exploiting its abundant sunshine, President Duma Boko said on Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in his first State of the Nation address (SONA). Read Judgement has been reserved in a Mbombela court case in which the eSwatini Prime Minister is tryng to gag the rebel Swaziland News, accusing it of terrorism and defamation. Part of the PM’s objection is that the paper reported without substantiating its sources, that King Mswati III is involved in the Kingdom’s illegal cannabis trade. Read Zimbabwe has been struggling to develop its medical cannabis value chain but this looks set to change as Ivory Medical brings an innovative product range to market. Its CannaQure range, launched last week, integrates traditional African medicines into cannabis-based therapeutic products. Read Only nine countries in Africa have legalized medical cannabis to some degree, but for the rest of the continent the global medical cannabis revolution is passing it by. Nonetheless, African pharmacists should tackle their own knowledge gap in anticipation of cannabis becoming part of integrated public health systems in the future. Read International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis. Read eSwatini’ MP’s hope that the controversial Cannabis Bill will still be retabled before the year is out, but with more ministries being pulled into the legalization issue, don’t expect this to happen. Read cannabis licencing corruption remains rife in the country and the government is turning a blind eye. That's according to The Lesotho Reporter, the Kingdom’s main newspaper, which alleges there is a single mastermind behind the ongoing licensing fraud whose identity is known to the authorities. Read Malawi’s president has not yet enacted into law a Bill passed by Parliament in March this year intended to regulate the cannabis industry. This was because of objections by religious leaders that not enough harms prevention measures had been put in place, even though the Malawi is only permitting cultivation for export. Read Uganda’s cannabis policy is to legalize cannabis only for export. Kampala is currently not considering domestic consumption of industrial, medical or recreational cannabis, but has recently issued guidelines for prospective exporters. Read eSwatini has taken the ‘War Against Drugs’ to a new level entirely, with the National Police Commissioner giving an order to police on 9 October 2024 to destroy all cannabis fields in the country. There is suspicion in eSwatini that the motivation is political and that cannabis operators with links to the royal family are getting rid of their opposition. Read All forms of cannabis consumption are illegal in Namibia but that could soon change as the country’s lawmakers begin discussing the possibilities of partial legalization. Namibian MP’s recently visited Lesotho to find out how that country is dealing with medical cannabis regulation and culivation Read The SANDF has praised its soldiers for their “commitment and dedication to the sovereignty of the state” for arresting two rural women with 17 kg of cannabis near the eSwatini border. SANDF border patrols also discovered 190 kg of cannabis in an unrelated action in the same area of eastern Mpumulanga. Read The African Hemp Fund reports that industrial cannabis, or hemp, is experiencing “significant economic expansion” in Africa although the overall regulatory market remains constrained. Despite this analysts project that Africa’s industrial hemp industry possesses a market potential of US$2.4 billion – and this excludes CBD, which itself is a massive market. Read A recent Cheeba Africa webinar on 'Hemp as Food', revealed the huge potential for industrial cannabis to be used as a healthy foodstuff. Although hemp is ideal for boosting young brains, the stigma surrounding cannabis is blocking health authorities from allowing hemp-based food products to be used in school feeding schemes. Read A US10 million cannabis processing facility planned for Malawi’s capital, Llilongwe, has ambitious revenue targets, aiming to generate US$300 million a year in four years time Read The South African legal sector has significant experience in dealing with cannabis legislation and is well-positioned to benefit from the regulatory reform that is taking place in the rest of the continent. Read Morocco’s cannabis policy has centred on medical and industrial exports and bringing small-scale farmers into the mainstream. This has given stakeholders new impetus to urge the Kingdom to go further and open a discussion on full adult-use legalization. Read Kush, also known as the ‘Zombie Drug’ or ‘KJ’, is spreading across the Mano River Basin in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, ensnaring young people and straining social services. This is according to a report from the Institute of Security Studies which says a united front by these three governments is needed to prevent this transnational drug crisis from disrupting the region’s fragile stability. Read Cannabis seizures were up almost 20% in 2023 but the alarming statistic is in the amount of heroin confiscated. This is a fourfold rise over the previous year highlighting Mozambique’s growing role as a transhipment point in the international narcotics supply chain – and that of neighbouring South Africa. Read Morocco is emerging as Africa’s leading exporter of legal cannabis with an estimated 225 tons shipped out this year,, almost as much as it exported in the whole of 2023. The Kingdom is limiting cultivation to the centuries-old Rif region cannabis growing areas and has a strict anti-recreational use laws. Now it has pardoned 5 000 small-scale cannabis offenders. Read Zimbabwe is failing to live up to its expectations of being a major player in the African industrial cannabis sector. Although 61 various hemp licenses have been issued, exports have been minimal and there’s a long way to go before there’s any serious talk about cannabis reducing Zimbabwe’s dependence on tobacco. Read Expediting major narcotics cases could improve Kenyans’ trust in the criminal justice system and help curb trafficking. Read KKOG’s CEO Rene Joseph says the multi-million dollar cannabis processing facility is 70% complete and will open in September. The company has a five year license from the Rwanda Development Board, which also invested capital in the project. The primary aim is to export cannabis oils internationally and KKOG says it intends expanding its African footprint. Read African policymakers in country’s allowing cannabis cultivation should re-evaluate existing cannabis laws as they are disproportionately repressive and largely ineffective. A new report says that to be effective, new cannabis laws need to be inclusive by actively seeking the input of cannabis stakeholders. Read Morocco's partial legalisation of cannabis has seen the number of legal farmers rocket from 430 to 3 000 in just a year. This has seen the area under cannabis cultivation increase tenfold to 2 700 ha as the country cautiously reform the regulatory landscape. Read Mozambique is lifting the lid on cannabis legalization. Speaking at a drug policy conference in Maputo, the President said he seeks ‘closer co-operation’ with other countries on how to legalize and regulate cannabis. The European Union has stepped up smartly and said it’s ready to help. Read Africa produces about 25% of the world’s cannabis. Almost all of it is illegal and much of it is consumed domestically. According to a report on maritime smuggling, Madagascar is now the key illegal exporter of cannabis in Africa with syndicates specialising in repackaging and international distribution. Read South Africa’s role as a key hub in international narco-trafficking is coming to the fore and the country is also a “cornerstone production location for crystal meth, cat, mandrax and MDMA. Now Interpol has dropped in for a look. Read In a first-ever survey in Seychelles, Afrobarometer explored citizens' views on drugs. Seychellois say they want drug abuse, addiction, and trafficking to be prioritized after the management of the island's economy. The survey showed a strong resistance to legalization with 49% of those polled opposing it, while 30% were in favour. Read Nitazenes can be 100 times more potent than heroin and 10 times the strength of fentanyl meaning that users get their high from small hits but with huge risks of overdosing. Now they’ve found their way into the West African drug market for the first time Read Liberia says it’s facing a national health emergency because of widespread use of ‘kush cannabis’, a dangerous new cocktail that includes opioids, among the nation’s youth. Drug seizures over the past year reveal an alarming array of new synthetic psychoactive substances. Read Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started to manufacture cannabis medicines under the country’s five-year-old industrial hemp reforms. Read The UNODC reports that Africa is facing an alarming increase in ‘dangerous drug cocktails’, with youngsters most susceptible to this growing trend. This is highlighted by news that almost all global seizures of tramadol – an opioid analgesic used in most of these cocktails – occur the region. Read Cannabis use in Africa is growing faster than any other region in the world, according to the latest UN Drug Report. The continent is also increasingly affected by drug trafficking and the use of new and dangerous drug “cocktails” Read Khat appeared to have secured legal status in Kenya even though it’s a prohibited substance in most countries. However, there is a kick-back underway with a regional governor banning muguka, a variety of khat, on health grounds following a trade dispute over import levies. Read Eswatini is joining many of its African neighbours in legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, revising a colonial drug law dating back a century. Read International policy Investigative organization, The Sentry, has exposed Zimbabwe's secretive CIO’s vast business network which focuses on diamonds, coal and industrial cannabis. It has urged the Government to dissolve this empire and make the CIO more accountable and be paid for from the National Budget instead of the shady financing that is currently taking place. Read Prohibition Partners has just released its African Cannabis Market Overview for 2022. Among its key findings are that, driven by South Africa, the continent has seen significant growth but that it lags behind other cannabis-producing nations. It reports that over the next five years the South African market for decriminalized cannabis in South Africa will grow. Read Zimbabwe’s hopes of capitalizing on cannabis have not yielded the results that Harare hoped for. Africa’s largest tobacco producer is concerned that cigarette consumption is dropping world-wide and has now called on the sector’s research experts to look at how cannabis can become a meaningful alternative export commodity. Read West Africa has become a critical international drug smuggling hub, while at home substance abuse is getting out of hand in several countries in the region. This has prompted Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to step up their ‘War Against Drugs’, leading to the recent break up of two major trafficking cartels. Read Of the 57 cannabis cultivation license-holders, only seven are actually in production. Among