Cambodia

Cambodia
កម្ពុជា (Kampuchea)
Flag
Capital	Phnom Penh
Continent	Asia
Gene Pool	Southeast Asian
Cannabis Status
Legal Status	Illegal
Status Since	1996
Enforcement	Active eradication campaigns
Documentation
Growing Regions	1
Growing Areas	0
Accessions	1

Cambodia (កម្ពុជា, Kampuchea) is home to one of the oldest and most deeply integrated cannabis cultures in Southeast Asia. For centuries, cannabis, known in Khmer as គញ្ជា (kaanhcha), was a routine part of daily life: a condiment roasted into chicken soup, a remedy prescribed by traditional healers for ailments from malaria to difficult childbirth and a social ritual shared on straw mats after the evening meal. The ethnobotanist Marie Alexandrine Martin conducted the last systematic fieldwork before the Khmer Rouge period destroyed much of Cambodia's traditional knowledge. Martin found cannabis growing in household gardens across the country, sold freely in every market and regarded by Khmer people as: "a plant that is socially beneficial."

Cannabis cultivation was formally prohibited by royal edict in 1955, but the ban was so thoroughly ignored that open retail sale continued for four decades. Effective enforcement came only in December 1996, when the Cambodian parliament passed a US-drafted drug law under heavy American diplomatic pressure driven by concerns over heroin trafficking, not cannabis. The law classified cannabis in the most restrictive category alongside heroin, criminalising a crop that had been part of Khmer cuisine and medicine for generations.

Today, cultivation persists in the mountains of Kirivong district in Takeo province, where annual eradication campaigns destroy tens of thousands of plants yet multi-generational growing continues. Cambodia was identified in 1997 as the second-largest source of seized cannabis in Europe, behind only Colombia. The country's landrace cannabis varieties have never been formally characterised or collected and face ongoing threats from eradication, genetic contamination and the severing of traditional agricultural knowledge.

No systematic botanical study of Cambodian cannabis has ever been conducted. The sole academic botanical identification classifies the Koh Kong cultivar as Cannabis indica, while Martin's observation that French colonial cultivation attempts yielded plants of only 0.6 metres suggests Cambodian populations may represent distinct low-growing varieties adapted to local conditions. What survives in the Bayong Kor mountains and scattered plots across the country may be among the last uncharacterised landraces in Southeast Asia.

Cannabis in Khmer Culture

Main article: Cannabis in Khmer culture

The foundational academic source on traditional cannabis use in Cambodia is the ethnobotanist Marie Alexandrine Martin (CNRS / École pratique des hautes études), whose fieldwork in Cambodia culminated in a 1975 chapter based on observations made in 1973, the last systematic documentation before the Khmer Rouge period destroyed much of Cambodia's traditional knowledge infrastructure. Martin's earlier monograph, Introduction à l'ethnobotanique du Cambodge (CNRS, 1971), provides broader botanical context.

Vocabulary and Botany

The Khmer name kanhcha: (គញ្ជា) derives from Sanskrit ganja, with cognates across the region: kancha: or kanhcha: in Thai, kan xa in Lao, cän xa or gai ändö ("Indian grass-cloth plant") in Vietnamese. The term kali: used for cannabis seed in Khmer and inflorescences in Thai is of Hindi origin meaning "bud," further supporting introduction from India.

Cambodians distinguished male from female plants: kanhcha: chmo'.l (male, botanical) and kanhcha: nhi: (female, botanical). Female plants yielded both the preferred smoking material and the seeds used for propagation. Only female plants were smoked; male plants were believed to cause eye disease (a:c phnek, rheum), and their lack of resin made them less effective as medicine.

Culinary Use

Main article: Cannabis in Khmer Cuisine

Cannabis leaves and flowers were used extensively as food throughout Southeast Asia. Cannabis soup (sngao) was common in Cambodia, "especially sngao moan, flavoured with male or female leaves of kanhcha: that have been roasted." Cannabis was also added to sämlä käko: and other soups. Martin noted that Chinese soup sold throughout the region incorporated Cannabis stems "in order to induce clients to return", a practice eventually replaced by green tea.

"Fresh, they are condiments (kruiang) for curry or vegetables (bänläe) to accompany vermicelli soup (inum bänhcok); they are eaten as vegetables (änlwak) in the form of fritters with fish paste (prähok)." Martin emphasised that it was "not only the intoxicating power of Cannabis but the pleasant flavor it imparts to food that makes it good to use in cooking."

A Khmer journalist confirmed in 1998 that "some people have the custom of eating it in chicken soup in the morning," and market vendors in 1995 reported that "even cooks in restaurants come to buy it to add to their noodle soup." Cannabis-flavoured dishes persisted well into the prohibition era through the "happy pizza" phenomenon in tourist-oriented restaurants.

Medicinal Use

Main article: Cannabis in Khmer Medicine

Martin recorded cannabis as an analgesic "comparable to the opium derivatives" in Traditional Khmer Medicine, noting it "can be added to any relaxant to reinforce its action." The entire plant, male or female was used, with female flowers often added in small amounts "to give the sick person a feeling of well-being." Specific documented applications include:

• Appetite restoration: A glass of Cannabis decoction taken before the two principal meals, generally for one day
• Polyp removal: Cannabis smoked with bark of Cananga latifolia (chkae sraeng)
• Digestion: Boiled with bark of tepiru (a myrtle) and Cinnamomum sp. (sambo lveng); "a glass is taken before each meal"
• Post-delivery care: Infusion of tops from both male and female plants (approximately ten per litre of water) to bring "a feeling of well-being (sruol khluan)" to the mother
• Lactation stimulation: Concoction of Cannabis, Cinnamomum sp. stems, and tropical creepers, taken twice daily
• Additional indications: Cholera, malaria, dysentery, anorexia, loss of memory, asthma, coughing, dizziness, convulsions, intestinal parasites, and paralysis

In Phnom Penh's markets through the 1990s, cannabis was sold at traditional medicine stalls alongside animal skins, herbs, barks, and other remedies as part of the established pharmacopoeia rather than a distinct drug trade in the modern sense.

