Once they decriminalised marijuana for personal and private use in South Africa, it was only a matter of time before the industry took off.

Now, if you are so inclined, you can grow your own. If you don’t have a green thumb and you’re consequently still milling around dark parking lots at night, or buying your stash on the N2 in East London, please read this idiot’s guide to ordering weed online.

You’re welcome.

For those of you who prefer a little human interaction with your weed shopping, South Africa’s first marijuana dispensaries are open for business, with around 70 branches already operating around the country.

Over to IOL:

Canapax founder Russell de Beer said he is legally allowed to sell dagga as medicine because he is a traditional healer and operates under the Traditional Health Practitioners Act.

Many entrepreneurs have jumped on the idea, paying De Beer R25 000 to open up their own Canapax stores.

In the shops, such as the branches in Stellenbosch and Kalk Bay, customers can browse jars of cured bud and pay per gram. This contains THC, can be smoked for a psychoactive effect, and is not broadly legal for trade – as opposed to CBD, which is not psychoactive and is legal for trade in certain concentrations.

Customers don’t have to meet up with a traditional healer or declare any medical condition when purchasing weed. De Beer sees his stores as a public service.

“We have on our hands a medical emergency in South Africa,” De Beer said. “I’m trying to allow as many people as possible to self-medicate.”

In an interview with DQ Central, he said while cannabis is now decriminalised for personal growth and consumption, some people who would like to use it medicinally are not physically able to do the work of growing their own.

That is how Canapax came about.

It hasn’t been easy going, though. A number of the stores have been shut down by the police, but De Beer claims that it’s ignorance of the law on the part of SAPS.

“We do have rogue policemen who harass our shop owners,” he said. “They hold them in the holding cells for the first day. All the proceedings are an abuse of office. Most of the cases get dismissed and the cannabis gets returned.”

The price tag for opening up a Canapax branch is R25000 but De Beer said the stores are not franchises and are run by individual sole proprietors.

“You are buying into the Canapax intellectual property.”

The individuals who go into the Canapax business are described by De Beer as “qualified healers themselves” who work independently of his standing as a traditional healer.

The Canapax shop model is a taste of what a dagga dispensary might look like in a South Africa where the substance trade is legal. The Canapax products go through a quality control check before hitting the shelves.

Charl Henning from Fields of Green for All, an organisation which has spearheaded the legal fight for dagga, said Canapax has the right idea.

“But they’re doing it in the wrong way. They want to bring cannabis medicine to the nation, but their business model is wrong. The real sangomas come to us and say ‘we can’t even sell dagga, how can this franchise sell dagga?’”

Who knows where the industry will go moving forward, but here’s the Canapax website for those who want to have a look around.

[source:iol]