TRADITIONAL healers have called on government to provide them with land to plant dagga for medicinal purposes.
Sangoma Tinki Mzimela (52) from KwaMashu, north of Durban, told Daily Sun since dagga was not illegal anymore, it was time for traditional healers to farm it.
She said traditional healers had long been using dagga to help TB patients.
She and other sangomas want to meet Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu to ask for land.
Mzimela said the farm would create jobs as people would be needed to plant and harvest dagga and herbs and deliver them to markets.
She said they also wanted government to build traditional hospitals and clinics.
Mzimela reminded Simelane-Zulu that Health Minister Zweli Mkhize promised to build a traditional hospital in 2008 when he was still KZN health MEC.
“The government has been saying it recognises us traditional healers, but it has done very little to show it,” she said.
Provincial health spokeswoman Noluthando Nkosi said the government recognised traditional practitioners. She urged them to raise their concerns directly with the department.
