
Malawi legalises the growing, selling and export of cannabis - edward
https://africafeeds.com/2020/02/27/malawi-legalises-the-growing-selling-and-export-of-cannabis/
======
cies
Finally. I've got the impression that many drugs were politically criminalized
in order make sure non-western countries would not get wealthy by them. (Yet
publicly different reasons were used)

And no this is not like oil. Mining (for oil or gold among others) is a very
different business than farming (for weed or coca or opium among others),
leading to a different wealth distribution. All that western "free trade"
promotion BS while being so so careful with importing agricultural products to
"protect local farmers" whom in turn became a small % yet heavily amplified in
output by their diesel machines: this clearly made winners and losers in the
global "free" trade game.

Nuf ranting: this news shows some movement towards common sense policy.

~~~
econcon
We all know about the opium wars

~~~
cies
I kinda feel this was left our of my history lessons. I have to explain this a
lot to people: your royal families were imperial drug lords.

------
dingribanda
In some parts of Africa, growing khat is more lucrative than growing food.
This causes acute food shortages. I am not sure how this is going to affect
growing food, if cannabis is more lucrative than growing food.

~~~
MisterTea
Hemp seeds can be eaten and provide nutrients. Though I am not sure of the
yield per hectare vs a staple crop like rice or wheat.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Presumably, the way they'd be growing, seeds aren't a desirable byproduct. The
yield per acre for hemp seeds is around 700 pounds.[0] In comparison, rice can
yield an order of magnitude more at 7471 pounds.[1]

Note that these numbers aren't for Malawi's climate but the difference is
definitely still going to be there.

[0] [https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-
products/fiber/industrial-...](https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-
products/fiber/industrial-hemp) [1]
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/190479/rice-yield-per-
ha...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/190479/rice-yield-per-harvested-
acre-in-the-us-from-2000/)

~~~
dumbfoundded
I'm unsure of the long term potential of hemp seeds. I don't think the
genetics have been optimized for growing seeds yet. Most people breed for CBD,
THC, and specific terpene profiles. The higher volume, lower margin goods like
seed and fiber have been relatively unexplored by the market.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Good point - I can only imagine that there is a lot of optimization possible
for seeds if cannabis becomes used as a food source.

I'd argue that the genetics of cannabis/hemp for use as fiber have been
relatively more explored than seeds by selective breeding of Cannabis Sativa
during the milleniums in some cultures when hemp fiber was the fiber of
choice.[0]

[0] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teenage-
mind/201...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teenage-
mind/201105/history-cannabis-in-ancient-china)

~~~
dumbfoundded
I believe fiber and seeds were the original uses of the plant. Psychoactive
properties weren't discovered until much later.

As for genetics, the tools we have now are so much better for breeding than
even 25 years ago. For example, cannabis in the 90s was ~5% THC. Now it's easy
to find strains over 30%. Similarly, CBD flower and CBG flower didn't exist
even 5 years ago and now we have 20% CBD flower strains.

I'm sure people are working on genetics similarly for seed production and
fiber but the money isn't there yet. Entire supply chains have to be built to
support the industry. It's not just the farmers and genetics. There's
processing equipment on multiple levels required as well as consumer markets
that have to be established.

~~~
thatcat
What tools are you talking about? I thought that was due to many iterations of
selection for specific traits.

~~~
dumbfoundded
Certain types of large manufacturing equipment must be built in a crop-
specific way or at least benefit significantly by being designed for a
particular crop.

For example, all cannabis flower (non-extracted) is harvested by hand and then
trimmed by hand. Recently machines were made to trim large amounts of cannabis
efficiently with high quality. It used to take one person at least an hour to
trim a pound of weed. Now a machine can do 10lbs a minute.

Throughout the supply-chain, there are machines that must be built to support
the physical scale. This isn't unique to cannabis, vaping had the same
problem. The cartridges used to all be filled by hand until someone invested
in the machinery. That what causes standards and grades to be created. None of
that really exists in cannabis/hemp right now.

------
bilekas
Wait a min..

> legalised the growing, selling and export of cannabis.

> But the country still restricts the legalization of cannabis for personal
> use

So you can grow it and even sell it.. But if you dare consume it you're a
criminal ? Or the person you sell it to, if they consume it they're breaking
the ?

This sounds very odd!

EDIT: My mistake, its for hemp and oil production. That makes way more sense.

