A Colorado marijuana company with global ambitions aims to expand into Tanzania, with the goal of eventually breaking into the European market.
Oak Creek’s Honest Marijuana Company, which specializes in organic marijuana, is partnering with a new chain of medical clinics in Tanzania to set up an African base for medical marijuana production and sales. While cannabis production is outlawed in the East African country, the plant is still cultivated, company Empower Africa reports.
Should the Tanzanian government decide to ease its laws around medical marijuana in the future, it would follow a trend growing across the continent, with Lesotho, South Africa, and other nations permitting select cannabis ventures.
“A decision like that may come, I hope, sooner than later,” said Serge Chistov, a financial adviser for Honest Marijuana. “It’s no longer news in that part of the world that the crops are valuable.”
He also highlighted Tanzania’s proximity to European markets. With marijuana still banned federally in the U.S., “obviously, nobody’s moving cannabis across the Atlantic,” Chistov added in a telephone interview.
The plan for Your Local Clinic LTD, the sister company of Honest Marijuana that will manage the medical clinics, earned the Tanzanian government’s support, said Elmira Hadzhykhanova, Your Local Clinic’s director of business development. The company anticipates 25 clinics that will cover 60% of the population, she added.
“Within that group of clinics, backing for legal medical use of marijuana has been received for clinics in select locations,” she said in a statement. “Honest Marijuana will have a front line opportunity to work with doctors to make medical marijuana available to their patients.”
If Tanzania chooses to legalize, Your Local Clinic “will be a great platform to bring distribution and availability of cannabis,” Chistov said.
The African subcontinent offers optimal growing conditions for marijuana, Honest Marijuana detailed in a news release. The company, which is in the Steamboat Springs area, produces different strains, blunts, concentrates, edibles and other products.
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