Nepal charas trade
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| From | Nepal, Kathmandu |
|---|---|
| By way of | Nepalgunj or Bihar or Uttar Pradesh |
| To | Lucknow, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangladesh |
| How it travelled | Overland |
| What moved | Charas, Ganja, Bhang |
|---|---|
| Carried by | Carriers from the Nepal hills and Lucknow drug contractors (1890s); licensed dealers in Kathmandu (1960s to 1973) |
| Scale | 25 to 50 maunds of charas a year into Lucknow in the early 1890s (T. Stoker); about 22 per cent of the hashish seized in India in 2014 (Narcotics Control Bureau) |
| Active | 1870s to the present |
|---|---|
| Status | Still in use |
| Legal status | Changed over time |
The Nepal charas trade is the movement of charas, the resin of the cannabis plant, with smaller quantities of ganja and bhang, from Nepal into India. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission reported in 1894 that Nepal supplied 25 to 50 maunds of charas a year to the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, all of it apparently sold in Lucknow, where its quality still found it a market against the cheaper charas of Yarkand.[1]: 111 It entered the Bahraich district from Nipalganj.[2] In the 1960s Nepal licensed the cultivation and sale of cannabis under its Intoxicants Act of 1961, and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) reported a rapidly growing movement of cannabis into the adjoining provinces of northern India.[3]: 252[4]: para. 50 Nepal revoked all licences on 16 July 1973[3]: 253 and prohibited the cultivation, sale and export of cannabis by the Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act of 1976.[5] In 2005 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) described hashish from Nepal as routinely smuggled into Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and on to Delhi and Mumbai;[6]: 89–90 India's Narcotics Control Bureau reported that hashish of Nepalese origin made up about 22 per cent of the hashish seized in India in 2014.[7]
Name and goods
The Commission and the excise officers it heard called the resin "Nepal charas".[8]: 102 T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise for the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, called it Shahjahani or Saljahani charas and wrote that it was "of a very superior quality".[2] The Deputy Commissioner of Bahraich sent two samples to the Commission. One, made into sticks a foot long, was adulterated with leaves and other matter and sold at Nipalganj for Rs. 3 a seer; the other, a cake of pure resin, sold for Rs. 10 a seer. Saljehani was the market name of the coarser kind.[9] A witness from Allahabad described Nepal charas imported "in the form of sticks, like thin candles".[10] The Deputy Commissioner of Kheri, formerly of Bahraich, said that the kind from the hills of Nepal was dark in colour.[11]
A waxy grade had its own name. The British envoy William Kirkpatrick, who visited Nepal in 1793, called clarified charas momea "from its resemblance to wax".[12] George Watt wrote in 1889 that a pure waxy charas from Nepal was sold under that name, although the Residency Surgeon at Kathmandu told him the word was unknown near the capital.[13]: 114–117 David Prain reported in 1893 that habitual users much preferred the charas of Nepal and Garhwal to that of Central Asia, and that Himalayan charas fetched a better price than the best Central Asian kind.[14]: 8 The Nepal Darbar told the Commission, on the other hand, that Yarkand charas was preferred in Nepal.[8]: 102
Hand-rubbing, the method that yields charas, is today concentrated in India and Nepal, and UNODC wrote in 2006 that charas from Nepal was considered of even higher quality than Indian charas, though lower grades were also produced.[15]: 9 The geographer Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy places the method only in India, outside Kashmir, and in Nepal, where hashish is called charas.[16]
Origins
Kirkpatrick saw fields in Nepal skirted with the plant that yields "Cherris, for which Nepaul is so famous", but he wrote that the best kind was brought from Mullebum, a dependency of Nepal lying far to the north-west.[12] Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, writing in 1819, held that Tibet produced the best charas and gave a different account of how it was prepared.[17]
The Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh (1877) lists charas among the imports from Nepal into the Gonda district, with spices, iron, felt, ghi and honey; its chief exports to Nepal were cloth and dried fish.[18] In Bengal, where Nepal charas had once been generally consumed, the whole import in 1880–81 was less than half a maund.[19]: 108
The colonial trade
Nipalganj to Lucknow
Most of the charas used in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh came from Yarkand and Bokhara through the Punjab.[1]: 111 Its other sources, in Stoker's account, were Nepal and the province's own hill districts; the Nepal drug entered through the Bahraich district from Nipalganj, and he appended a report by the Deputy Commissioner of Bahraich, whose information he believed came from the Nepalese frontier officials and the local traders.[2] The Deputy Commissioner wrote that the resin formed on plants in villages among the mountains, not in the Tarai or the plains. At Nipalganj an export duty of Rs. 11-4 a maund was levied. A contractor of Lucknow bought charas there, and it was taken to Lucknow and Cawnpore; the contractors sold it in British territory at double what they paid in Nepal.[9] A drug contractor of Nawabganj in Bara Banki told the Commission that he went as far as Amritsar, Gwalior and Nipalganj to buy drugs.[20]
