From Benzinga by Joanna Scopel January 25 2023
Indigenous South African cannabis growers have been camping in front of the President’s office in Pretoria since 2018.
“We won’t be moved (…) It’s our right to cultivate cannabis, and enjoy our way of life,” said King Khoisan SA, reported The Cannabis Culture.
Khoisan, one of the demonstrators, said he is “the king of the Khoisan, South Africa’s first nation that has lived in the country for over 10 000 years and grown cannabis unrestricted.”
In 2022, the police attempted to arrest him.
Lt. Col. Robert Netshiunda, spokesman of the South African police said that the Khoisan community is breaking the law by cultivating cannabis, which is illegal in South Africa.
“It’s nonsensical; it’s hogwash,” said Khoisan. “I can smoke cannabis; rub my knee pains with it in our land, we have been living this way for 10, 000 years.”
The Cannabis Culture reported that tourists are fascinated with the cause. “It’s a moment to teach the world of the colonial state in South Africa that even controls our plants like cannabis apart from our bodies,” Khoisan said.
Social scientist O’bren Nhachi said, “Khoisan’s struggle is another front in the war against expropriation of cannabis, its ownership, and the culture surrounding it in South Africa by the post-colonial state which is still colonial and continuing anyway.”
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