Smoking and Social Use

Main article: Recreational cannabis in Khmer culture

Cannabis in Southeast Asia was "smoked with no prior treatment at all". That is, no resin extraction or hashish production. The dried plant was cut on a chopping block of strychnos wood (slaeng), as bits of this wood mixed into the Cannabis were believed to constitute a cough remedy and impart a pleasant taste. Cannabis was mixed with tobacco and smoked in paper, maize leaves, Combretum quadrangulare leaves, or banana leaves; more commonly, it was placed in a bamboo water pipe (rut sey). Another practice involved boiling Cannabis and sprinkling the juice onto tobacco.

Smoking typically began around age fifteen for males. Women rarely smoked, though Martin observed that "this practice is common, however, among the women of certain northeastern tribes (at least, this is what I have observed in a Bu nong village)." This is a direct 1973 field observation of Bunong cannabis use in what is now Mondulkiri province. However, in 2021, Bunong landowners in Mondulkiri who were deceived into growing 7,000 cannabis plants by a lowland Khmer farmer reportedly "saw plants they had never seen before." Whether this represents genuine knowledge loss — plausible given the devastation of the Khmer Rouge period and decades of subsequent marginalisation — or the strategic opacity characteristic of persecuted highland minorities navigating encounters with Khmer authorities, cannot be determined from the available sources. Indigenous communities across Cambodia's northeast have learned through generations of discrimination to control what outsiders are permitted to know, making ethnobotanical documentation inherently constrained by the power dynamics surrounding these communities.

Cannabis smoking was fundamentally social. "After the evening meal, the head of the house lays out a straw mat and invites others to accompany him in his search for euphoria. It is not a question of forgetting one's troubles or escaping from heavy obligations; smoking is to avoid being sad, to experience a feeling of well-being (sruol khluan)." Users described the effects: "You are in a drunken mood as with morphine, you are happy, laughing, eating well, you have strength." Cannabis was also consumed before difficult tasks: forest work, jute harvesting etc, to increase endurance and was used to combat cold during the cool season.

For the Khmer people, cannabis was "not considered a dangerous product, as opposed to opium, which leads to depravity." Martin concluded that "there is thus nothing surprising in the fact that they consider cannabis to be a plant that is socially beneficial."

Textiles

Martin notably observed that Cannabis fibres were not used for textiles in Cambodia.

Quote: "completely unknown in Khmer country".

No cannabis specimens from Cambodia exist in the herbarium of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, though specimens from Tonkin and Laos are labelled as "textile plants." Among highland minorities, the Hmong and Nhung ethnic groups of northern Laos and Tonkin made skirts from hemp fibre, reportedly importing textile cannabis from China in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the French Protectorate, cultivation attempts in southern Indochina yielded plants of only 0.6 metres instead of the expected several metres, and production was halted — a botanical observation suggesting Cambodian cannabis populations may have been distinct low-growing varieties adapted to local conditions.

The Generational Divide

Cannabis use in Cambodia has historically been stratified by generation. A 2004 academic study of drug use in three villages on the outskirts of Battambang town found that among 30 young drug users surveyed (ages 15–25), every single one used amphetamines (yaba) as their primary drug, not one used cannabis. Young Cambodians viewed cannabis as an "old man's habit" and gravitated instead toward amphetamine-type stimulants associated with modernity and Thai media culture.

This pattern persists in the modern enforcement record. Officials in Kirivong consistently report that local growers "do not use locally" and that production is entirely for export. Deputy provincial governor Khan Sokha stated in 2021 that "people in Kirivong district have never used marijuana."

Knowledge Destruction

Most ancient Khmer medical manuscripts (sastra), inscribed on palm leaves, were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979), when traditional healers were systematically targeted and eliminated. The National Center for Traditional Medicine (NCTM), established in 2010, has undertaken some reconstruction of surviving knowledge.

Legal History

Colonial Indifference

Under the French Protectorate (1863–1953), cannabis was never specifically targeted for prohibition despite being nominally covered by the broader Customs and Excises (Douanes et Régies) framework that controlled intoxicants across French Indochina. The colonial administration's relationship with intoxicants was fundamentally fiscal: the Régie Générale de l'Opium, established in 1897, generated up to 37% of the entire Indochinese colonial budget through a state monopoly on opium manufacture and sale. Cannabis, generating negligible revenue and posing no perceived social threat, attracted no comparable regulatory attention. France's metropolitan Law of 12 July 1916 listed "haschich et ses préparations" as a controlled substance alongside opium and cocaine, but multiple French legal historians confirm this law was barely applied in the colonies, where the state itself was dealing in a listed narcotic.

A 1952 United Nations Narcotics Report for Cambodia filed just before independence confirms this colonial-era indifference, stating that "Cambodia has no traffic in dangerous drugs with the exception of opium." Cannabis is not mentioned.

Post-Independence: Prohibition on Paper

Cambodia has technically had cannabis prohibition on the books since 1955 but for four decades it was so comprehensively ignored that open cultivation and free retail sale continued uninterrupted.