Stoker put the import at 25 to 50 maunds a year and wrote that it now seemed all to go to Lucknow, where it retailed at Rs. 35 or Rs. 40 a seer; some had once been sent to Cawnpore.[2] The Commission adopted his estimate of about 1,100 to 1,200 maunds for all the charas imported into the province.[1]: 111 The trade was smaller than it had been. The Deputy Commissioner of Bahraich wrote that a much larger quantity had been imported into British territory some years before,[9] and Stoker and the Commission put the fall down to the cheapening of Yarkand charas, against which the better quality of the Nepal drug still kept it a market.[2][1]: 111
The prices puzzled Stoker. Watt had reported, from the Residency Surgeon at Kathmandu, that charas sold in the Kathmandu bazaar for two rupees a tola and in the markets of the Tarai for three.[13]: 114–115 Stoker reckoned these at Rs. 160 and Rs. 240 a seer, far above the Nipalganj prices; if the figures were right, he wrote, they showed how heavily the drug was adulterated before it reached the market of the province. He also recalled hearing that very superior Nepal charas had once sold in Lucknow for its own weight in gold.[2]
Bengal
In Bengal the trade had almost stopped. The Commission judged that Nepal charas "never could have been largely imported" into the province,[19]: 108 though it thought a small amount probably still reached Calcutta.[21] The flow of ganja ran the other way. Bengal exported ganja by land to Nepal, 177 maunds of it in 1892–93.[19]: 107[21]
Ganja and bhang from Nepal
Smaller amounts of ganja crossed from Nepal. The Commission found the smuggling of inferior ganja over the Nepal frontier into the North-Western Provinces "too insignificant to interfere with the trade", and some ganja went the other way, from Bahraich into Nepal.[22] Stoker had been told that an inferior ganja called Mahadewa used to be imported from Nepal under authority, but could not verify it;[23] the Commission thought him probably mistaken, since Mahadeva ganja seemed to take its name from a place in Barabanki where it had once been grown.[24]: 42 Some of the bhang that came from Gonda and Bahraich was grown on the Nepal side of the border, where, Stoker reported, Nepalese officials took a duty of one or two annas a maund.[25][26] Summing up the supply of the province, the Commission wrote that the small amounts imported from Nepal "may be left out of the account".[27]: 273
After 1900
In 1931 a member of the Bengal Legislative Council from Calcutta, Haridhan Dutt, described trade routes from Nepal and the North-West Frontier Province that brought charas into Bengal, and a supporter of his motion said that Calcutta's consumers had bought 52 maunds that year.[28]: 218 When the supply from Central Asia ceased, India's annual report for 1942 stated that the illicit import of ganja from Nepal was increasing because of its cheapness, and that the smugglers, with no charas to be had, had turned to ganja. The report for 1945 noted some Nepali charas illicitly imported from the United Provinces.[29] India banned the use of charas in 1945.[30]: para. 61 Writing in 1953, the United Nations Secretariat found a little inferior charas still smuggled into India from Afghanistan and Nepal, but judged the great charas traffic extinct.[29]
Licensed trade, 1961–1973
Khwaja A. Hasan, writing in 1975 of India after independence, found that the system of control on the production and sale of hemp had resulted in smuggling of ganja from Nepal.[31]: 237 In its report for 1969 the INCB stated that most of Nepal's cannabis was illicitly exported, and that India's campaign against cannabis was seriously hampered by contraband from Nepal, drawn by the high retail prices that India's restrictions had produced.[30]: paras. 50, 61
Nepal regulated the crop by licence. The Intoxicants Act of 1961 and the Intoxicants Rules of 1962 set excise and sales taxes on the sale and commercial cultivation of cannabis, which needed a licence. By 1967 the licence fee for a bigha of land had been raised to $450; it was later lowered to $350 because growers were exceeding their licensed area.[3]: 252–253 According to James Fisher, the five districts that produced the most cannabis were all in the Terai, Bara, Parsa, Siraha, Dhanusa and Mahatari, and the bulk of the excise on cannabis was collected there.[3]: 248 Nepal told the INCB in 1971 that it was discouraging cultivation by licensing it and taxing production heavily; the Board found it difficult to understand how there could then be "such a large outflow of cannabis to India and to destinations farther afield", and suggested that much of the cultivation evaded the licensing system.[4]: paras. 51–52
Kathmandu became a market in its own right. From the mid-1960s a small resident colony of foreign travellers settled there, and the retail price of charas rose from about $15 to about $70 a kilogram. The 30 or so shops in Kathmandu that served them each paid a tax of Rs. 2,000.[3]: 252–253 Licensed dealers sold hashish on Freak Street (Jhochhen in Newari).[32] Fisher wrote that smuggling across the border into India increased, and cited an estimate that more marijuana was exported in those years than was consumed in Nepal.[3]: 252 The INCB saw two factors behind Nepal's new place "in the international drug scene": the travellers of the overland route, whom it described as coming "ostensibly in search of mystical experience but in reality often in the knowledge that cannabis is freely available", and, of greater importance, the movement of cannabis into northern India. Part of the outflow, it believed, already reached the international illicit traffic.[4]: para. 50 In 1972 the Board described the smuggling of cannabis from Nepal into the northern provinces of India, and through India to other countries, as "now very large", and offered to receive an emissary from Nepal or to send a mission there.[33]: paras. 85–87
