WATCH | Higher education: Inside Africa's first cannabis academy
WATCH | Higher eduction: Inside Africa’s first cannabis teaching academy
Africa now has its very own cannabis teaching academy situated in Vereeniging, outside Johannesburg. The Cheeba Cannabis Academy teaches students how to grow and market this controversial plant.
- Africa now has its very own cannabis teaching academy in Vereeniging.
- The Cheeba Cannabis Academy teaches students how to grow and market this controversial plant.
- The campus is equipped with a grow tunnel and a private cannabis social club.
The Cheeba Cannabis Academy is Africa's first cannabis educator, and if you have a keen interest in the plant, this might just be the higher learning institution for you. But Trenton Birch, CEO and co-founder of Cheeba Africa, says it's all about learning.
"We discourage our students to come to class after consuming cannabis. We don't believe that the two go hand in hand," Birch told News24.
He added that the perception that cannabis is just about people sitting around getting stoned all day was incredibly dated.
He said:
Launched in 2020, the institution opened its first campus in Vereeniging, a few kilometres outside Johannesburg.
It's situated on an old mining training facility's site and now serves as a space where students can grow, harvest, and explore the growing cannabis industry.
News24 visited the campus during its open day in September to get a glimpse of the facilities. The site can accommodate 190 students and boasts a 120-seater auditorium. It also has a grow tunnel, a cannabis testing lab, and a cannabis private members club for a more hands-on study approach.
Birch said:
The academy covers different courses: growing cannabis from seed to harvest; medicinal cannabis; and exploring the plant's impact on health and wellness.
Getting comfortable with cannabis
Birch said people needed to stop thinking of it as a gateway drug only – as it had significant economic possibilities.
"There's a lot of unlearning that needs to happen. We've been indoctrinated for decades about how evil cannabis is, how it's a gateway drug, or how it's addictive. It's all lies," he said.
"The challenge at the moment is, we're still in a pandemic, and our economy is shot. I don't believe that cannabis is the silver bullet for our economy, there is a lot more work that needs to happen, but it can have a significant and positive impact on our economy."
The legal state of weed
While the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill in South Africa still sits in Parliament, the fight for decriminalisation is still ongoing. Users are prohibited from smoking dagga in public and the Bill does not make provision for commercialisation.
"We have the Department of Health, on the one hand, saying that cannabis has no nutritional value, which is absolutely incorrect, and then we have the Department of Agriculture saying that cannabis needs to come online because it is great as a foodstuff," said Birch.
He told News24 that despite the different views government and regulators hold, the conversations surrounding dagga was at an advanced stage.
Come one, come all
The Cheeba Cannabis Academy offers a non-accredited course endorsed by the University of Limpopo. Their intake ranges from people who are interested in growing, to those working in labs.
"People often ask us what's our target market for our students, and we say a doctor, a farmer and everything else in between. So it really is such a broad industry with so many opportunities," said Birch.
https://www.news24.com/news24/video/southafrica/news/watch-higher-education-inside-africas-first-cannabis-academy-20210916
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