Martin (1975) documents two post-independence statutes:

• Kram No. 10 NS, 30 May 1955 — A royal edict issued under King Suramarinth (Norodom Suramarit, who held the throne after Sihanouk's abdication) halted all growing of cannabis.
• Kret No. 481.72 PRK, 14 July 1972 — The Khmer Republic (Lon Nol government) created a Bureau of Narcotics in Phnom Penh, which "emphasized the repression of opium traffic and updated complementary clauses relative to Cannabis."

Yet Martin herself, documenting these laws and conducting fieldwork in the same period, observed that "retail sale of the plant is absolutely free in Cambodia and Laos" and that "being in possession of kanhcha: does not constitute an offense; the normal reaction is rather to laugh and wish pleasure to the person who has it." Cannabis was sold openly in markets, grown in household gardens, and integrated into everyday cuisine and medicine. The 1955 prohibition existed only on paper.

No evidence has been found of cannabis-specific legislation during the People's Republic of Kampuchea period (1979–1989). During the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979), traditional healers were systematically targeted and rice monoculture was imposed, but this was ideological totalitarianism rather than drug regulation.

The 1961 Single Convention Myth

A widely repeated claim that cannabis became "technically illegal" in Cambodia through the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is substantially misleading. Cambodia signed the Convention on 30 March 1961 but did not ratify it until 7 July 2005 - over 44 years later. Signing creates only a political commitment; it does not create binding legal obligations to implement provisions domestically. The US State Department's 1998 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report confirmed that Cambodia was still taking steps to become a party to the major UN drug conventions at that date.

The US Embassy confirmed that Cambodia ratified the 1961, 1971, and 1988 UN Drug Conventions in February 2005 — meaning Cambodia was not a party to any of the three major international drug control treaties during its entire peak production period. The 1972 Protocol amending the 1961 Single Convention was ratified in September 2007 and signed into law the following month. The INCSR 2003 had explicitly noted this gap, confirming that Cambodia was "not a party to the 1961 Single Convention and its 1972 Protocol, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, or the 1988 UN Drug Convention."

The UNTAC Code

The UNTAC transitional criminal code (1992–1993) introduced a new framework alongside the existing but unenforced Cambodian statutes, providing for jail terms of 5–15 years for smuggling addictive drugs and 1 month to 1 year for drug users. However, Phnom Penh anti-drug department chief Heng Poev acknowledged in 1995 that the law was "apparently unclear on whether possession or growing of marijuana are also offenses." His confusion is understandable given the overlapping layers of unenforced prohibition: a 1955 royal edict, a 1972 narcotics bureau decree, and now a UN-drafted criminal code, none of which had ever been applied to cannabis in practice.

The 1996 Law on Drug Management

While Cambodia had cannabis prohibition on the books since 1955, the 1996 Law on Drug Management was the first statute backed by genuine enforcement intent and driven not by domestic concern but by American geopolitical pressure.

Cambodia's cannabis prohibition is inseparable from the geopolitics of American drug policy. Nate Thayer's November 1995 investigation for the Far Eastern Economic Review titled "Medellin on the Mekong" framed Cambodia as an emerging narco-state, primarily over heroin transit.

In February 1996, US President Bill Clinton formally added Cambodia to the American list of major illicit drug producing and drug transit countries under Section 490(h) of the Foreign Assistance Act. The letter focused almost exclusively on heroin transit, citing a 71 kg heroin seizure in a speedboat in Koh Kong province — and did not mention cannabis production despite Cambodia's significant export trade. Cambodia was dependent on foreign aid for approximately 40% of its national budget, making it highly vulnerable to US policy pressure.

On 9 December 1996, the National Assembly passed the Law on Drug Management (Loi sur la gestion de la drogue) by a vote of 84 to 2. The legislation was drafted by the UNDCP (United Nations International Drug Control Programme) and reviewed by the US Departments of State and Justice. It classified Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa in Table I: "plants and substances which cause severe dangers but which are not useful for medicine" — the most restrictive category, alongside heroin.

Contemporary criticism was withering. A human rights lawyer told the Phnom Penh Post that "many MPs didn't see the logic of or the need for the law" and alleged most voted for it because of pressure from the United States and the UNDCP. The law was "rammed through parliament much faster than usual, ahead of other laws which many Cambodians felt had a higher priority." Human Rights Watch/Asia warned the law "does not sufficiently take into account the current deterioration of the human rights situation in Cambodia."

The irony was noted by a 2002 Cambodia Daily investigation, which observed that "worldwide busts have fingered Cambodia's massive cannabis exports" while heroin hauls remained rare and largely unsubstantiated — the opposite of the Clinton letter's framing. The US government knew of narcotics-related corruption "in government and business circles," yet pressured the same corrupt government to enforce prohibition, creating a system where powerful traffickers were protected while small farmers bore the enforcement burden. The 1998 INCSR confirmed Cambodia was not yet a party to any of the three major UN drug conventions, even as it was being pressed to enforce them.

Current Legal Status

Under Article 38 of the Law on Drug Control, anyone who intentionally cultivates narcotic plants faces imprisonment of six months to two years and a fine of 1–4 million riel (US$245–975). If the offence is committed for distribution, production, or trade, the penalty increases to two to five years imprisonment with fines of 4–10 million riel (US$975–2,435).

Despite the legal framework, enforcement has historically been selective and inconsistent. Cannabis is technically classified alongside heroin and methamphetamines, but in practice "authorities often make exceptions for traditional or personal use." Small-scale growers are routinely educated and released after signing pledges not to reoffend, while large-scale commercial operations face prosecution, though arrests remain rare even in major eradication operations.

