DAGGA LEGALISATION WILL ANGER ANCESTORS - NHLAVANA

MBABANE – “The legalisation of dagga for medicinal purposes will anger the country’s ancestors.”

This sentiment was shared by popular traditional healer, Nhlavana Maseko, during a meeting for cannabis regulation stakeholder consultation.
Maseko is the President of the Traditional Health Organisation for Africa (THO). The meeting took place yesterday at Mountain Inn Hotel in Mbabane.

The elementary intention of the meeting was to allow different stakeholders to voice out their opinions regarding the regulations governing the legalisation of dagga or cannabis.
Maseko said the reason that the legalisation of cannabis would anger the ancestors was because from time immemorial, it was used for medicinal purposes.

Consulted

He said it was for this reason that traditional healers should have been consulted since they still used cannabis for the same purpose (for medicinal purposes) as the generations before them.
He said as such, the Ministry of Health should have consulted traditional healers to verify how their ancestors used dagga for medicinal purposes in the past.
“Uhamba njani embili entfweni longayati?” Maseko asked which means, “How do you spearhead a project without having adequate knowledge on it?

Maseko said the THO for Africa should have been consulted to spearhead the project through an organisation he referred to as Community Development Council (CDC), instead of having the Ministry of Health taking the leading role.
Also speaking during the stakeholders consultation meeting was the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training, Sibongile Mtshali, who pointed out that she was against the idea of legalising dagga for medicinal purposes, because as things stood, pupils from the country’s schools were absconding from school during the season of harvesting dagga.

She said the pupils normally went to dagga fields where they were employed to harvest it.
“The pupils are even bold enough to tell their teachers that they had gone to harvest dagga, because it was harvesting season,” she said.  
She also mentioned that during such periods, the pupils made a lot of money and even offered to borrow their teachers some of the money.

“Many teachers are financially unstable therefore they are tempted to borrow money from the pupils and in return  they then give them good grades they don’t even deserve,” she said. 
The PS said the reason she was against the legalisation of the dagga was because the issue of pupils harvesting it would become worse, because there would be many people producing it once it was legalised.

She also mentioned that even though the pupils did not smoke the dagga, its residue stuck onto their fingers during harvesting and, therefore when they inhaled it, they became intoxicated during lessons.
Mtshali said their level of concentration was therefore going to be jeopardised by the dagga.  She also cited that once the habit-forming drug was legalised, many pupils would be mentally disturbed because they would inhale it during harvesting. 
Another speaker during the meeting was Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resource and Energy, Winnie Stewart.

Medicinal

Stewart told the meeting that she supported the idea of legalising dagga for medicinal purposes.
However, she requested the Ministry of Health to ensure that they considered the implication of water that was going be used for irrigating the dagga once it was legalised.
“The ministry must make sure that water will not be diverted unlawfully for irrigation purposes once dagga is legalised for medicinal purposes,” she said.

This she said, was because if water was going to be unlawfully diverted, the infrastructure would be affected.
Another speaker, Health System Officer of World Health Organization, Dr Khosi Mthethwa, said the ministry should consider how the regulation would affect the health of emaSwati.
“The reason why the Ministry of Health is so particular about the regulation of dagga is because health-related issues always come back to the Ministry,” she said.

On another note, Chairperson of Eswatini Cannabis Association, Saladin Magagula, said emaSwati should be given first preference when issuing out the licences for growing dagga for medicinal purposes.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: