If you haven’t heard of Tony Budden now’s the time to get a little clued up, he being one of the founding partners of South Africa’s Hemp Emporium.

Tony is a globally recognised industrial cannabis expert, having presented multiple keynote addresses on industrial cannabis cultivation, processing, marketing and futures at international symposiums on cannabis.

As part of the 2OV radio show ‘Keeping it Green‘ Tony is in studio chatting to Aimee, focusing on the topics of sustainable health, well-being and agriculture.

In the latest episode Tony and Aimee talk about why the criminalisation of cannabis is having a huge, negative and resounding effect on our society.

If you’re not up for the full show we recommend you skip to the 15-minute mark, where Tony talks about the harm that going to jail for something as trivial as possession of cannabis can result in.

You heard right, that cost to the taxpayer each and every year for those locked up solely for possession is R540 million per year.

If those laws don’t seem rather antiquated then you must be smoking the good stuff.

Be sure to keep up to date with the ‘Keeping it Green‘ series, on 2OV radio every second Friday at 3pm.