Grandmothers Cultivate Cannabis in Time of Need

In the country of Swaziland, Africa’s only constitutional monarchy, elderly women are turning to cannabis cultivation in times of economic hardship.

A news report released by the New York Times details an old woman, Khathazile, and her struggle to look after her orphaned grandchildren who lost their mothers in a country with the world’s highest H.I.V. infection rate. Since 2007, Khathazile has watched three of her daughters pass away leaving behind 11 mouths to feed. According to the report Swazi Gold, a potent strain of cannabis, has kept Khathazile’s “grandchildren fed, clothed, and in school”.

We talk about the benefits of hemp on a regular basis, but here is a benefit of cannabis that we don’t hear much about. The demand for Swazi Gold has created an economic market that poverty stricken women in Swaziland can use to their advantage monetarily, though not fully. Due to their desperate need for money Khathazile and other women like her are often underpaid for their cannabis crops.

Still, with $400 coming in for each crop, the women cannot refuse.

This is an example of cannabis providing for people in times of need. In Jack Herer’s book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, he challenges that cannabis hemp is the only “known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world’s paper and textiles; meeting all of the world’s transportation, industrial and home energy needs; [while] simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time.”

These poor women in Swaziland are growing perhaps the worlds most versatile and useful plant, and yet police come to their crop fields right before harvest and burn down months of labor. A woman being looked down upon for growing this amazing plant with limitless application seems like a crime against humanity.