CANNABIS CULTURE Reports….
– Across Africa, the cannabis market has become a more and more militarized scene: from Zambia´s army foray into cultivation, Zimbabwe´s army dropping the first seeds of hemp, to South Africa and Swaziland where armies have a confrontational history with Indigenous growers.
In Zambia, medical cannabis is banned for residents but in February, the army is announced it has secured 20,000 hectares of land ´freely given´ by traditional leaders to cultivate cannabis. In in February 2020, Zimbabwe’s police and prison service, which are militarized organs of the state, snapped up the first licenses to grow cannabis plantations at prison sites for medicinal export use. The advantage, they said, is that prisons are already high-security zone hence this lowers the costs of producing and processing cannabis.
Cultivating Bizarre Bedfellows
“Armies are seeking first-mover advantage with cannabis,” says says business leader Dennis Juru, president of the South Africa International Cross Border Traders Association. “Africa´s armies are key economic players though they operate from the shadows. They know the Canadians, Chinese, Americans are coming fast onto the cannabis scene.”
Armies cultivating, harvesting, and processing cannabis, like in Zambia, can help localize cannabis in Africa´s economies, boost local producers, and limit the growing phenomenon of ´cannabis colonialism´ says Juru, whose organization lobbies for EU-like zero-tariffs regime across the 14 countries of the southern Africa bloc.
“Armies are nominally the first line of defense in a strict nationalistic sense, in this case defending national cannabis stakes,” he says.
Cannabis being produced by the army, for example in Mozambique, is likely to be some sort of ´nationalized cannabis´ with the export earning brought back into national coffers – unlike cannabis farmed by foreign corporations from Canada or Israel, he argues.
When armies get comfortable with cannabis, soldiers and police (who have been historically used to raid and suppress native cannabis growers in the likes of South Africa with toxic herbicides) can gradually change their views towards cannabis and be less confrontational when dealing with small-scale, unlicensed native African cannabis producers, says Reagan Dhlamini, coordinator of the Trade Union Congress of Eswatini.
“This is where I think cannabis can improve army-civilian in cannabis growing repressive countries like our Swaziland,” says Dhlamini.
In Swaziland and nearby South Africa, militarized police air units commit raids on small-scale cannabis plantations, spray to kill crops, and slash crops without warning.
So, if soldiers get experience in cultivating cannabis themselves that can improve their human rights approach when trying to police small-scale rural African cannabis growers, Dhlamini feels.
“Because like it or not, unlicensed, native cannabis cultivation and trade is a reality, a helpful under-the-table economy bringing food on the table in Swaziland or South Africa.”
African armies have better tools
Africa´s armies have better tools to guard the continent´s cannabis sovereignty, says Lebo Mokoena, a security consultant who dispenses advice on anti-theft technology, and drone imaging strategies to corporate medical cannabis growers in South Africa and Lesotho.
“When rich medical cannabis foreign players arrive in Africa from China or the EU; don’t expect local indigenous cannabis cultivators to compete or even afford the base-level $20.000 license fees,” he says.
In contrast, Africa´s armies are usually well-resourced with mechanized plows, combine harvesters, UAV drones, and tractor trucks, medical laboratories which they can easily repurpose for cannabis cultivation, processing, and export – and thus match foreign cannabis players.
“Armies in Zimbabwe, South Africa are very well resourced and got rich experience in disaster recoveries and food security leadership. In national pride eyes that make armies perfect for guarding Africa´s so-called cannabis sovereignty,” Mokoena says.
Not a big trend so far
But Brian Moloi, an independent economist in Johannesburg South Africa who advises private cannabis startups reveals Africa´s armies foray into cannabis is a trend that´s still tiny.
“I’m in constant touch with both the government and private cannabis dealers in South Africa. I have not observed the army´s aggressive move into cannabis though they´re eyeing the sector with a whetting appetite,” he says.
“So far, I´d call armies interest in cannabis just vigilance.”
Moloi, says that armies dabbling in cannabis, even legally, could curtail the careers of ex-servicemen coming from the army, police, or prisons who are keen to enter the corporate world.
“It´s already happening in South Africa, the supposed liberal cannabis country,” he says.
Local reports in South Africa indicate that so many ex-army job applicants fail corporate job clearance tests if they are found to have worked in cannabis in the past even legally.
Not unique to Africa
Armies bumping into cannabis is not a trend unique to Africa, but liberal Europe too, says Dennis Juru, the tariffs-free business lobby leader. Juru points to the example of Italy, where the army is enmeshed in the business of medical cannabis: running pharmaceutical dispensaries; greenhouses; producing the so-called ´orphan drugs, ´ which are expensive medications that cure rare diseases and are not produced in the corporate economy.
So, observers feel Africa´s armies dabbling in cannabis can be both a gift and hindrance to the continent´s attempts to exact fair profit in the thrilling medical cannabis scene.
“In Africa cannabis colonialism is an emotional topic. Can armies bring cannabis sovereignty – we are yet to see?” sums Dhlamini, the Swaziland trade union leader.
