Motsoaledi’s abrupt cannabis products ban is like ‘cutting the legs off people’ 

The South Africa cannabis industry is reeling from a notice in the Government Gazette in early March effectively banning cannabis and hemp products. While the focus has been on initial reaction to the ban, there are now concerns from within the industry about potential job losses. 

Western Cape Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism Minister Ivan Meyer on Thursday, 20 March, described the early March ban as “not just a threat to jobs, but a direct assault on economic growth and job creation”. He said the cannabis industry had a potential value of R28-billion, with a capacity to create between 10,000 and 25,000 jobs across the value chain. 

The ban – gazetted into law by Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsaoledi – slaps a “prohibition on the sale, importation and manufacture of foodstuffs containing any part of the plant or component derived from the genus Cannabis Sativa L, hemp, hemp seed oil or hemp seed flour”. 

As Daily Maverick reported previously, this has led to concern from not only users, but from employees within the industry. 

Read more: Confusion surrounds government’s sudden ‘ban’ on cannabis edibles

Meyer described the move as “ill-considered” by the Department of Health, and said the ban would “harm economic growth and jobs at a time when the government should be fostering growth and providing regulatory clarity for the cannabis and hemp industries”. 

At the same time, News24 reported the Health Department’s “grand plan” was to integrate cannabis products into the regulatory frameworks of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), which would ensure stringent quality and safety measures.

Now Meyer wants the national government to intervene in the issue. 

During his 2025 State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said  “we want South Africa to be leading in the commercial production of hemp and cannabis”. 

Employers and those within the industry are concerned the ban will cause job losses. 

Gauteng-based cannabis farmer Tebogo Seleme employs five permanent staff and 14 contract workers. 

He said the ban “does hamper our abilities. To tell you the truth, the reason why we want to go legal is so that we will be able to legitimise our businesses to be able to export. 

“The sad part is that a lot of what you’re seeing, a lot of the uproar you’re seeing is not that our businesses are going to fail or our businesses are going to die, it’s that we want to participate in the economy. We want to be active members of the economy. We want to pay tax. We want to be regulated, but we want to be regulated within reason.” 

He said he wanted the government to know what was going on and to speak to stakeholders within the cannabis industry to find out what was happening within the industry and what can be done. 

Bianca Kaiser is the director and co-founder of Cheeba Africa Cannabis Academy, a cannabis education and training institution which employs more than 40 part-time lecturers and 10 permanent educators. The academy offers a range of courses, including online classes.

“It does obviously affect our business, because we are training people along the hemp and cannabis supply chain, and that does include the foodstuff and the production of foodstuff on a very basic level,” she said.

“In partnership with the Eastern Cape Rural Development Agency, we trained 100 farmers on hemp cultivation and low-tech processing, and one of the things that was part of it is to make hemp bricks and looking at what can be done out of hemp seeds,” Kaiser said.

“It is a very low-tech application that doesn’t require massive machinery like other more high-tech applications do. But with this ban now, this opportunity is completely gone.  

“We hosted a webinar recently, and my partner said it’s like cutting the legs off some people, from the farmers that have just been handed hemp for a living. And now the question is what are they actually growing for?

“There is this market that has just been destroyed by this ban.” DM