them is a farming trio from the Bulawayo area who have overcome the capex and bureaucratic hurdles whose Thathokuhle Farm enterprise seeks to inspire surrounding farmers to grow cannabis. Read Lesotho was the first African country to legalize medical cannabis for export purposes. However, recent research says Lesotho’s cannabis laws have proved very challenging, have not been applied objectively and have been at the expense of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Read Amnesty International and human rights activists in Nigeria are criticizing a new bid put forward by Nigerian lawmakers to punish drug trafficking with the death penalty. The move has divided the country’s lawmakers in Abuja, many of whom support the measure as part of the “War Against Drugs”. Read The construction of Rwanda's first cannabis facility in Musanze is set to be completed by the end of May 2024, according to license holders KKOG. Read Nigeria has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor. Now the authorities are upping the stakes with the country’s Senate proposing the death penalty as part of their arsenal in the West African 'War Against Drugs'. Read Although exporting Hashish to Israel was incredibly lucrative to dealers in Morocco, they are no longer willing to sell to Israeli dealers: 'Why Should Israelis be able to make a living selling Moroccan hashish when our Palestinian brothers are suffering from hunger?' Read A UN report says Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are a “natural stopover point” for drug trafficking between South America and Europe, but authorities are beginning to take down the criminal networks involved. Read Bristol University academic Clemence Rusenga offers a deep dive into Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector. One of his conclusions is that Harare’s cannabis reform is aimed at attracting foreign investment rather than uplifting subsistence farmers and that this is going to create a deepening schism between agri-business and illicit growers. Read Substance abuse in West Africa is spiralling out of control, with hybrid drugs coming onto the market that are aimed soley at creating addiction. Cannabis is the base for fentynal-laced Voodoo Kush, which is creating a social health crisis. Here we take you to the streets of Freetown for how the new drug is affecting ordinary people. Read DPP walks out of Parliament concerned that legalization will lead to the nation’s moral decay, and then walks back in, despite there was no substance to their protestations that the Bill will lead to moral decay, but could earn the country US$700 million Read King Kong Organics (KKOG Rwanda) has become the first local company to secure a 5-year license to cultivate cannabis for medicinal purposes, extraction, and export various medicinal products in the central African country. Read Nigerian authorities believe that an international drug smuggling syndicate based in South Africa is sending cannabis and cocaine to the West African country, including the powerful new strain, ‘Colorado’. Read A powerful new strain of Cannabis sativa know as 'Ghanaian Loud 'is on the West African market. Nigeria just bust a 14 ton consignment heading for Lagos. Read The central African country, which has legalized medical cannabis for export ,says it’s conducting its first ever production surveys which will give it data on the cannabis industry and what it’s legal earnings are. Read The Sierra Leone version of ‘Kush’ is different from the American ‘Zombie’ concoction. It is a mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and - according to some - ground down humans bones. Read Nigerian law enforcement officials have arrested a man they say was allegedly smuggling high-THC “Colorado” cannabis from the US in boxing kits and distributing the merch through Lagos State. Read Lawmakers in Ghana’s Parliament voted last month to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes, putting a 0,3% THC cap for growers. Read Africans have valued cannabis for centuries and that in this history lie the seeds of future potential. Read The International Drug Policy Consortium says African governments’ complacency has led to a failed ‘War on Drugs’ and this has had devastating consequences on millions of people and that an urgent shift in policy thinking is required to change the trajectory Read Stakeholder meeting reveals that only 10 of 59 licensed cultivators are producing and selling and that red tape is to blame Read Heroin generates billions of rand in South Africa as local criminal syndicates become pivotal in the global market and domestic demand rises. Read Senior Kenyan security official urges the country to resist the global push for the commercialization of cannabis, calls for cross-border ties in combating drug trafficking and a new approach to rehabilitation of ‘substance abusers.’ Read Kampala is set to open a new era in cannabis farming and access for Ugandans to medical cannabis, but there will strict controls and harsh penalties for substance abuse offences. Read Morocco began its first legal cannabis plantings in June 2023 in a Government-supported project. This is the first step in bringing the illegal market into the open, but there’s a long way to go before Moroccan hash gets to be above board. Read Concerns are being voiced that eSwatini's traditional growers will be marginalized and that the proposed regulator will be both a “referee and a player” as it will have the power to trade in cannabis products itself. Read The West African nation of Ghana has legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes after a technicality held up the passage of the bill in Parliament. Read Africa is facing a substance abuse crisis that is growing exponetentially. This is leading to increasingly harsh penalties for drug offences and the increasing criminalization of cannabis, particularly in West Africa Read The Malawi Investment Forum recently held a promotional summit in South Africa in which cannabis was the centre of attraction. Among the potential investors arising out of the meetings is the Armita Energy Tech, a group of Russian companies seeking to diversify into the African cannabis market. Read The Seychelles Kanabis Association has embarked on a public awareness campaign around cannabis following the President’s announcement that legalization will be the subject of a national referendum. This report from the Seychelles News Agency. Read Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa's largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop Read Nairobi has registered the highest prevalence of Cannabis use with National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) estimating abuse by 1 in 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 nationwide. Read The Constitutional Court in Kampala has nullified the entire Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Control Act of 2016 on grounds that it was passed without the required quorum in Parliament. Read Lesotho’s cannabis fortunes may be changing for the better after leading cultivator MG Health secured new interest from international investors. CEO Andre Bothma says product purity is the key to meeting rapidy growing international demand. Read Authorities in Morocco announced on Sunday, 30 April 2023, the official start of its first legal cannabis growing season. The Royal Household has also confirmed that it will continue to represent Africa on the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs. Read Nigerian authorities have intercepted a shipment of 63 kgs of synthetic cannabis at Tincan Port in Lagos that was concealed in a Toyota Corolla imported from Canada. Nigeria, which is the world's highest consumer of cannabis, appears increasingly to be a hub in transnational drug smuggling. Read Leading Rwandan fashion designer and businessman Moses Turahirwa has been arrested on cannabis charges and forgery after he openly admitted his cannabis use and posted a photo of his passport in which he identified as a woman. Read The issuing of cannabis licences in Lesotho appears to have been held up because of a power struggle over the appointment of a new Narcotics Bureau which would be the responsible body. This has emerged from an interview with Oane Solutions founder CEO Tseli Khiba by Deon Maas for Cannavigia. Read Harare has set its THC limits in the definition of hemp at 1% making it a far more attractive investment destination for international capital than South Africa which has a 0,2% THC limit. Most industry observers say this is unrealistic given local climatic conditions, given the propensity of “THC spikes” that are difficult to control. Read As Zimbabwe continues to shape rules and laws for the hemp industry, the country needs to simultaneously build out infrastructure and expand research while spreading risk by moving beyond CBD into the production of food and fibre products. Read Police have arrested and charged leading Namibian businesswoman, Jennifer Comalie, on drug-dealing charges after skunk, coke and crack cocaine were found in her official vehicle. However, there are deep suspicions that this may have been a set-up in a political dispute over oil interests. Read Almost as many Nigerians smoke cannabis as the combined populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but the Abuja Government has ruled out any form of adult-use legalization and has recommitted itself to the “War Against Drugs”. Read The central African nation has put cannabis firmly on its investment agenda and is hoping to attract billions of dollars to make it a premier medical cannabis exporter. Read Zimbabwe’s fledgling cannabis sector has been rocked by a high profile row involving directorships of Ivory Medical,one of the country’s pioneering cannabis companies. Read Amended legislation in Zimbabwe has removed industrial hemp from the country’s list of dangerous drugs and set the defining line between cannabis and hemp at 1.0%. Read The Guardian's answer quite simply is that licences to grow are expensive and hard to come by, leaving small-time growers excluded from the economic benefits that were meant to be available to all. Read
- Cilo Cybin Plans Expansion into BioTech Space Post JSE Listing
Cilo Cybin will join Labat Africa as a player on the JSE when it lists next week. Cilo Cybin will join Labat Africa as a player on the JSE when it lists next week.
- Labat Says Delayed Financials Are Because New Auditors Are Reviewing Asset Valuations | Cannabiz Africa
Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is
- Labat To Acquire IT Company for R16,75 million in a Paper Deal That Will Underwrite Group Liabilities | Cannabiz Africa
Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is
- Labat Expects “Third Party Financial Assistance” as It Reports Diminishing Losses for F2024 | Cannabiz Africa
Read Labat CEO Brian van Rooyen has resigned as CEO of the JSE-listed group as it announces a shift in Read New year has bought good news for Labat Africa. Read Labat has shifted the focus of its Sweetwaters cannabis cultivation facility away from exports to Read Labat Africa’s historical losses are coming to light as the JSE-listed company gets its books up Read Labat Africa will post a 3,7 cents headline loss per share for the year ending May 2024 which is
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