Harare (New Ziana) – Zimbabwe has started producing medicinal cannabis products, five of which are expected to hit the market soon, a senior official with the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) has said.
Zimbabwe’s cannabis sector emerged in 2018 when the government allowed the cultivation and processing of medicinal and industrial cannabis with unlicensed uses remaining criminalized.
This saw the country, one of the first on the African continent to legalise cannabis production in 2019, licence 60 medicinal cannabis producers to cultivate the crop for export purposes.
Announcing the MCAZ regulatory system’s attainment of World Health Organisation (WHO) Benchmarking Tool Maturity Level 3, the organisation’s director general, Richard Rukwata said a number of licenced producers responded to the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MHCC)’s request for the country to also develop systems for production of medicinal cannabis products.
“When that legislation was promulgated, it was meant for export but the Minister of Health and Child Care strongly believes that we should actually be developing systems for medicinal use for the same product that we are producing or export to other countries.
“We are happy to say of the 60, there are quite a number of producers who have not only exported their produce but we have about three who are now also producing pharmaceutical preparations for the Zimbabwean market. We have at this point registered about five products from local producers and these will be launched very soon and they will find their way into the pharmacies.”
He said the preparations being made locally are for medicinal purposes only and not psycho active but the country is working on legislation to have these cannabis components processed.
Rukwata said the MCAZ and its parent MHCC are already working on the necessary amendments to the country’s laws which deem cannabis illicit to remove conflicting provisions.
Zimbabwe is regionally well placed for cannabis production with the potential to become a multi-billion-dollar industry.
New Ziana
