Play the audio, read along or watch the full video on YouTube

* This is an auto-generate transcript and won’t be grammatically correct.

Andy
Today we are going to be talking about the legal landscape for 2023. I think there’s going to be some pretty interesting developments, though there is a general downwards and sadder sentiment in the market with regards to changes happening quickly, as we have all come to know and expect with South Africa, unfortunately. But Stephen gave us some really interesting insights today on what he thinks will happen with regards to cannabis laws in 2023. Without further ado, here’s my co host, Dean and Stefan, I’m gonna jump straight in and ask your opinion about the private clubs. Obviously, it’s been quite big this year, and next year, I suspect it’s going to grow. But what do you see from the legal perspective with regards to private clubs by Andrew,

Stephan
thanks, again, for having me. Um, you know, it’s always very difficult to say with legislation, everyone knows it’s costly, and it takes time, an appeal court judgement is no different. Each party has to draft a lot of arguments. And there’s a whole process that actually needs to be followed. And these things definitely can sometimes take time. So while we are very hopeful that, you know, the judgement might come out in 2023, I think it would be wise to also consider approach where we don’t rush this. There is a tactic already in place for existing growth hubs. We’ve touched on the stain prosecution before. And therefore there is some defence or remedy to the people already currently operating the ground clap. If you rush your arguments and try to, you know, rush a trial, you may well should shoot yourself in the foot by now later wanting to present evidence that you never included in your discovery bundle, and therefore now cannot use in your trial. So I’m hoping that, you know, we rather take a proper take our time with a good approach, and that our arguments will then be good enough that if you look at the appeal, court judgments, or the just the allowance of the of the court admitted in itself, that it could have arrived in the reading, in other words, any activity, the Constitutional Court specifically referred to in the paragraph 85, that any activity into relation to the private group should be or is inconsistent with the Constitution. So you know, I really think I’m hopeful that the team would present very valid arguments, I have also been approached, I will be assisting on that as well. So I will be able to give you some updates throughout the course of 2023 as that develops, but I’m really you know, from even someone who might be assisting on this from a legal side, I don’t want to give anyone any false hope, you know, we’ve had COVID, we are still coming back from the repercussions that of the overcoat, food court rolls, as always been an issue and is still going to be an issue for a while to come. And so don’t be too hopeful. But we are hoping that hopefully by the end of 2023, if all goes well, we could see a positive judgement, which could open up a whole new commercial industry for the for the cannabis space.

Dean
And super hopeful on that point. Myself personally, of course, and so on, the more more on the general legislation or rules, do you think we’re going to see any predictions for 2023? Do you think we’ll see any definitions or changes or, or maybe not nothing at all with relation to general legislation?

Stephan
I’m definitely hoping we’re seeing some amendments, the definition of seeds. This has now been a big talking point for quite a long time. And you know, even in the master plan, that was something that was supposed to be addressed during the 2021 2022 period. So the fact that we haven’t seen much amendment on the amendments of the drugs and drug trafficking act as section 45 gives me hope to believe that it is not far away. But it could also be that they just waiting for the signing of the cannabis for private purposes, both for that to come into law. Because that has also been predicted for the 2022 to 2023 year. While we all know the bill, in my personal opinion might still be easy, slightly defective. You know, whether that gets signed into law or not, we’d already be a step in the right direction. And at least we’ll put some black and whites on the table for us to consider and to work from.

Andy
And then with regards to take more than a sombre note, I guess. There’s unfortunately some people that are still dealing with it right As there’s some people so locked up, there’s some people still with criminal records. Do you think we’re gonna see expungements? And things like that happening in 2023? Any explanation of that process? Or do you think it will still carry on arrests carry on and lack of expungements carry on.

Stephan
So I think if you look at the cannabis for private purposes bill is we have to give credit rate is due does make room for the expungement of previous criminal records, I do not necessarily think this is going to be something that is going to be fast tracked, if you’re looking at the standard already existing procedure for getting a record expunged of the TDS, for example, or if you’ve got good reason, the systems are already in place for you to follow a certain method to get your record expunged. I don’t think this will now be necessarily priority cases over the rest. I do think the Department might well prepare themselves for quite a, an increase of these applications once the bill gets paused. And people now qualify for one of these expungements. But I do not think they will necessarily get a preferential status when there’s already a system in place for you to access that.

Andy
It does that usually, on average, how long does it take for an expungement? At the moment, it’s about a year,

Stephan
it was about, say six months, in my experience if you’ve got good connections, because if you look at a police clearance can take you up to two to three months. So it really also depends on the severity of the crime. And you know, like if it if it really was a petty crime, white collar crimes, and these are some of the things to consider. But I would say once the legislation has come into place, if it is minor possession charges, those should go relatively quickly. Because a lot of them is even based on an admission of guilt. And all the quantities have been weighed. So it’s not in dispute that it was a large amount. It’s also not in disputes, whether you were dealing or possession, because you have now admitted to the possession they have, which is a lesser crime, and therefore, you know, easily, more easily qualify. So plenty of factors to consider even the quantities naturally, you know how much we invested for in the first place? These things might take special consideration depending on the unique circumstances of each race. Brilliant.