In 2023–2024, Prime Minister Hun Manet explicitly rejected foreign proposals for medical cannabis investment, stating: "As long as I remain PM, marijuana investment law will not be implemented."

Cultivation History

Post-Khmer Rouge Reconstruction (1980–1991)

The earliest documented evidence of large-scale cannabis cultivation comes from the post-Khmer Rouge period. An academic Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment of Koh Kong and Kampot provinces documented cannabis at two coastal communities:

• At Koh Kapik commune on the Thai border, cannabis was "widely grown from 1980 to 1985" before a 1990s crackdown.
• At Koh Sralao, mountain forest was cut from 1980 to 1990 specifically to plant "Indian Hemp (Cannabis indica)" — a practice driven by conflict refugees from other provinces who "moved to Koh Sralao motivated by personal safety" during ongoing civil war.

Cannabis cultivation and timber selling at Koh Sralao ended in 1991 when a ban was introduced and the Ministry of Environment declared the area protected. This represents the only known academic botanical identification in the Cambodian record thus far classifying the cultivated plant as Cannabis indica.

The Thai Investment Era (1992–2002)

As Cambodia opened to foreign engagement through the UNTAC period (1992–1993), commercial cannabis cultivation expanded dramatically, fuelled by Thai capital.

In 1996, Phnom Penh anti-drug officer Heng Po identified the investment pattern on camera for Associated Press Television: "They grow it because Thai businessmen came here and gave them money to do it. Especially in Kandal, Koh Kong, and Kampot provinces. They give them money and irrigation machines." The APTV footage documented open cannabis fields on "New Island" just outside Phnom Penh on the Mekong River, with irrigation pipes running through banana-intercropped plots. A farmer named Chhe Sambatt, who had been growing for three years, told the camera: "A few years ago no one ever came. It's only this year that they started, so usually I have nothing to fear."

Koh Kong province became the epicentre of commercial production. A 2002 Reuters report described the province as Cambodia's "Wild West" and "a production zone for some of Asia's finest quality marijuana, grown in staggering quantities." Drug lords provided farmers with "tools, seeds and fertilizer to grow cannabis in big jungle plantations" and bought the crop back at harvest. The province had been virtually isolated since the Khmer Rouge cut its roads in the 1970s, accessible only by boat until a bridge to Thailand's Trat province opened in April 2002.

A two-tier quality system existed: poorly cured bulk cannabis ("hay") sold domestically for as little as US$2–4 per kilogram, while superior export-grade product was channelled through the port cities of Sihanoukville and Koh Kong to international markets. In 1999, national enforcement under Police Director General Hok Lundy yielded the destruction of 25 marijuana plantations and 1,200 kg of processed cannabis in Koh Kong province alone, alongside over 4 tonnes confiscated in Sihanoukville.

A 2002 Cambodia Daily investigation confirmed the scale: "Worldwide busts have fingered Cambodia's massive cannabis exports, but heroin hauls are much less common."

The scale of commercial export operations was revealed in April 1997 when officials at Sihanoukville port seized seven tons of seeded, compressed, shrink-wrapped marijuana concealed inside containers labeled as rubber destined for Sri Lanka. Documents recovered during the seizure bore stamps and seals of a company belonging to prominent tycoon Mong Reththy. Mong Reththy denied involvement, telling the Phnom Penh Post in 2004: "I was accused of planting and smuggling marijuana. I have tried to ignore it. I have never even smoked a cigarette in my life, so how could I do business like that?" Nobody was ever arrested; the cargo owner could not be traced as the shipping documents had been falsified. The case and its aftermath are discussed further under Selective Enforcement.

As enforcement pressure and new road infrastructure reduced Koh Kong's viability as a production zone in the early 2000s, the centre of gravity for cannabis cultivation shifted southeast to Kirivong district in Takeo province, near the Vietnamese border.

Peak Production (Late 1990s–Early 2000s)

The US State Department's 2003 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) provides the only available production estimate for Cambodia during this period, placing total annual output at 700–1,000 tons. No reliable figures were available from either the Cambodian government or the UNODC to corroborate or refine this estimate.

Production was concentrated across nine provinces: Koh Kong, Battambang, Kampot, Kandal, Kampong Cham, Kratie, Stung Treng, Preah Vihear, and Banteay Meanchey. Cannabis was grown using traditional farming methods, with the harvest normally occurring between late December and early January. Much of the production was described as "contract cultivation" by Cambodian farmers operating under the control or influence of foreign criminal syndicates.

Analysis of international seizures identified Europe as the major destination for Cambodian cannabis, with secondary markets in the United States, Australia, and Africa. This corroborated the earlier identification of Cambodia as the second-largest source of seized cannabis in Europe, behind only Colombia.

In 2002, Cambodian police destroyed 195,656 marijuana plants, most located along the Mekong River and adjacent to the Thai and Vietnamese borders. However, enforcement efforts had "not targeted major traffickers and their organisations." The scale of eradication declined steeply in subsequent years: the US Embassy's own INCSR submissions recorded the destruction of just 144 square metres of cannabis plantations in the first nine months of 2006 and 1,075 square metres in the first nine months of 2007, with only eight and four cannabis-related arrests respectively. Cannabis-related enforcement had, by the Embassy's own assessment, "declined dramatically over the past several years."

Throughout this period, the US Embassy reported that cannabis cultivation continued and that there were "reports of continued military and/or police involvement in large-scale cultivations in remote areas." The INCSR 2003 had noted that Cambodia's "lack of police training and resources, coupled with widespread corruption, doom such efforts to failure in the current environment."

