Indian hemp
More actions
Indian hemp is a name for cannabis. At different times it has meant the drug-yielding plant of South Asia, the drugs made from it and, in some laws, any plant of the genus. Its Latin counterpart, Cannabis indica, entered European botany between about 1690 and 1785. In the 19th century the English name was the name of the drug in British and American pharmacy. From 1925 international drug-control treaties used it as a defined legal term, until the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 named the drug "cannabis". The Russian equivalent, индийская конопля (indiyskaya konoplya), was the name of the drug plant in Russian encyclopaedias and, from 1934, in Soviet criminal law. The name remains in Nigerian law and in the Kazakh press.
Botanical name
Rumphius wrote his account of the plant on Ambon about 1690. The account was published in the Herbarium Amboinense in 1747. In the Dutch text the chapter is headed De Indische Hennip ("the Indian hemp"). The Latin name in the same chapter is Cannabis Indica.[1] In 1785 Lamarck named Cannabis indica a second species beside C. sativa, under the French heading Chanvre des Indes. He described it from pieces of the plant that Pierre Sonnerat had brought back from India.[2]
Alexander Christison grew plants from Indian seed beside common hemp at Edinburgh in 1849 and concluded that C. indica and C. sativa were one species.[3]: 29 George Watt headed his article on Cannabis sativa in the Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1889) "Indian Hemp" and listed C. indica as a synonym. By then C. indica had been reduced to C. sativa, "the Indian plant being viewed as but an Asiatic condition of that species".[4]: 103
Pharmacy
The Calcutta physician W. B. O'Shaughnessy published his trials of the drug in 1839 under the title On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (Cannabis indica).[5] Christison wrote in 1851 that Indian hemp had been "little known to Europeans" until O'Shaughnessy brought it to notice.[3]: 26
The British Pharmacopoeia of 1864 entered the drug as "Cannabis Indica. Indian Hemp": the dried flowering tops of the female plant, with the resin not removed, cultivated in India. The pharmacopoeia's source plant for the drug was Cannabis sativa. The pharmacopoeia also listed an extract and a tincture of Indian hemp.[6] The 1870 revision of the Pharmacopoeia of the United States listed "Cannabis Indica. Indian Hemp", the flowering tops of the female plant of Cannabis sativa variety indica. Next to it stood "Cannabis Americana. American Hemp", the flowering tops of plants grown in North America.[7]
In France the pharmacist Édouard Grimaux titled his 1865 thesis Du hachisch ou chanvre indien.[8] In Hermann Hager's commentary on the second edition of the German pharmacopoeia (1884), one heading carries the drug's Latin name, "Herba Cannabis Indicae", with Indischer Hanf, Chanvre Indien and "Indian hemp".[9]
In 1893 the Government of India appointed the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission to inquire into the cultivation of the hemp plant, the preparation of drugs from it, the trade in those drugs and the desirability of prohibiting the sale of ganja and allied drugs.[10]
Drug-control law
The conference that drew up the International Opium Convention at The Hague recorded in its final protocol of January 1912 that it was advisable "to study the question of Indian hemp from the statistical and scientific standpoint".[11] The International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925 made the name a defined term:
"Indian hemp" means the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant Cannabis sativa L. from which the resin has not been extracted, under whatever name they may be designated in commerce.[12]: 329
The French text of the convention calls the same tops chanvre indien. The convention's fourth chapter, on the trade in the plant and its resin, is headed "Indian Hemp".[12]: 328–329, 332–333 The United Kingdom gave effect to the convention in the Dangerous Drugs Act 1925, which applied its controls on raw opium to "coca leaves, Indian hemp, and resins obtained from Indian hemp". The Act defined Indian hemp in almost the same words.[13] Germany's Opium Law of 1929 listed Indischer Hanf among the substances it controlled. Indian-hemp extract and tincture were among its controlled preparations.[14]
