Hemp gets green light in Parliament: law set to allow ulimi wa chamba

…No, not yet the time to shout: ‘Ahoy Rasta!’

It is just a few steps in the right direction, if you are a liberal, and of course towards the wrong direction if you are a deep conservative.

Legislators in the Malawi Parliament have adopted a motion by Ntchisi North legislator Boniface Kadzamira, asking government to legalise the growing and use of hemp in the country. However, it is not the hemp that is popular among most Malawians. It is industrial hemp.

Kadzamira moved the motion considering the enormous economic, medical and nutritional value industrial hemp has.

The legislator said that Marijuana locally know as “chamba” can be used as viable alternative that can help drive in forex into Malawi.

“An acre of [Indian] hemp produces more paper than wood pulp or tree. Apart from paper, you can produce fibre, fabric, soap, lighting oil, medicines, food oil and proteins for both humans and animals,” kadzamira’s motion in the house went.

During the August meetings for the legislators on Thursday, cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament were more receptive of the motion and expressed little misgivings about it apparently giving a green light to the cultivation of hemp in the country.

Leader of the house George Chaponda told the house that Malawians are willing to have Marijuana being legalized in the country.

However some Members of Paliament (MP’s) have demanded for a bill that will be voted for on the issue of legalizing Indian hemp.

Malawi’s Indian hemp is internationally renowned as one of the finest sativa strains from Africa according to an entry on Wikipedia.

The entry claims that its popularity has led to such a profound increase in marijuana tourism and economic profit in Malawi that it is even listed as one of the three “Big C’s” in Malawian exports: Chambo (Tilapia fish), Chombe (tea), and Chamba (Malawi gold).