Central Laos
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| Central Laos | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 17.800000, 104.600000 |
| Gene Pool | Lao-Isan Gene Pool |
| Regional Complex | Mekong Basin |
| Country | Laos |
| Provinces/States | Vientiane Prefecture,Vientiane Province,Xaisomboun Province,Bolikhamsai Province,Khammouane Province,Savannakhet Province |
| Area | 77,800 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Mekong |
| Primary Mountains | Annamite Range |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 1973–2026 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Central Laos is a cannabis growing region in Laos, between Northern Laos and Southern Laos. It takes in Vientiane Prefecture and the provinces of Vientiane, Xaisomboun, Bolikhamsai, Khammouane and Savannakhet. The Vientiane growing area lies within it.
Herbarium sheets collected at and near Vientiane in May 1973 are labelled cultivée, cultivated.[1][2] Seed lines from Bolikhamsai and from Vientiane Province entered the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System in 2023 and 2026.[3][4] In 2021 and 2022 police destroyed cannabis fields in three districts of Bolikhamsai on the border with Vietnam.[5]
Geography
The ethnobotanist Marie Alexandrine Martin placed the village of Ban Het Kansa 13 kilometres downstream from Vientiane, on the bank of the Mekong. She translated the name: "the village of the hemp-covered sand bank". She wrote that no trace of the plant remained there and that it must once have been grown at the site, citing the geographer Christian Taillard's 1971 survey of the banks of the Nam Ngum and the Mekong.[6]: 67
The fields destroyed in 2021 and 2022 lay in Khamkeut, Xaychamphone and Viengthong districts of Bolikhamsai, which border the Vietnamese provinces of Hà Tĩnh and Nghệ An.[5] In 2019 police in Savannakhet province found a crop planted inside a rubber plantation at Somsa-ath village in Kaysone Phomvihane city.[7]
Cultivation history
The 1973 collections
In May 1973 Martin gathered specimens in the market at Vientiane and at Ban Xay Fong, near the city. The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris holds the sheets.[8][9] The label of the sheet bought in the market (Martin 1860 (1973)) reads cultivée dans jardin, grown in a garden. It calls the plant kan xa mè, the female plant, and lists two uses: a narcotic, from the female plant only, and popular medicine.[1] One of the sheets from Ban Xay Fong (Martin 1864 (1973)) is labelled cultivée, cultivated, and calls the plant kan xa hua nok khao. The uses noted on it, with a question mark, are medicine and food.[2]
Seed lines
Seed of a line called Highland Lao #1, collected in Bolikhamsai about 2019, became accession G 33707 of the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System in August 2023.[3] Seed of a line called Central Lao, cultivated for ganja in Vientiane Province, became G 34096 in August 2026.[4] The Real Seed Company sells the Central Lao line.[10]
In The Real Seed Company's account, ganja is a traditional household plant in this part of Laos, especially among lowland Tai rice farmers such as the Lao. The company writes that cultivation around Thakhek and other towns grew through the 1980s after crackdowns across the Mekong in northern Isan and that most of it has since moved into the highlands of Bolikhamsai, where the best ganja is irrigated while it flowers in the dry months from December to March.[11] Its listing for a line grown by a Hmong household in Bolikhamsai says that Hmong villages, which grow hemp for fibre, took up ganja only recently, through contact with Lao and Thai growers.[12] For Vientiane Province the company writes that, before the late 1960s, ganja grown there and in northern Isan supplied the city of Vientiane.[10] It names the Phu Thai among the communities best known for ganja in Savannakhet.[13]
Eradication
In the raid in Savannakhet in 2019 police seized 166 growing plants and 154 harvested plants that had been dried.[7]
In November and December 2021 the authorities of Bolikhamsai destroyed 17,162 plants on 33 fields covering 16.4 hectares at Oudomxay village in Viengthong district, in three operations on 2 November, 23 November and 3 December. The plants found in the last of them were uprooted and burned.[14] The provincial police campaign that began in late November 2021 found 140 hectares of cannabis in Khamkeut district and 53 fields covering 30.05 hectares in Xaychamphone district. The Khamkeut fields lay at Nongkok, Phontan and Phontong villages and elsewhere in the district. By 5 January 2022 the fields in Khamkeut had all been burned, while the burning in Viengthong was still under way.[5]
Trade
In June 2022 police at Phonkho village in Hinboun district, Khammouane, seized 939 kilograms of dried, pressed cannabis in 24 sacks as it was being loaded onto a boat to cross the river to Thailand.[15] In September 2022 police at a checkpoint in Thaphabath district, Bolikhamsai, stopped a truck travelling from Vientiane towards Bolikhamsai with 1,600 kilograms of pressed dried cannabis in 90 cardboard boxes. Four young men from Pakkading district were arrested.[16]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Province |
|---|---|
| Vientiane | Vientiane Province |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Growing area | Province | Collected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin 1860 (1973) | Martin 1860 herbarium specimen, Vientiane market (1973) | Vientiane | ||
| Martin 1864 (1973) | Martin 1864 herbarium specimen, Ban Xay Fong (1973) | Vientiane | ||
| Martin 1865 (1973) | Martin 1865 herbarium specimen, Ban Xay Fong (1973) | Vientiane | ||
| Martin 1866 (1973) | Martin 1866 herbarium specimen, Ban Xay Fong (1973) | Vientiane | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120190001 | Highland Lao General Population 2019 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120220001 | Highland Lao #4 General Population 2022 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120230001 | Highland Lao #5 General Population 2023 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120240001 | Highland Lao #6 General Population 2024 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120240002 | Hmong Ganja General Population 2024 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-BOL-0120250001 | Highland Lao #7 General Population 2025 | Bolikhamsai Province | ||
| RSC-LAO-UNK-0120260001 | Lao Gold General Population 2026 | |||
| RSC-LAO-VIE-0120220001 | Central Lao General Population 2022 | Vientiane | Vientiane Province |
Recent news
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Digitised sheet P06780075: Cannabis sativa L." Herbier national, images. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Digitised sheet P06884316: Cannabis sativa L." Herbier national, images. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "G 33707, Cannabis sativa L., Highland Lao #1". GRIN-Global. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "G 34096, Cannabis sativa L., Central Lao". GRIN-Global. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Quốc Khánh (5 January 2022). "Phát hiện thêm diện tích lớn trồng cần sa dọc biên giới Lào - Việt Nam" [More large areas of cannabis found along the Laos–Vietnam border]. Báo Hà Tĩnh (in Tiếng Việt). Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Martin, Marie Alexandrine (1975). "Ethnobotanical Aspects of Cannabis in Southeast Asia". In Rubin, Vera (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 63–76. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.63.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Savannakhet police raid weeds out marijuana crop". Vientiane Times. Asia News Network. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2026 – via Open Development Laos.
- ↑ "Occurrence 731718381: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 730907340: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Central Lao". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Highland Lao #7". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Hmong Ganja". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Lao Gold". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ Phương Đặng (8 December 2021). "Cần sa được trồng tràn lan tại Bolikhamxay, Lào" [Cannabis grown widely in Bolikhamxay, Laos]. Báo Hà Tĩnh (in Tiếng Việt). Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Phương Đặng (27 June 2022). "Lào thu giữ gần 1 tấn cần sa khô ở tỉnh Khammuan giáp Hà Tĩnh" [Laos seizes nearly a tonne of dried cannabis in Khammouane, bordering Hà Tĩnh]. Báo Hà Tĩnh (in Tiếng Việt). Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Quốc Khánh (7 September 2022). "Lào thu giữ 1,6 tấn cần sa khô tại tỉnh giáp Hà Tĩnh" [Laos seizes 1.6 tonnes of dried cannabis in a province bordering Hà Tĩnh]. Báo Hà Tĩnh (in Tiếng Việt). Retrieved 18 October 2026.