Beyond The Plumes Of Smoke The Weed Economy On A High

In September, South Africa became the third country on the continent to pass a ruling favoring cannabis. Last month, Canada fully legalized its use. The world of business and medicine is slowly awakening to its benefits, weeding fact from fiction.

- Karen Mwendera

House of Tandoor, a trendy rooftop bar that pulsates with life on the weekends, with reggae music, dancers and cannabis smokers disappearing under thick clouds of smoke, is as quiet as a church when we visit on a Monday morning.

It is situated on Rockey Street in the vibrant, often-chaotic suburb of Yeoville in Johannesburg. This area is a hub for expatriates and small business owners plying their trade at informal markets.

Inside the bar at House of Tandoor on this September day is a tall, elderly man with a long beard, lost in the pages of a newspaper and smoking a joint.

It has been two weeks since the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg decriminalized the personal consumption of cannabis in private spaces.

In this small suburb, cannabis has always been an open secret, savored not-too-discreetly in the smoky beer dens and even openly on the streets. Regulars swear this is where you find the best cannabis in town.

For 23 years, the tall man with the beard at the bar named Eric Mpobole has been a cannabis activist in South Africa. He is the coowner of House of Tandoor.

“Here in Yeoville, this is a ganja village. It has been so for two decades. So for the government to decriminalize [ganja]… we decriminalized it a long time ago,” he tells FORBES AFRICA, exhaling smoke.

More than two decades ago, Mpobole started out at House of Tandoor as a sound engineer and DJ, with Langa Mradu.

In 2002, the two took over the place turning it into a hotspot for people wanting to sway to reggae music, indulge in a game of pool, and smoke a joint (rolled cannabis) or two.

Born and bred in the township of Soweto in Orlando East, to Rastafarian parents, Mpobole had his first taste of cannabis at the age of 13.

“I didn’t become Rastafarian, I was born Rasta,” he says.