Greece
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| Greece | |
|---|---|
| Ελλάδα (Elláda) | |
| |
| Triopetra beach, Crete | |
| Capital | Athens |
| Continent | Europe |
| Subregion | Southern Europe |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal (medical use licensed) |
| Status Since | 2018 |
| Enforcement | Criminal outside licensed medical cultivation |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 0 |
| Growing Areas | 4 |
| Accessions | 10 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Greece is a country in Southern Europe on the eastern Mediterranean. Cannabis was grown there for hashish, for local use and export, by the last decades of the 19th century.[1]: 313 The prohibition of its cultivation is dated to 1890 or to 1920.[1]: 314[2]: 5[3] The Transnational Institute (2014) describes Greece as a significant exporter of hashish to Turkey and Egypt "well into the 1920s".[2]: 5
In the Transnational Institute's account hashish was considered an "imminent threat to society", particularly among the urban poor and the rebellious youth known as manges, who gathered in the tekedes, the cafés frequented by hashish smokers in the harbour district of Piraeus and in central Athens.[2]: 5
When the Egyptian delegate Mohamed El Guindy moved at the Second Opium Conference at Geneva (1924–25) to bring cannabis within the scope of the opium convention, Greece supported the proposal, alongside Turkey, South Africa and Brazil, which the Transnational Institute describes as countries that had experience of cannabis or had already banned it. Most countries at the conference, the institute writes, had little or no experience of cannabis and were inclined to rely on those that did, notably Egypt, Turkey and Greece.[2]: 10–11
Costas Stefanis, C. Ballas and D. Madianou wrote the chapter on hashish use in Greece in Cannabis and Culture.[1]
The Real Seed Company lists three Greek landrace lines, from Arcadia and Messenia in the Peloponnese and from Rethymno on Crete.[4][5][6]
Geography
Greece is a mountainous, heavily indented country of peninsulas and islands on the eastern Mediterranean.[citation needed] The Real Seed Company's three lines come from the south of the country. Two are Peloponnesian: one from Mantineia in Arcadia, in the mountains of the interior, the other from the country around Kalamata in Messenia, both at about 37° N.[4][5]
The third is Cretan, from the mountains of Rethymno at about 35° N. The Real Seed Company describes that line as adapted to conditions at 400 to 500 metres, where summer days reach 40 to 45 °C and the wind is strong.[6]
Demographics
Agriculture
Cannabis in Greece
History
Citing an 1887 report by the mayor of Orchomenus, Stefanis, Ballas and Madianou write that hashish cultivation was introduced into Greece about 1875 by immigrants from Egypt, Cyprus and other eastern areas.[1]: 313 They date to 27 March 1890 a circular of the Department of the Interior, issued after a decision of the Medical Council, that prohibited the importation, cultivation and use of hashish. This restrictive law, they write, was "in force until 1920", yet hashish was used regularly in the tekedes.[1]: 314 The Transnational Institute, which writes that a high prevalence of cannabis attracted strong legal responses in Egypt, Turkey and Greece, also dates the Greek ban to 1890.[2]: 5 J. Bouquet, writing in the UN Bulletin on Narcotics in 1951, dates the prohibition of cultivation to 1920 and a more drastic law, providing for the destruction of stocks, to 1932.[3] From 1932 to 1970, according to Stefanis and colleagues, the narcotics laws became increasingly severe.[1]: 315
Egypt prohibited cannabis in the late 19th century, through measures dated from 1868 or from 1879.[2]: 5[7] In the Transnational Institute's account those measures had very little effect on use; hashish was cheap and could easily be grown or smuggled in from Greece or elsewhere.[2]: 5 The institute writes that the Egyptian ban affected the whole eastern Mediterranean: Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine were asked to help Egypt's law enforcement authorities by restricting cultivation and trade.[2]: 11
The Real Seed Company places its Arcadian line within the export trade, describing the region as a producer of high-quality sieved hashish when Greece was the main supplier to the eastern Mediterranean markets, with a smuggling route from Greek ports to Cairo and Alexandria running from the 1860s to the 1920s.[4]
Cultivation
The Real Seed Company suggests its Arcadian accession may represent kannàvi, the drug-type cannabis it says was grown on a large scale around Mantineia for more than sixty years.[4]