Geographic Shift to Kirivong (2000s–present)

Main article: Kirivong Green Triangle

The Bayong Kor mountain range spans four communes in Kirivong district — Preah Bat Choan Chum, Prey Ampok, Som, and Kiri Chung Koh — and is described in police reports as "ideal for growing marijuana and smuggling to Vietnam." Kirivong district police chief Yuk Sarath confirmed in 2017 that "villagers in this commune have grown such plants in their own field for family use, and also for illegal sale to Vietnam and Phnom Penh."

Takeo provincial police chief Chheang Phannara stated in December 2021 that growing marijuana in Preah Bat Choan Chum commune "is not a new practice and it has been going on for many generations," attributing its persistence to the local authorities' "lack of will to implement the law." Commune police chief In Vuth provided the clearest documentation of the local economy: dried marijuana leaves sell for 140,000–160,000 riel (US$35–40) per kilogram to Vietnamese traders who come to the commune to buy directly.

The scale of Kirivong cultivation is significant. In the first half of 2017 alone, district police destroyed 134,886 marijuana plants and confiscated 272 kg of dried marijuana. A single operation on 1 February 2020 destroyed 180,367 plants across 24 locations. Between 2019 and mid-2021, police documented 97 operations, burned crops at 443 locations, destroyed 282 water reservoirs, and confiscated 80.5 kg of dried marijuana across a total cultivated area of 60.97 hectares.

Cultivation is characterised by dispersed small plots on remote mountain slopes, concealed through intercropping with cassava, cashew, sesame, and forest trees. Sophisticated irrigation systems including wells, ponds, and piped water supply the plots. Growers typically flee before police arrive, cultivators "live in the forest" during the growing season and replant elsewhere after each raid in what officials describe as a persistent "whack-a-mole" pattern.

Dispersed Cultivation

While Kirivong dominates modern enforcement statistics, cannabis cultivation has been documented across multiple provinces and is often characterised by distinct local patterns.

In Battambang province, small-scale cultivation in lowland agricultural areas follows an "educate and release" enforcement pattern, with growers citing personal, medicinal, or family use. A 36-year-old man arrested in 2015 with 236 plants said he "grew the plants to use himself and to help treat someone in his family."

The Cardamom Mountains corridor spanning Pursat, Kampong Speu, and Kampot harbours remote cultivation in deep mountain forests. In 2015, 7,637 plants were found hidden among sesame crops across rented land in Pursat's Phnom Kravanh district; the farmer had brought the plants from Kandal province. The Cardamom Mountains were also the site of large-scale illicit safrole oil extraction during this period: mobile groups harvested trees in environmentally protected areas and extracted the oil, which can serve as a precursor for MDMA production. In October 2007, Thai authorities intercepted a 50-ton shipment of safrole oil originating in Cambodia. The overlap of illicit cannabis cultivation and precursor extraction within the same remote mountain corridor suggests a shared economic logic driven by the region's inaccessibility to law enforcement. ^{[clarification needed]}

A notable pattern of cultivation expertise export has been documented: in 2021, a man from Takeo province established a 7,000-plant operation on Bunong indigenous land in Mondulkiri province, deceiving local landowners who "saw plants they had never seen before" into growing cannabis among their vegetables. Similarly, the 2015 Pursat operation involved plants sourced from Kandal province. These cases suggest established growing zones serve as sources of agricultural knowledge that radiate outward as local enforcement pressure increases.

A 2015 seizure of 1,400 kg of dried marijuana in Phnom Penh revealed that the cannabis "was not planted in Cambodia; it is imported from Laos," demonstrating that Cambodia functions as both a producer and a transit/processing point for regional cannabis trade. Industrial drying and packing machines were seized alongside the marijuana, indicating sophisticated processing infrastructure.

Growing Practices

Traditional Agronomy

Martin documented simple household cultivation in the 1970s: seeds from female plants soaked in water for three days, planted in open ground during the rainy season, harvested dry. Plants reached inflorescence after four to five months, requiring only water and chicken or cattle manure. She observed that "along the river and closer to Vietnam, cultivation of these plants is of greater importance."

According to Gilboa, traditional Mekong corridor cultivation involved simply scattering seeds along the riverbanks and allowing the plants to grow unattended.

Modern Prohibition-Era Cultivation

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Varieties and Genetics

No systematic botanical collection, genetic characterisation, or chemotype analysis of Cambodian cannabis landraces has ever been conducted.

Botanical Classification

The sole academic botanical identification in the Cambodian record found in our research thus far classifies the Koh Kong cultivar as Cannabis indica. Martin (1975) distinguished male and female plants by local naming conventions (kanhcha: chmo'.l and kanhcha: nhi:) but did not attempt taxonomic classification beyond the species level.

Morphology

Martin's observation that French colonial cultivation attempts in southern Indochina yielded plants of only 0.6 metres instead of the expected several metres is potentially significant — it suggests Cambodian populations may represent distinct low-growing varieties adapted to local conditions, a morphological characteristic that has never been formally studied.

Quality Tiers

A two-tier quality system has been documented since at least the 1990s: poorly cured bulk cannabis ("hay") for domestic consumption, and superior export-grade product channelled through port cities to international markets. Koh Kong province was described in 2002 as producing "some of Asia's finest quality marijuana."

In Laos, Martin documented three quality grades based on harvest timing: first quality harvested in winter when covered with dew (the strongest); second quality harvested at other times; and third quality from plants not gathered at the proper time. Whether similar grading practices existed or exist in Cambodia is undocumented.

