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HEROIN CARTEL IN ESWATINI – BENNETT

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LOBAMBA – “There is a heroin cartel in the country.” This was a submission made by former senator and businessman Walter Bennett during public hearings on the legalisation of the habit-forming drug cannabis. The submissions were made in Parliament yesterday.


Bennett  said the heroin cartel was infiltrating  the same markets that were intended for the growing of cannabis in the country and the people behind the cartel were trying to hijack the licensing of growing the cannabis because it won’t be good for their business.


“There are culprits out there who are involved in a heroin cartel and they are not endorsing the growth of cannabis in the country because it will compete with their markets,” he said.


These are allegations submitted to the Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Act Portfolio Commitee which are yet to be substantiated.
 Bennett said Parliament should do expensive consultations to ensure that the cannabis regulator was not captured by well established and financially advanced companies but preference should be given to emaSwati in approving the cannabis provision licences.


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This comes after SwAurora, a company whose Chief Executive Officer Leandra Du Plessis applied to be granted a licence for the production of cannabis oil for medicinal purposes and she submitted that they would invest about E1 billion into the project.


“This is one chance for emaSwati to make something for themselves and they shouldn’t be disadvantaged by multinational companies which are financially advanced. The country should also seek assistance from its allies in best practices that should be employed in the project of growing the medicinal cannabis,” he said.


Echoing Bennett was MP Princess Phumelele, who stated that the licence holder should not be just one individual but it should be separated into segments, from seed, weeding, harvesting, packaging to transporting licences so that benefits were fairly distributed. She also said the growing of cannabis should not be looked at in just one dimension, which was the medicinal aspect, but it should be viewed in the business aspect as well.

Also supporting Bennett was Ndzingeni MP Lutfo Dlamini, who boldly said they would not allow a multi-billion company to overtake citizens of the country in taking advantage of the project.


Chairman of the Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Act portfolio committee Mduduzi ‘Small Joe’ Dlamini said segmenting the licences was what they intended to put into the regulations so that emaswati were not taken advantage of by financially privileged individuals.

“A prudent approach for emaSwati could be to form associations and contribute the required finances to get each of the segmented licences so that they are not used as cheap labour while certain individuals get all the gains,” he said. 

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