Apple country Himachal Pradesh gets ground ready for cannabis cultivation
- September 11, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Apple country Himachal Pradesh gets ground ready for cannabis cultivation
Subject: Geography
Section: Economic geography
Context:
- Himachal Pradesh government inching closer to legalize cannabis (hemp) cultivation in the State.
Details:
- A five member committee recommended cultivation of ‘non-narcotic use of cannabis for medicinal, industrial, and scientific use’.
- A study suggests that approximately 95% drug addicts in Himachal Pradesh are using cannabis and its by-products such as marijuana, hashish, charas and ganja/hemp, etc.
Cannabis:
- Hemp is a botanical class of Cannabis sativa cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use.
- It is produced in parts of Himachal Pradesh though it is illegal under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 and NDPS rules 1989.
Uses of cannabis (Hemp):
- Mainly cultivated for its fiber and seeds.
- Used in- Phytoremediation, fiber-cloth manufacturing, ropes, baskets, sleepers, medicinal use, and use in the pulp and paper industry.
Consequences of legalizing cannabis cultivation:
- Positive: Economic boost, increase in employment, increased farmers income, medicinal use of hemp, treatment of patients.
- Negative: Allurement among adolescents and youth towards the use-abuse of cannabis, the nexus between illegal producers and suppliers of cannabis getting stronger, the risk of pilferage, and the occurrence of amotivational syndrome.
NDPS Act 1985:
- The NDPS Act of 1985, imposes a ban on extracting the resin and flowers from the plant, but the law determines the method and extent of its cultivation for medicinal and scientific purposes.
- Section 10 (a) (iii) of the Act empowers the States to make rules regarding the cultivation of any cannabis plant, production, possession, transport, consumption, use and purchase and sale, and consumption of cannabis (except charas).
- States are empowered to permit, by general or special order, the cultivation of hemp only for obtaining fiber or seeds or for horticultural purposes.
- In 2017Uttarakhand became the first State in the country to legalize cannabis cultivation.
- Controlled cultivation is also being done in some districts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
- The NDPS Act was enacted in order to meet the then United Nations Conventions on Drug Policy in the year 1985.