Dean
Yeah, no, no. On our final point, there’s multiple subfields in the in the cannabis industry, obviously, specifically hemp and CBD. Do you have any predictions for for those kinds for some development in the sort of them, the less the top two, or I suppose less mainstream sub fields in the industry. I don’t

Stephan
see too many changes in terms of the legislation or the definitions that’s now been come to him. But I do hope that we see a much more I want to say a holistic approach when it comes to the already now. Him permits, for example, are we going to have more clinical research for these types of products, we need some type of intrapreneurship economy for all these small scale growers. Because I really think there is I want to say a consensus around the public that, you know, now that we’ve got the hem permit system in place, nobody is actually to, to oppose to all the permits that have been issued or in the manner that they’ve been issued. The problem now really only comes in to what are we going to do with all this products. So if you could include some, you know, market developments where we could facilitate public and private sectors to come together, even the international markets if government can assist the small scale hemp farmers, any kind of development and implementation of these user friendly market access points will be very beneficial to the entire South Africa. And I think government really needs to now focus on allowing the South African people to access the hemp markets now that they’ve put it in place instead of trying to compete with it. You know, I know they’ve got their own hemp projects on the way and that could sometimes create a bit of a conflict of interest if you’re looking at the public that’s also trying to enter the space. So really facilitating and supporting some The developments of the small scale growers are really think could go a lot of way. But yeah, that is the trade industry and competitions, departments or the small business development departments. So hopefully, they will also come to the table and try and bring some of these unique innovations to the table.

Andy
Agreed. And then overall, just positive negative vibes for next year. You know, just like intuition, any any secret insights or anything like that, you know, overall, you’re feeling good or bad. Were you sitting,

Stephan
I’m always trying to be optimistic, and I will remain hopeful that they are greener, pastures, meaning speedier protocols. But if history has taught me anything, is that we can should maybe prepare ourselves for the big minimum, which could be steps like the private cannabis bill being signed into law as it is, it could be in baby steps, only the first time we ever see a possible commercial bowl being brought to the table of the wave now established what is private use. So I definitely wouldn’t expect too much in terms of 2023. But I’m really hopeful in terms of the definitions of the seeds, that that can really open up a whole new pathway to hopefully speed track some of these other industries that are all being, you know, blocked by this one little definition of a seed, cannabis seeds. So I think really, if we can work on those definitions, it will pave the way for a whole industry to come abroad in a much more speedy process.

Andy
Brilliant. Stefan, thanks so much for your time today, we always enjoy getting a bit of legal insight. And hopefully, in 2023, we do see some of those progresses and some of those developments. And hopefully at the end of 2023, when we see you again, we’re very pleasantly surprised with how the year went. So yeah, thanks again. And hopefully see you again soon. I wanted to also ask about the HCC and like the Delta eights and like whether all of those are going to creep into the legal landscape. But I suppose that’s got a bit of a mixed field, it’s on the legal and it’s also on that like extraction space. But yeah, I agree with the hemp hopefully they develop some of the upcoming small scale farmers and things like that it’s desist, it’s still, so bytes. I mean, it’s only for the guys with loads of money. Right?

Dean
Yeah, but the HAMP I think it’s much easier to get a ham permit. So I think what sort of Stefan was referring to is now we’ve got a lot of him permits out that may be given to small scale farmers, but how is everyone going to monetize these, these products, you know, so I think what we’re gonna see is like a mass amount of people growing hemp, and then all of a sudden having sort of large amounts of M fibre available, or, you know, a hemp product available, and then how do we then turn that into physical cash to, to sort of keep the, to grow that side of the industry, you know, and I think that would come, there’s going to be need to be some kind of organisation or, or, you know, some sort of maybe legislation with relation to how we can then drive those, those sort of products because everyone’s going to be growing. And then all of a sudden, there’s just going to be like an overflow of product, and then that will drive the price down the same as what I suppose would could potentially happen. If we had an adult use industry that wasn’t sort of that wasn’t correctly thought out, you know, you’d see mass amounts of sort of damping, and then just kind of drive the price down.

Andy
It was really interesting on those expungements as well, I think if they could expedite that, because that cripples you know, like having a record for possession in a market where it’s now legal to you know, smoke and grow and is like, is insulting and completely unfair. You know, it’s I don’t know they can they cannot expedite that process. I mean, in the states have actually done pretty decent job of expediting it’s not finished yet, but they did they did making Yeah, come on, and you can’t make you know, having your house green, illegal yesterday, and then tomorrow, you know, now it’s legal and you’ve still got a record even though your house is in green anymore. And as you know, they’ve been judging you based on prior standards and things that the society now agrees is fine. So you shouldn’t be punished for something you did in the past when it okay even though times have changed. Yeah, times have changed. It shouldn’t be so I hope they do expedite that. Even if at the cost of some of the commercial stuff like that really affects people’s lives.

Dean
I mean, getting down ABS you know, they call it Yeah. And yeah. And also the the current process that he was referring to sounded like, you know, he’s he did say that with the correct context it does sound like if you’re going to drive a current expungement it does sound like it’s a relatively potentially costly, costly endeavour to get it done quickly. So how accessible is that currently to most people? Probably not not that accessible. Yeah, you know, to drive the agenda quickly. So, the government needs to allow for for, you know, that process to be maybe subsidised so that people can or mass right or, you know, if you had this many grammes, and he’s for the circumstances, it’s already not crazy computer systems for that. I wonder if it’s all stone like an edge.

Andy
There we put our faith in their record keeping and things like that. So yeah, it’s gonna be a bit of interesting one, but as always, guys, thanks so much for watching. Hopefully you guys like subscribe, leave your comments if you have any legal opinions on 2023 We’d love to read those. And until next week, these guys Peace guys