A note by the Secretary-General of March 1954 reported that at the eighth session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs there had been "a consensus of opinion that the term 'Indian hemp' should be replaced by the term 'cannabis'", on a proposal by the representative of the World Health Organization. The note held the 1925 definition wrong to name only the pistillate plant, "because the tops of the male plant also contain resin". In 1954 "Indian hemp" was also used "in a looser way, to cover various forms of the crude drug found in the illicit traffic".[15] The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 defines the drug as "cannabis", the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant.[16] British law followed in the Dangerous Drugs Act 1964, which put "cannabis" and "cannabis resin" in place of "Indian hemp" and its resins.[17]
The psychiatrist T. Asuni wrote in 1964 that the plant had no traditional name in Nigeria and was known by its common name, "Indian hemp", and by local names such as igbo in Yoruba.[18] The Indian Hemp Decree of 1966,[19] published in the Laws of the Federation of 2004 as the Indian Hemp Act, defines Indian hemp as any plant or part of a plant of the genus Cannabis, its separated resin and any preparation containing the resin, "by whatever name that plant, part, resin or preparation may be called".[20] In October 2026 the President sent the Senate a bill that would repeal the Act.[21]
Russian usage
The second edition of Vladimir Dal's dictionary of the Russian language (1881) calls Cannabis indica конопля индейская, with the older adjective индейская. The same entry uses the word for hemp in the names of unrelated plants: "Turkish hemp" for the castor-oil plant and "wild hemp" for fireweed.[22] In the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopaedia (1895), Indian hemp (Cannabis indica Lam.) is only the East Indian variety of common hemp. In the entry's medical section the drug is made from the dried fruiting tops of the female plant and is smoked in the East as hashish.[23]
In the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1926–1947), hashish is gathered from the female plants of Indian hemp.[24] The third edition divides the genus into three closely related species, which many authors unite in one. In its account Indian hemp, C. indica, is grown in India, Iran, Turkey and Syria for seed oil and for hashish. It grows wild in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The other two species are cultivated hemp and the weedy C. ruderalis.[25]
Soviet law
A decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union of 27 October 1934, «О запрещении посевов опийного мака и индийской конопли» ("On the prohibition of sowing opium poppy and Indian hemp"), banned both crops except in areas whose harvests served the country's medical and scientific needs.[26][27] On 1 December 1934 the RSFSR added article 179-a to its criminal code, which punished the sowing of opium poppy and Indian hemp without permission with up to two years' imprisonment.[26] The criminal code of 1960 kept the offence as article 225, «Посев опийного мака или индийской конопли без разрешения» ("Sowing opium poppy or Indian hemp without permission").[28]
A decree of 1965 added a second offence to the article for the sowing of South Manchurian or South Chuy hemp, which the law named alongside Indian hemp.[29] In its wording of 1987 the article punished the sowing or growing of «индийской, южной маньчжурской, южной чуйской, южной архонской и южной краснодарской конопли» (Indian, South Manchurian, South Chuy, South Arkhon and South Krasnodar hemp).[30] E. A. Babayan, who chaired the Standing Committee on Narcotic Drugs Control of the Soviet Ministry of Public Health, set out the same list for the UN Bulletin on Narcotics in 1990. His English text calls the plant "Indian cannabis".[27]
Kazakhstan since 1991
Press reports from Kazakhstan in 2015 and 2018, the second citing the interior ministry, put the narcotic content of cultivated «индийская конопля» at five times that of the wild hemp of the Chu Valley. An interior ministry official said in 2015 that the cultivated hemp had been brought from India many years before.[31][32] By contrast, a 2023 report by the state news agency Kazinform applies "Indian", in quotation marks, to the wild hemp of the valley itself. It repeats a local historian's account that the governor Gerasim Kolpakovsky sowed seed of Indian hemp there in the 19th century to hold back the sands.[33]
See also
References
- ↑ Rumphius, G.E. (1747). Herbarium Amboinense (in Latina). Vol. V. Amsterdam: Franciscus Changuion, Hermannus Uytwerf. pp. 208–211, t. LXXVII.
- ↑ Lamarck, J.-B. de (1783–1785). Encyclopédie méthodique. Botanique (in français). Vol. 1. Paris: Panckoucke. p. 695 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Christison, Alexander (July 1851). "On the natural history, action, and uses of Indian hemp". Monthly Journal of Medical Science. 13 (19): 26–45. PMC 5891256.