According to the company, a farming family grew the Messenian line in their village for more than thirty years until enforcement pressure ended cultivation there. The village is now abandoned. The line had been a well-known underground brand in the 1970s and 1980s. The same account treats the origin of the line as unverified and names the wider Balkans and eastern Mediterranean as its likely source, allowing that influence from tropical landraces introduced to Greece in the 1970s is possible.[5]
Preparations and consumption
Trade and commerce
In 1887 the mayor of Orchomenus reported that hashish fetched three or four times its Greek price abroad.[1]: 314 Bouquet wrote in 1951 that until "some thirty years ago" the main sources of supply for the illicit traffic in cannabis resin had been Turkey and Greece. In his account the clandestine supplies reaching Egypt were Turkish and Greek hashish with some Indian charas; the sieved resin that French North Africa called chira[8]: 111–113 came mainly from Greece. Once Greece had forbidden cultivation in 1920, he wrote, Greek hashish became rarer on the market without disappearing entirely. He called Egypt and North Africa "the biggest and best customers of Eastern Mediterranean traffickers".[3] A. Ahmed El Hadka, writing in the same journal in 1965, names Greece with Syria and Lebanon as major sources of the hashish entering Egypt from 1926.[7] The Transnational Institute describes Greece as a significant exporter of hashish to Turkey and Egypt "well into the 1920s".[2]: 5
Legal status
Recreational cannabis is prohibited and medical cannabis is licensed. The narcotics code is Law 4139/2013, under which cannabis varieties containing up to 0.2 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol are not classified as narcotic drugs.[9][verification needed]
Law 4523/2018 introduced the exception that permits the production of Cannabis sativa above that threshold, exclusively for medicinal products, so first allowing medical cannabis cultivation in the country. Two instruments of the same year set the terms: a joint ministerial decision on the cultivation and processing of medicinal cannabis, plus a decision of the Minister of Health on the production and circulation of the finished products.[9][verification needed]
Growing Regions
No growing regions documented yet.
Growing Areas
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEL-GRC-ARC-0120050001 | Arcadian General Population 2005 | Mantineia | |
| DEL-GRC-MES-0120040001 | Kalamata Red General Population 2004 | Messenia | |
| DEL-GRC-RET-0119900001 | Cretan General Population 1990 | ||
| HCG-GRC-MES-0120220001 | Greek Kalamata Red 2022 | Messenia | |
| RSC-GRC-ARC-0120050001 | 2005 RSC Arcadian IBL | Mantineia | |
| RSC-GRC-MES-0120040001 | 2004 RSC Kalamata Red IBL | Messenia | |
| RSC-GRC-PHT-0120200001 | Moliotiko General Population 2020 | ||
| RSC-GRC-PHT-0120200001-R1 | 2020 RSC Moliotiko Reproduction | ||
| RSC-GRC-RET-0119900001 | 1990 RSC Cretan IBL | ||
| Scheppig s.n. (1891) | Scheppig herbarium specimen grown from seed sent from Athens (1891) |
Conservation status
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Stefanis, C.; Ballas, C.; Madianou, D. (1975). "Sociocultural and Epidemiological Aspects of Hashish Use in Greece". In Rubin, Vera (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 303–326. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.303.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Bewley-Taylor, Dave; Blickman, Tom; Jelsma, Martin (March 2014). "The history of cannabis in the international drug control system" (PDF). The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: The history of cannabis in the UN drug control system and options for reform (Report). Amsterdam; Swansea: Transnational Institute; Global Drug Policy Observatory.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Bouquet, J. (1951). "Cannabis (concluded)". Bulletin on Narcotics (1). United Nations: 22–45.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Arcadian". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Kalamata Red". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Cretan". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 El Hadka, A. Ahmed (1965). "Forty years of the campaign against narcotic drugs in the United Arab Republic". Bulletin on Narcotics (4). United Nations: 1–12.
- ↑ Bellakhdar, Jamal (2013). "L'histoire du chanvre au Maghreb". Hespéris-Tamuda. XLVIII: 107–141. ISSN 0018-1005.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "The legal framework on the cultivation of medical cannabis in Greece". VDI Law Firm. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2026.