There's No Wealth Like GOOD health
By Raeez Perreira – Green Health Renegade
People love to assume and talk k.. Open a cannabis store and suddenly everyone thinks you’re throwing dagga parties out back. That’s what happened when I opened my outlet in Florida, West Rand, in a community that prides itself on knowing everything about everyone. The backlash was instant. “He’s opened a zol shop, a dagga den.” The gossip travelled faster than my business cards. But the rumours started dying the moment folks walked in and saw what I’d built.
A Health and Wellness space. A forcefield of healing and holistic energy.
I didn’t land here by accident. I’d come out of a messy partnership where I had found Significant problems with product quality, poor licensing, excessive red tape, and a lack of business acumen, as they say. No Waarhied. So I decided to take control of my path. I discovered and delved deeper into Traditional healing, became registered under Section 21, and became a Vele, inyanga mina.
The more I studied, the clearer it became: Cannabis is one plant in a much bigger apothecary. So I rebranded, shut the door on that old partnership, and reopened as Green Health Renegade on my own terms, and most importantly with my own personal touch.
I focused on what I knew people looked for when they shopped for product. Things like slow-burning, white ash, with no stem, needing no re-lighting, just dense flower and crystals. That’s how I recognise good quality. Staying consistent and maintaining exceptional taste.
From day one, I refused to be just another store with edibles and pre-rolls. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t support recreational use; that’s not my mission. Too many “cannabis businesses” race for quick cash while ignoring the real medicine sitting on their shelves. When I shifted the focus, something changed. One of my stores has many elderly people, pensioners battling chronic pain or insomnia, multiple ailments at times and people fed up with pharmaceutical side effects and price tags. A healthier alternative medicinal option
Instead of “Give me a pre-roll?” I started hearing, “Do you have something for my joints?
My anxiety? Cancer? My blood pressure? insomnia?” That’s when I knew I was on the right track.
This work is personal. Someone close to me has epilepsy. We tried the conventional route; those meds made it worse. Jittery, twitchy, not my natural self. I personally tested some of the meds, just to understand. It turned me into a live wire that wasn’t touching. I had previous experience with microdosing and knew how it could reset neural pathways and calm the storm. I introduced a carefully measured dose, a couple of puffs of cannabis (Indica) to manage appetite and sleep. The difference was undeniable.
Here’s how I see it: We’re not lab born. We’re earth-born, and we return to the earth. The medicines that grow in soil speak our first language, the one Our Father Adam spoke, in a way that no synthesised man-made pills can. That doesn’t mean herbs are harmless or that dosage doesn’t matter; quite the contrary. My past experiences, both good and bad, gave me a realistic perspective. I know how easily people can misuse substances, and I know how profoundly they can heal. So, I mix that lived experience and knowledge with traditional training to tailor remedies for the person in front of me. Strains focused on specific outcomes. No copy-paste treatments. No miracle claims. Just honest and thoughtful combinations, guided through from above.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, (yes, I know… blah blah blah.) But no, really! I noticed something unusual: I never fell ill. No one in my house did. None of my close friends who consumed cannabis regularly did, either. Friends who hung out with us but didn’t smoke caught it. Is cannabis the reason? I can’t claim causation without clinical trials, but I do know the conversation around cannabis and immunity never got any airtime. People weren’t talking about it; that silence bugged me.
The same thing happened when our baby was born. The gynae and medical staff warned us: “Using herbal medicines, especially cannabis, your child could be colicky, addicted, or worse.” We braced ourselves… and none of that happened. My kid is thriving. Again, no one’s rushing to publish that in a glossy journal, but I’m not ignoring what I see with my own eyes. Holistic wellbeing is what I stand for.
Saddens me that we still live with the hangover of “dagga is a gateway drug.” I grew up with that narrative. I believed a single puff would send me straight to Tik and then to the streets. That fear is real, and it still lives in many households. So, every time a patient comes back, I hand them a quick survey: What did you use? How did it feel? What changed? It’s not paperwork for the sake of paperwork; it’s how I track progress, adjust doses, and understand their relationship with the plant. I also record video testimonials when patients are willing to share their experiences. Real faces, real stories. Seeing someone talk about how herbal medicine eased their arthritis or anxiety is worth more than a hundred generic “studies show” quotes.
Of course, cannabis is still an unregistered medicine, which means formal research is thin. So, healers like me are doing the groundwork collecting data, logging outcomes, and building case studies. It’s grassroots science, but it’s something. One day, I hope it feeds into proper clinical trials and policy reforms. Until then, we document, we adapt, we keep people safe.
The stigma, though, that’s a beast. And honestly, our government could do a lot more. There’s money on the table here: tax revenue, tourism, job creation. Imagine tourists flying in to walk through a cannabis farm, spending money on local accommodation, infused traditional food, tours, then leaving singing South Africa’s praises. That’s a whole economic chain waiting to be tapped. Instead, we’re stuck in limbo, and a public narrative that still paints cannabis users as dropouts and criminals.
Green Health Renegade is my answer to a broken system, a place where cannabis isn’t demonised or glorified, just respected. Where elders feel safe asking “Will this help my knees?” and young people learn that plant medicine isn’t a free-for-all. Where we combine indigenous wisdom with modern observation, honour dosage, track effects, and tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient.
So, yeah—call it a dagga shop if you want. Come see for yourself. You’ll find more lab notes than rolling papers, more surveys than stoner memes. You might walk out with imphepho or CBD, or maybe just a different view on what healing looks like. Either way, my door is open.