RE-EXAMINE CANNABIS BELIEFS

Sir,

The ongoing public discourse around the issue of cannabis has been largely centred on the subject of licensing and restrictive regulation to be imposed by government. This approach to the matter is of course designed to restrict the benefits of such an industry to a selected few. It is further seemingly not recognized that the uses which the cannabis plant can be put to stretch far beyond medicinal use, which appears to be the centre of the current debate.

Now, the point of this letter is not to add to the aforementioned deliberations but to urge the powers that be and all who read this to urgently re-examine their beliefs concerning this plant, one of the most useful on the planet. For many, many thousands of years it has served humanity in multiple ways until, less than a century ago, it was suddenly demonized by people with ulterior, greedy motives. The very same system which has brought the world almost to its knees now was responsible for this deception and everyone bought into it.

Recreationally

Everyone, that is, except those who have chosen to use the plant recreationally, even at the risk of being jailed, if caught. Prohibition has never stopped people from consuming whatever they choose to ingest. And so, all those who wish to enjoy the psychotropic effects of this herb are already doing so. I personally know many highly ranked members of society who privately like to relax with a little THC input. They are not deviants or mental, cases as is commonly assumed. In fact, society has nothing to fear from the responsible recreational use of cannabis. Of course, there are dangers associated with using a stimulant and it would be best for these dangers to be taught to children at a young age, since they are the most vulnerable.

Appeal

The reason for this appeal for a total re-appraisal of our approach to cannabis legalization is the current and projected catastrophic state of the kingdom’s economy. Here is a commodity which we already own, with exponential potential to lift us all out of this calamity, if correctly structured. Potentially 100 per cent employment could be achieved if all the production and value-addition are carried out here, by emaSwati. Let it not become like our forestry industry: decades of growing pine trees but we can’t even make a matchstick!

Safe

It is further an environmentally safe industry, requiring low levels of carbon heavy energy inputs. This is a time of immense shifts and changes happening in the way humans take care of themselves and their planet. It is clear that globalization has not benefitted the masses of poor people, so do we want to allow greedy and corrupt foreign corporations to reap the benefits of the cannabis industry while we imprison poor, hardworking cannabis farmers and destroy their crops and infrastructure, while the economy crumbles? That is how globalisation has worked and a new economic paradigm needs to be established, urgently. We could lead the way.

Now is the time to make bold decisions and to act upon them with vigour. We could have a thriving green economy within a decade, so let us not make criminals and paupers of those who can take us there. Eswatini has, since independence, followed her own path politically, to suit her own needs; so what should stop us now from following our own path economically?

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