~~~
Scoundreller
Then there’s Canada, where you can grow it or buy it (from legal
distributors), but import/export is verboten without a license that’s
impossible to get for personal use.

~~~
retrac
Where would Canada be exporting it to? Until now, the only other country
besides Canada with fully legal cannabis was Uruguay. As I understand it,
those clauses were in the Cannabis Act to assuage the concerns of other
nations that Canada might get involved in what they would see as international
drug trafficking.

~~~
loeg
Also, many countries (186) are nominally still party to the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which puts marijuana in "Schedule IV:" "The drug
… is particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects, and such
liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages." So even above-
board international trade in cannabis may be problematic.

> The Commentary notes that "Whether the prohibition of drugs in Schedule IV
> (cannabis and cannabis resin, desomorphine, heroin, ketobemidone) should be
> mandatory or only recommended was a controversial question at the
> Plenipotentiary Conference." The provision adopted represents "a compromise
> which leaves prohibition to the judgement, though theoretically not to the
> discretion, of each Party." The Parties are required to act in good faith in
> making this decision, or else they will be in violation of the treaty.

(Wikipedia)

~~~
Scoundreller
Meh, what's the UN going to do if you break their policy, send you a strongly
worded letter?

------
michaelrubin
In college, my economics professor put a question on the final about how we
might solve the economic issues around the corn blight in Malawi. At the time,
I wouldn't have dared raise this as the answer.

~~~
lavezzi
They are shifting focus from growing tobacco to growing weed. This really
doesn't solve anything aside from replacing the economic output from a rapidly
declining industry.

------
brianbreslin
I heard lesotho has a huge business of selling medical marijuana to Europe.
[1] I met a guy in this business, the scale is huge.

1\. [https://time.com/5752765/lesotho-africa-cannibabis-
exports/](https://time.com/5752765/lesotho-africa-cannibabis-exports/)

~~~
dumbfoundded
The European cannabis market is early and developing. Many companies have been
bitten by building out capacity before demand. All of the Canadian cannabis
companies way over produce for the Canadian market so they planned to sell to
Europe and possibly the US. Other countries like Columbia are also aiming to
get this international export market.

~~~
52-6F-62
From what I understand the overproduction isn't because of lack of demand, but
provinces' slow rollout of sale and distribution.

For instance, here in Ontario the government had a plan that would have had 40
physical stores across the province by October 2018 with plans for more. The
incoming government killed that. The province saw fewer than 20 stores by the
following April, largely concentrated in Toronto.

Everything _did_ look primed for a great market and it was essentially
kneecapped out of political spite.

~~~
dumbfoundded
IIRC, the value of the combined public Canadian cannabis companies was >$10B
(before the 2019 q2/q3 collapse). The size of the Canadian cannabis market is
<$5B. I believe analysts priced in the export market opportunity, particularly
to Europe and the United States.

I do believe problems with the implementation in the Canadian market hurt
cashflows and accelerated the expected timeline of investors to find other
markets. These rollout problems certainly hurt but everyone knew Canada isn't
a huge market.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
But personal consumption isn't allowed. This is a classic example of a
government getting in on legalization for the money and not for the betterment
of its citizens.

~~~
dkural
I am not sure how full legalization contributes to the betterment of citizens,
especially young citizens.

~~~
bregma
When cannabis was legalized in Canada consumption rates did not go up. In
fact, they didn't change much at all: they stayed fairly high (no pun,
honest). This is evidence that making possession of cannabis illegal has far
less to do "think of the children" and more to do with either mindless
political dogma or else preservation of personal privilege of some elites
somewhere (and those two options are not mutually exclusive).

~~~
klingonopera
Yeah, there are many political reasons for criminalizing it.

What I found pretty eye-opening in the sense of "Oh wow, that's so obvious, I
actually _didn 't_ think about _that_ " was that one of the reasons was the
American Prohibition in the 30s, and after it was abolished, a bunch of people
were about to lose their jobs:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXPOw2unxy0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXPOw2unxy0)

------
dzonga
malawi already has a reputation in southern african countries of producing
some potent weed. I guess, this is a good move for them. hopefully, in SA n
zim they will able to access Malawi weed easily now

------
CurtBurbinger
How big of a deal is this for North American growers?

~~~
loeg
Probably not a big deal? The fed still thinks weed is illegal and if customs
is doing their job, above-board imports won't be permitted. The existing
smuggling industry is probably already cornered by cartels and don't pay much
for their supply anyway.

~~~
CurtBurbinger
Canada has legal grow operations though

------
carredondo
I read that as "growling"