- ↑ Watt, George (1889). "Cannabis sativa". A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India. Vol. II: Cabbage to Cyperus. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, India. pp. 103–126 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ O'Shaughnessy, W. B. (1839). On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (Cannabis indica): Their Effects on the Animal System in Health, and Their Utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and Other Convulsive Disorders. Calcutta: Bishop's College Press – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom (1864). British Pharmacopoeia. London: Spottiswoode and Co. p. 37 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ The Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America (fifth decennial revision ed.). Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co. 1873. p. 23 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Grimaux, Édouard (1865). Du hachisch ou chanvre indien (in français). Paris: F. Savy – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Hager, Hermann, ed. (1884). Commentar zur Pharmacopoea Germanica, editio II (in Deutsch). Vol. 2. Berlin: Julius Springer. p. 51 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. I, "Introductory", para. 1, p. 1 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Protocol de cloture of the International Opium Conference (unofficial translation), 23 January 1912". Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1912. Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. Document 305. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 International Opium Convention, adopted by the Second Opium Conference (League of Nations). Signed at Geneva, February 19, 1925 (PDF). League of Nations Treaty Series. Vol. 81. League of Nations. 1928. pp. 317–358 – via United Nations Treaty Collection.
- ↑ Dangerous Drugs Act, 1925(Act No. 15 & 16 Geo. 5, c. 74), 1925, section 1.United Kingdom.Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ Gesetz über den Verkehr mit Betäubungsmitteln (Opiumgesetz), 10 December 1929, § 1, Reichsgesetzblatt 1929 I, no. 43, p. 215.Germany.
- ↑ Secretary-General of the United Nations (22 March 1954). The problem of cannabis: programme of studies (PDF) (Report). United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Narcotic Drugs. para. 9 and annex, paras. 1 and 3. E/CN.7/276 – via United Nations Digital Library.
- ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961" (PDF). United Nations. Retrieved 30 September 2026 – via United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
- ↑ Dangerous Drugs Act 1964(Act No. 1964 c. 36), 10 June 1964, section 4.United Kingdom.Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ Asuni, T. (1964). "Socio-psychiatric problems of cannabis in Nigeria". Bulletin on Narcotics. 16 (2): 17–28.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Decree 1966(Decree No. 19 of 1966), 31 March 1966, Supplement to Official Gazette Extraordinary No. 33, Vol. 53, 4 April 1966, Part A, pp. A93–A97.Federal Military Government.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Act(Act, Cap. I23 No. 19 of 1966), 31 March 1966, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Elijah, Samson (14 October 2026). "Tinubu Transmits NDLEA, NSIB Bills To Senate For Consideration". Leadership. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Dal, V. I. (1881). "Конопель". Толковый словарь живого великорусского языка (in русский). Vol. 2 (2nd ed.). p. 153 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ "Конопля". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XVI. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1895. pp. 22–26 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ "Гашиш". Большая советская энциклопедия (in русский) (1st ed.). Moscow – via Wikisource.
- ↑ Arinshtein, A. I. "Конопля". Большая советская энциклопедия (in русский) (3rd ed.). Moscow: Советская энциклопедия. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 О дополнении Уголовного кодекса РСФСР статьей 179-а(Постановление ВЦИК и СНК РСФСР), 1 December 1934.RSFSR.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Babayan, E. A. (1990). "The legal regulation of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Bulletin on Narcotics. 42 (1): 73–81.
- ↑ Уголовный кодекс РСФСР, 27 October 1960, art. 225, original wording.RSFSR.
- ↑ О внесении изменений и дополнений в Уголовный кодекс РСФСР(Указ Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР), 3 July 1965, para. 6.RSFSR.
- ↑ Уголовный кодекс РСФСР, 27 October 1960, arts. 225 and 225.1, in the wording of 1987.RSFSR.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Крупные плантации индийской конопли обнаружены в Кызылординской области". Lada.kz (in русский). 17 October 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Сатаева, А. (24 May 2018). "Депутаты обеспокоены индийской коноплей в Кызылординской области". Tengrinews.kz (in русский). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Скрипник, Г. (29 August 2023). "Как в Казахстане появилась индийская конопля и что из нее можно сделать". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
