THE ECONOMIC PROMISE OF CANNABIS

Industry participants – from growers to processors, users and legal practitioners – gathered to pontificate over the future of the plant, at a recent exhibition in Tshwane

“AFRICA needs jobs,’’ and dagga might be the perfect solution to the continent’s unemployment challenges, says entrepreneur François Swart.

In Zimbabwe, he said, “the informal sector is huge, which means we have upwards of 90% unemployment rate and we need jobs”.

Swart said the cannabis industry could solve some of the problems.

A former corporate accountant who discarded his pinstripe suit for hemp clothing, Zimbabwean-born Swart runs The Green Organisation in Cape Town, an enterprise that makes clothing out of hemp.

In his address at the recent Cannabis Expo in Pretoria, he decried the lack of legislation in South Africa, fully legalising the use of the plant. But he does see a bright future ahead.

Reuters Expo-goers reach out for energy drinks, made from cannabis, on display at the opening of the four-day Cannabis Expo in Pretoria. | SIPHIWE SIBEKO