Malawi Parliament nods to industrial hemp legalization

Parliament has given a go ahead to Ntchisi north legislator Boniface Kadzamira to move a motion in the House to legalise the cultivation and sale of industrial hemp.

The parliamentarians said this on Thursday when they debated on the issue.

Kadzamira told the suspicious legislators that the industrial hemp is very different from chamba in that the hemp is used to manufacture priducts such as clothes and shoes as well as manufacturing of medicine.

He told the parliamentarians that even if people smoke it, they cannot be intoxicated.

“The country will still have the laws which outlaw chamba,” he said.

He said farmers wishing to grow the industrial hemp will be legally registered with the government before they will be allowed to cultivate it.

Experts say the industrial hemp is a likely crop to replace tobacco, saying the industrial hemp does not need firewood as is the case with the leaf.

Lilongwe University of Natural Resources and Agriculture and Chitedze Research Station have given a go ahead to government to legalise Indian hemp.