Zimbabweans Send CBD Home - By Ray Mwareya

Zimbabwe ́s diaspora comes up to 40 000 in London alone and is estimated to be near the figure of 500 000 in England alone. They are used to shipping $1 billion per year of food, clothes, and money back to poverty-stricken Zimbabwe 7600-miles away. There is a change of script:  they’re increasingly shipping back CBD oils, hemp creams for chronic pain back pain, or simples to elderly parents and siblings in Zimbabwe.

The turn to Cannabis-based pain treatments has to do with the hardships of healthcare back home in Zimbabwe. “Hospital in Zimbabwe lack syringes; Paracetamol for leg pain can cost a teacher ́s entire monthly salary; struggling diabetes patients sometimes turn to unhelpful herbs to manage their condition – hence processed marijuana treatments from England or Netherlands are becoming an alternative for some,” says Senzo Makupa, a public health physician in Harare the capital.

CBD-based medications as an alternative seem to be gaining some popularity driven by Zimbabwes England-based diaspora citizens who are more exposed to the medicinal benefits of CBD products. “Seeking a courier group to ferry hemp oil London to Zimbabwe for mum ́s swollen leg.”“Hey, I charge 40 GBP for taking CBD face lotion on my flight back to Zimbabwe. I deliver discreetly. “These are the growing type of messages in Zimbabwe ́s WhatsApp message boards in England.

 Judging by social media responses there is money to be made. “CBD oils, hemp oils for inflammation are making a chunk of the medicines we courier safely from London to Zimbabwe monthly,” says Janet, a receiving clerk’s person for a UK-based Zimbabwe courier startup. Janet chooses to omit her surname due to the high stigma associated with cannabis in Zimbabwe.

The business is conducted carefully and for a reason. “In 2018 Zimbabwe okayed the cultivation of medical marijuana for harvesting and exporting. So it ́s still one way: fresh cannabis harvested in Zimbabwe and sent to China or Europe, yet the law is very silent on processed cannabis creams, pain oils coming from Europe back to Zimbabwe,” Janet says. There is stigma all-around receiving diaspora CBD medicines in Zimbabwe from customs officers to the patients themselves.

“One of my young patients with troublesome acne and skin pimples for a decade balked when I suggested Hemp Code face cream. She thought marijuana can burn her skin to bones. This year after receiving a consignment of the cream from relatives in England, her pimples have vanished and she can’t hide her joy” says Albert Vaya, an independent pharmacist in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The shipping back of refined CBD lotions or oils, though still only in its infancy, is intriguing.“My parents are both recovering from hip surgery and felt insulted when I suggested it as a pain management alternative. Their only fearful visions of cannabis were fiery smokes and drunken stupor.

They tried rubbing CBD oil on hip skin. Today for the first time in 2 years they spend the day gardening.”There is a long way to go, but with traditional hospital medications very expensive in Zimbabwe and 300% inflation troubling household incomes, CBD medications acceptance, and stigma, driven by diaspora shipping will increase in popularity as alternative medicines.