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The Market

Cannabis Price History

Year	Price	Seller	Location	Type	Source
1973	3,000 riel/kg	Farmgate	Household gardens	Landrace	Martin
1996	US$2/kg	Farmgate	Mekong corridor	Landrace	APTV
1995	US$4/kg	Market retail	Phnom Penh	Landrace	PPPost
1998	US$20/kg	Market retail	Phnom Penh	Landrace	Gilboa
2021	US$35–40/kg	Farmgate	Kirivong	Landrace	PPPost
2026	US$500–600/kg	Market Wholesale	Kampot	Landrace	Zomia Collective
2026	US$0.1–1/g	Market Retail	Kampot	Landrace	Zomia Collective

The tenfold increase in farmgate price from the pre-prohibition era to the modern enforcement period illustrates the economic incentive structure created by criminalisation. As commune police chief In Vuth noted, "most people in the commune have grown marijuana on their plantations in the village because of the high market price it fetches."

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Supply Chain

Domestic Supply Chain

The modern Kirivong supply chain operates as follows:

1. Cultivation by villagers, often hired by brokers
2. Drying and processing
3. Sale to traders who travel to the commune to buy directly at the farm
4. Cross-border transport to Vietnam, with secondary domestic distribution to Kampot, Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh

Trafficking is conducted by motorbike runners carrying loads of approximately 13 kg per trip . One arrested trafficker in 2018 was on her third trip transporting marijuana toward the Vietnamese border .

International Trafficking Routes

The 2003 INCSR identified multiple export corridors active during peak production: the deep-water port of Sihanoukville (also known as Kampong Saom), the coastline of Koh Kong near the Thai border, Kampot near the Vietnamese border, and the river port of Phnom Penh. Cannabis exited Cambodia "concealed in shipping containers, speedboats and ocean-going vessels." Pochentong International Airport in Phnom Penh, described as suffering from "lax customs and immigration controls," was also believed to serve as a transit point, as was the regional airport at Siem Reap, which had only "rudimentary" customs controls. By 2007, an October 2006 Prime Ministerial circular calling for airport security checks remained unimplemented because "the government lacks the funding to buy the required equipment."

A 360 kg seizure of marijuana in a container shipped from Cambodia was made by Hong Kong Customs in November 2002. The Vietnamese perspective from the same period confirms the scale of cross-border trade: Vietnamese law enforcement on the Cambodia border in 2003 investigated 310 cases with 700 suspects and seized 551 kg of cannabis, along with heroin and amphetamines. A Chinese citizen arrested in Ho Chi Minh City in December 2003 admitted trafficking 350 kg of cannabis purchased in Cambodia and maintained ties with a Vietnamese group that "regularly deals in cannabis grown in Cambodia."

The 2015 seizure of 1,400 kg of dried marijuana in Phnom Penh, imported from Laos with industrial drying and packing machines, demonstrated that Cambodia also functions as a transit and processing point for regional cannabis trade.

Enforcement

Eradication Campaigns

Cambodia conducts annual eradication campaigns primarily targeting Kirivong district, with operations typically intensifying in the early months of each year coinciding with the dry-season growing cycle . The National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), established in 1995, coordinates national drug control efforts.

The 2003 INCSR reported that in the first eleven months of 2002, 240 persons were arrested for drug-related offenses (compared to 109 in 2001), though this figure encompasses all narcotics, not cannabis alone. Cambodian law enforcement agencies were described as having "very limited resources" and lacking "even the most basic training in law enforcement techniques," with "three decades of warfare and factional fighting" having "severely hampered the government's ability to carry out a sustained effort against illegal drugs."

Annual US Embassy submissions documented the subsequent collapse of cannabis-specific enforcement. In the first nine months of 2006, just 144 square metres of cannabis plantations were destroyed and eight people arrested. In the first nine months of 2007, 1,075 square metres were destroyed — an increase, but still negligible relative to the production scale — with only four people arrested for cannabis cultivation or trafficking. The Embassy assessed that "cannabis-related arrests, eradication and seizures have declined dramatically over the past several years" even as cannabis cultivation "continues despite a government eradication campaign."

Enforcement Challenges

Enforcement in the Bayong Kor mountains is constrained by remote, rugged terrain requiring treks of 5 km or more. Commune police chief In Savuth described the tracking methods: "We looked for signs in the forest, footprints and traces of people walking on the rocks." Cultivators typically flee before police arrive and villagers refuse to identify plot owners. Undercover agents sometimes pose as honey hunters or wildlife foragers to locate farms .

A persistent "whack-a-mole" dynamic characterises enforcement: "When we crack down on marijuana plants in the west, growers secretly plant them in the east because this area is on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border. They are opportunists, but we will continue our clampdowns."

Beyond tactical constraints, the US Embassy's annual INCSR submissions identified systemic institutional barriers to effective enforcement. One "unique challenge" was the loss of Cambodia's trained professionals during the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979) and subsequent Vietnamese occupation, meaning that "performance in the area of law enforcement and administration of justice must be viewed in the context of Cambodia's profound underdevelopment." Even after training provided by the DEA, JIATF-West, and ILEA Bangkok, "these officers return to an environment of scarce resources and pervasive corruption." The Mekong River border with Laos, "which is permeated with islands," was described as "nearly impossible" to enforce "due to lack of boats and fuel among law enforcement forces," while rapid road construction was simultaneously "increasing the ease with which traffickers can use Cambodia's rapidly developing road network."

Selective Enforcement and Political Protection

The enforcement record reveals a pattern in which small-scale cultivators face regular prosecution while politically connected figures implicated in large-scale trafficking have not been held accountable.

