Baird Media Meet My Business with Baird Media

Inside South Africa's Cannabis Licensing Maze

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Wanda Bruce has built a career in one of South Africa's most misunderstood industries: cannabis regulatory compliance. In this episode of Meet My Business she maps the full terrain — from R15-million-plus commercial medical facilities to the legacy growers of the Eastern Cape, the corner-shop club model, and the Private Purposes Act that leaves hundreds of stores in legal limbo.

She also shares how she got here: an alternative health practitioner and Rosebank spa owner who took on the government in court over the complementary health industry, then followed her intuition into a niche that now takes her from KwaZulu-Natal to Mauritius to Cape Town.

Practical, candid and occasionally contrarian, Wanda offers a rare inside view of what compliance really means when the rules are still being written.
Chapters
  • 00:00 Cold open — the Malcolm X cannabis licence story
  • 01:56 Welcome & guest introduction
  • 02:07 Overview: the SA cannabis industry today
  • 03:15 What "legacy growers" are and why they're locked out
  • 04:06 Seeds, land race strains and the Department of Agriculture
  • 05:32 The Private Purposes Act and the club model
  • 06:19 How the Amsterdam/Spain club model works here
  • 07:13 Helping struggling club owners stay compliant
  • 08:38 The certificate of acceptance & the retail layout
  • 10:20 Are cannabis shops pharmacies?
  • 11:10 Where regulation is heading next year
  • 12:40 Origin story: health practitioner to compliance consultant
  • 13:36 The doctor who walked into the spa
  • 14:23 Spotting the regulatory compliance gap
  • 15:57 Building the KZN framework, then learning in the US and Europe
  • 17:42 How to get hold of Wanda
  • 18:47 What she wants listeners to know
4 Sep English South Africa Business · Marketing

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