Amid the big news of cannabis decriminalization in South Africa this week, many are turning an eye to the burgeoning legal cultivation sector in the country\u2019s smaller neighbor: Lesotho.<\/p>\n
Surrounded on all sides by South Africa, the mountain fastness of Lesotho is a country with a deeply traditional constitutional monarchy. It\u2019s biggest real export has long been its young men, who seek employment in South Africa and send money home. But since the job market in South Africa contracted some 10 years ago, struggling families have been turning to cannabis cultivation \u2014 and exporting\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0to South Africa instead, on the black market.<\/p>\n Lesotho\u2019s rulers recognize that cannabis is serving as a kind of economic safety valve and have taken a tolerant approach. Some observers have even called it a \u201cde facto decriminalization.\u201d<\/p>\n Now the country is getting an officially legal cultivation sector as well, and prospects are looking bright for Lesotho cannabis on the global market.<\/p>\n Recently, legal cannabis producers in Canada have begun eyeing cultivation projects in Lesotho.<\/p>\n This wave of international interest got rolling just a year ago, when Lesotho\u00a0issued the first cannabis cultivation license ever<\/a>\u00a0on the African continent to a local company called Verve Dynamics<\/a>. Now, another Ontario company,\u00a0Aphria Inc<\/a>, recently announced a joint venture with Verve Dynamics to supply cannabis isolates for the global market.<\/p>\n Also, Kaneh Bosm BioTechnology<\/a>\u00a0of Vancouver announced last week that it has it has contracted United Kingdom-based\u00a0Volare Consultancy<\/a>\u00a0to help purchase land for cannabis cultivation in Lesotho, as well as storage and manufacturing facilities.<\/p>\n The write-up on the announcement on the Proactive Investors<\/a>\u00a0website noted that Kaneh Bosm is following the lead of\u00a0Canopy Growth Corporation<\/a>, the Ontario, Canada-based industry giant that earlier this year acquired a Lesotho-based cannabis company, Daddy Cann Lesotho PTY Ltd, for $28.8 million. Daddy Cann and Kaneh Bosm\u2019s CanAfrica had already been awarded medical cannabis licenses by the Kingdom of Lesotho.<\/p>\n Additionally, earlier this year,\u00a0Supreme Cannabis<\/a>\u00a0of Toronto invested $10 million for a 10 percent stake in another Lesotho company with cultivation licenses, MediGrow Holdings PTY Ltd.<\/p>\n Kaneh Bosm just this month\u00a0changed its name<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0International Cannabis Corp \u2014 picking up the name that was\u00a0abandoned last year<\/a>\u00a0by the compnay now calling itself\u00a0ICC Labs<\/a>,\u00a0which is helping to supply\u00a0the legalized market in Uruguay, and the medical market in Colombia.<\/p>\n Lesotho and South Africa are closely integrated. Both are members of the\u00a0Southern African Customs Union<\/a>, along with Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland. The SACU, akin to Europe\u2019s\u00a0Schengen Area<\/a>, aims to encourage the free interchange of goods between member countries. Cannabis products are now shaping up to be key among those goods.<\/p>\n South Africa has an embryonic medical marijuana program, with another Canadian industry giant,\u00a0Tilray<\/a>\u00a0of Vancouver Island,\u00a0providing cannabis products<\/a>. South Africa\u2019s struggling farmers last year\u00a0launched an initiative<\/a>\u00a0to demand legal cultivation of \u201cdagga<\/em>\u201d (as cannabis is locally known) in the country \u2014 starting with KwaZulu province, a traditional agricultural heartland that borders Lesotho on the east.<\/p>\n Kaneh Bosm is also moving into South Africa. It\u00a0recently acquired<\/a>\u00a0the local company\u00a0Aricannabis BioTech Corp<\/a>, which works on an exclusive basis with another local firm, NuCare Health, to provide medical marijuana products to over 2,800 pharmacies across South Africa.<\/p>\n Decriminalization\u00a0came to South Africa<\/a>\u00a0Sept. 18 when the country\u2019s Constitutional Court upheld a\u00a0lower court ruling<\/a>\u00a0finding that the law against the use, possession, purchase and cultivation of cannabis was unconstitutional. At least personal cultivation, as well as private use, will now be permitted in South Africa.<\/p>\n These developments may prove a step toward an integrated cannabis market for the greater region, which has sadly been beset by growing economic difficulties since the end of apartheid in 1994. This has also meant instability. Just this month, Lesotho\u00a0marked the 20th anniversary<\/a>\u00a0of South Africa\u2019s September 1998 military intervention, following an outburst of internal violence over disputed elections in the mountain kingdom. \u00a0A legalized cannabis sector could point the way out of the region\u2019s long-simmering crisis, and there are growing signs of openness to it \u2014 with Lesotho leading the way.<\/p>\n The post Lesotho: Legal Cultivation Brings Canadian Investors to Africa\u2019s Cannabis Kingdom<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Amid the big news of cannabis decriminalization in South Africa this week, many are turning an eye to the burgeoning legal cultivation sector in the country\u2019s smaller neighbor: Lesotho. Surrounded on all sides by South Africa, the mountain fastness of Lesotho is a country with a deeply traditional constitutional monarchy.Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3476,34,50,2121,1521,4951,3477,81,66,1088],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29510,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29509\/revisions\/29510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Cannabis Capital in Africa\u2019s Mountain Kingdom<\/h4>\n
A Common Cannabis Market for Southern Africa?<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Lesotho: Legal Cultivation Brings Canadian Investors to Africa\u2019s Cannabis Kingdom<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"