The Mong Reththy Affair

The most prominent case involves Mong Reththy, described by the US Embassy in 2007 as "likely the closest business tycoon and ally to Prime Minister Hun Sen." In April 1997, seven tons of marijuana were seized at Sihanoukville port from containers bearing the stamps and seals of a Mong Reththy company. Ho Sok, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Interior and a member of the FUNCINPEC coalition partner, led the investigation and announced that a court was preparing an arrest warrant. Hun Sen responded publicly that anyone attempting to arrest Mong Reththy "had better wear a steel helmet." In July 1997, during the coup in which Hun Sen ousted co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Ho Sok was captured by CPP forces and shot dead at the Interior Ministry headquarters in Phnom Penh. Three police generals were suspended in connection with the killing; Hun Sen personally signed the order reinstating them at the request of National Police Director-General Hok Lundy. Ho Sok's widow wrote to the UN Secretary-General accusing Hun Sen and Hok Lundy of responsibility for her husband's murder. The investigation into Mong Reththy proceeded no further.

Mong Reththy was subsequently awarded an Okhna title by Hun Sen and became a CPP senator in 2006. The academic Michiel Verver, in a peer-reviewed study of Cambodian business-politics networks, documented the broader pattern: the oknha title, nominally conferred for charitable donation, had become "a strategy for newly wealthy businessmen to gain formal proximity to political patrons." Verver's research traced the origins of Cambodia's first generation of post-1979 business magnates to the 1980s border economy, where they "operated casinos at the Thai and Vietnamese borders, ran brothels and smuggled drugs, cigarettes and liquor."

In late 2003, Mong Reththy built Oknha Mong Port, a private port facility 45 kilometres from Sihanoukville, which Hun Sen personally inaugurated in December 2004. Global Witness reported in 2007 that the approximately fifteen customs officers stationed at the port were "answerable only to Mong Reththy" and could not submit reports to Phnom Penh without his authorisation. The Canadian Ambassador, after visiting the port, "was disturbed by the extreme deference customs and police officials stationed there paid to Mong Reththy, leading her to question how robustly government port security and customs measures are enforced." Members of the diplomatic community privately expressed concerns that drugs were being trafficked through the port. The port was also used by Brigade 70, an elite RCAF unit that served as a reserve force for Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit, for transporting smuggled goods along the coast.

Mong Reththy has consistently denied any connection to drug trafficking. When contacted by Global Witness, his lawyer indicated willingness to be interviewed but did not respond to a proposed recorded discussion.

Structural Corruption

The Mong Reththy case was not isolated. In July 2006, Heng Pov, the former chief of the Anti-Drug Police, fled Cambodia and alleged that "high-ranking government officials and well-connected businessmen were involved in drug trafficking, but were not prosecuted due to government pressure." The US Embassy noted diplomatically that "it is difficult to assess the credibility of these claims."

In August 2007, Oum Chhay, a tycoon and political advisor charged with involvement in the April 2007 Kampong Speu methamphetamine superlab, died in police custody. Police stated he committed suicide by jumping from a window. Observers noted he was supervised by three guards at the time, fell from a first-storey window, and landed on his back.

The US Embassy's annual assessments consistently described the structural environment enabling such outcomes. In 2006: "corruption remains pervasive in Cambodia, making Cambodia highly vulnerable to penetration by drug traffickers and foreign crime syndicates." In 2007: "corruption, low salaries for civil servants, and an acute shortage of trained personnel severely limit sustained advances in effective law enforcement. The judicial system is weak, and there have been numerous cases of defendants in important criminal cases having charges against them dropped after paying relatively small fines." A donor-proposed anti-corruption law, benchmarked at a December 2004 Consultative Group meeting, had still not been completed as of October 2007.

Contrast with Small-Scale Enforcement

The contrast between these outcomes and the treatment of small-scale growers is stark. In the same period, villagers in Kirivong cultivating plots of a few hundred plants faced regular raids, crop destruction, and signed pledges not to reoffend, while a 36-year-old farmer in Battambang was arrested for growing 236 plants for personal and family medicinal use. The 2003 INCSR noted that Cambodian enforcement efforts had "not targeted major traffickers and their organizations" and that "widespread corruption" remained "one of the most serious obstacles to meaningful suppression of crime, including drug trafficking."

Recent News

Article	Date	Province	Category
News:2025-02-17/Enforcement/military-police-destroy-7-755-cannabis-plants-in-keng-raing-valley-kampong-speu	17 February 2025	Kampong Speu	Enforcement
News:2025-02-03/Enforcement/authorities-burn-3-365-marijuana-plants-in-raid-on-bayang-kor-mountain-cambodia	3 February 2025	Takeo	Enforcement
News:2024-07-24/Enforcement/two-farmers-detained-over-767-marijuana-plants-in-sesan-district-stung-treng	24 July 2024	Stung Treng	Enforcement
News:2024-03-29/Enforcement/400-marijuana-plants-seized-on-cashew-plantation-in-battambang-province	29 March 2024	Battambang	Enforcement
News:2023-03-07/Policy/cracking-down-on-marijuana-plantations-a-tough-task-for-authorities-in-takeo	7 March 2023	Takeo	Policy
News:2023-02-10/Policy/kampong-speu-governor-rejected-malaysian-investors-marijuana-plantation-proposal	10 February 2023		Policy
News:2023-01-10/Policy/takeos-kirivong-district-cited-as-cambodias-top-marijuana-cultivation-area	10 January 2023	Takeo	Policy
News:2022-06-23/Enforcement/10-marijuana-plantations-destroyed-in-ta-o-commune-kirivong-takeo	23 June 2022	Takeo	Enforcement
News:2021-12-27/Policy/new-takeo-police-chief-vows-to-eliminate-all-marijuana-plantations	27 December 2021	Takeo	Policy
News:2021-12-06/Enforcement/takeo-police-chief-orders-crackdown-on-kirivong-marijuana-cultivation-blames-local-authorities-lack-of-will	6 December 2021	Takeo	Enforcement
... further results

Growing Regions

Main article: Landrace cannabis growing regions of Cambodia, See also: Landrace cannabis growing areas of Cambodia

No growing regions documented yet.

Growing Areas

No growing areas documented yet.

Conservation Status

Main article: Landrace cannabis conservation in Cambodia

Cambodia's traditional cannabis landraces face severe and ongoing threats from multiple vectors:

• Eradication campaigns : Annual destruction of tens of thousands of plants and associated infrastructure eliminates cultivated populations and disrupts seed saving
• Genetic contamination : No documentation of modern hybrid introduction, but commercial pressure may favour higher-yielding imported genetics over traditional varieties
• Cultural disruption : The criminalisation of a multi-generational agricultural practice severs the transmission of traditional cultivation knowledge
• Habitat loss : Shifting cultivation patterns under enforcement pressure fragment populations into increasingly remote and marginal sites
• Knowledge destruction : The Khmer Rouge's systematic elimination of traditional healers and destruction of palm-leaf medical manuscripts (sastra)

The traditional riverine cultivation described in the 1990s where farmers "scattered the seeds and let it grow" along the Mekong appears to have been entirely eliminated. Modern cultivation is confined to hidden and remote plots with artificial irrigation, representing a fundamental change in the plant's growing environment and the selection pressures acting on it.

Cambodia: Landrace cannabis eradication map

Conservation status: Endangered — Active eradication, no known preservation efforts, traditional cultivation knowledge under threat.

See Also

• Southeast Asian Gene Pool
• Kirivong Green Triangle
• Koh Kong province
• Cannabis in Khmer Cuisine
• Cannabis in Khmer Medicine
• Portal:Current Events

Bibliography

The following works constitute the essential academic bibliography for cannabis in Cambodia. Items marked * are the highest-priority sources for further research.

• * Martin, Marie Alexandrine. "Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia." In Vera Rubin (ed.), Cannabis and Culture. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 1975, pp. 63–76. — The foundational source; 14-page chapter based on 1973 fieldwork documenting culinary, medicinal, and social use.
• * Martin, Marie Alexandrine. Introduction à l'ethnobotanique du Cambodge. Paris: Éditions du CNRS (CEDRASEMI), 1971, 257 pp. — Doctoral thesis; digitised on Gallica BnF (ark:/12148/bpt6k3339777w). Broader botanical inventory likely containing detailed cannabis entries.
• * Dy Phon, Pauline. Plants Used in Cambodia / Plantes utilisées au Cambodge. Phnom Penh, 2000, 915 pp. — Trilingual Khmer-English-French botanical dictionary; held in 13 major libraries worldwide. Not digitised.
• * Law on Drug Control (Cambodia). English translation available at cdc.gov.kh. Khmer version is the official text.
• Clarke, Robert C. and Mark D. Merlin. Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013, 434 pp. — Global synthesis including Southeast Asian traditions.
• Descours-Gatin, Chantal. Quand l'opium finançait la colonisation en Indochine: L'élaboration de la régie générale de l'opium (1860–1914). Paris: L'Harmattan, 1992. — Definitive study of the French colonial opium monopoly.
• Global Witness. Cambodia's Family Trees: Illegal Logging and the Stripping of Public Assets by Cambodia's Elite. June 2007, 94 pp. — Comprehensive investigation into elite corruption; Section 4.2 and Box 18 document the Mong Reththy affair and Oknha Mong Port smuggling allegations.
• Oppenheimer, Edna. A Rapid Assessment of Drug Abuse in Cambodia. World Bank / Cambodian Researchers for Development, 1995. — One of the few academic assessments bridging the post-KR documentation void.
• Petelot, A. Les plantes médicinales du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam. 4 vols., 1952–1954. — Major French colonial pharmaceutical inventory for Indochina.
• Thayer, Nate. "Cambodia: Asia's New Narco-State? Medellin on the Mekong." Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 November 1995. — Landmark investigation that shaped the international narrative leading to the 1996 law.
• US Department of State. "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2003: Cambodia." Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 2003. — Contains the only available production estimate (700–1,000 tons annually) and province-by-province cultivation map for Cambodia's peak production era.
• Verver, Michiel. "Connected and Bereft, or the Politics of Business in Phnom Penh." The Newsletter (IIAS), no. 76, Spring 2017. — Peer-reviewed analysis of CPP-tycoon patronage networks; documents the origins and political function of the oknha system.

Archival Leads

• Archives nationales d'outre-mer (ANOM), Aix-en-Provence: Catalogue entry "Chanvre indien, cannabis, kif, interdiction: arrêtés" (ark:/61561/dk989jdkls) — colonial administrative orders on Indian hemp; geographic scope unverified; physical consultation required.
• Bulletin administratif du Cambodge: 47 years digitised on Gallica (BnF). Systematic OCR search for "chanvre," "cannabis," "kancha," and "stupéfiant" has never been conducted.
• Wikileaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD): Cables from US Embassy Phnom Penh (1996–2010) contain annual INCSR submissions with cannabis-specific enforcement data, corruption assessments, and political economy analysis. Key cables: 06PHNOMPENH1965 (2007 INCSR), 07PHNOMPENH1376 (2008 INCSR), 07PHNOMPENH1034 (Tycoons profile). Vietnam INCSR cables (e.g. 03HANOI3350) provide cross-border corroboration of Cambodian cannabis trafficking volumes.