Cannabis from Nepal also went further afield. Among the cannabis illegally imported into the United Kingdom and examined at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist in London, resin from Nepal was dark brown to black, occasionally in large "Temple Balls" but more often in rough lumps or thin slabs.[34] In 1974 the INCB named Nepal, with Afghanistan, Lebanon and Mexico, as a source of most of the liquid cannabis then reported,[35]: para. 43 and the United States Department of State sent its embassy in Kathmandu a note that several large seizures in the previous two years had involved hashish oil smuggled from Kathmandu.[36]
Prohibition and the western hills, 1973–1979
On 16 July 1973 the government of Nepal revoked all licences to cultivate, buy and sell cannabis. Trafficking became illegal, but possessing and using cannabis did not.[3]: 253 The INCB reported that the Prime Minister had announced the government's intention to prohibit the cultivation of cannabis and the opium poppy and their export, with legislation to follow and measures to help the farmers affected.[37] Fisher identified three pressures behind the change: alarm in the Nepalese middle class that its own young people were being corrupted; the United States government, which in his view was more concerned about heroin than marijuana but found it convenient to persuade Nepal to ban both; and the INCB, whose report for 1972, he wrote, "heaps scorn on Nepal".[3]: 253–254 He put the government's loss of licence revenue at about $100,000 and thought the hill farmers of the west, for whom cannabis was a small but crucial cash crop, the hardest hit; the dealers of Kathmandu moved into other trades, and the prices of the clandestine trade did not change.[3]: 254
The decision proved hard to enforce. An INCB mission that visited Nepal in December 1973 found that the government had prohibited cannabis production by an administrative decision affecting farmers in the lowlands on the Indian border, but that no law had yet been enacted and the government was finding it difficult to uphold its decision.[35]: para. 86 In April 1974 the United States embassy reported a survey of six districts in the western hills that found hemp the second source of income in all of them except Sallyan, with the loss from the ban estimated at 25 to 35 per cent of income; hashish dealers there also served as local moneylenders. Landowners in the Terai, some of them members of the national Panchayat, opposed legislation.[38] In July 1976 a team from the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control told the embassy that some officials accepted that the flow of narcotics, chiefly hashish, had to be stemmed. Its leader doubted that a draft law would go to the legislature before its cost to the hill farmers who relied on hashish as a money crop had been studied.[39]
The Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act was authenticated and published on 2033/6/10 in the Nepalese calendar, given in the English text as 22 September 1976. It prohibits the cultivation, production, sale, export and import of cannabis. One exception concerns the western hills: there the government may regulate by rules, for a set period, the making and sale of hashish from wild plants.[5] The Board's mission of July 1976 was told that the prohibition had been followed in the plains, where farmers had moved to tobacco and sugar cane without undue hardship. In the mountainous west, where cannabis grew wild in large quantities and was also cultivated, the harvest still gave rise to "a major traffic".[40]: paras. 77–81 By 1978 the farmers of the west, through their representatives in the Rastriya Panchayat, were claiming compensation for giving up the sale of cannabis and its resin, and the United Nations fund was trying a pilot scheme of silkworm breeding in its place.[41]: paras. 118–119
Present day
UNODC's regional profile of 2005 described cannabis growing wild in the high hills of central, mid-western and far-western Nepal, and eradication campaigns in the south of the country. Nepal produced "high-quality cannabis resin", which was routinely smuggled into Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and from there reached Delhi and Mumbai. Consignments of hashish were being intercepted on their way mainly to China, India, Canada, the United States and Germany, and Kathmandu's international airport was being used to tranship cannabis and heroin.[6]: 89–90 UNODC also cited evidence that Maoist insurgents charged a levy on hashish passing through the territory they controlled and licensed growers to cultivate a set area each year for a fee.[6]: 90 UNODC reported in 2006 that Maoist groups had called on people in the Birgunj area to grow more cannabis, and the Nepalese authorities reported that they levied 40 per cent on cannabis production in some areas.[15]: 91 Seizures of Nepalese resin were reported in 2006 from the United Kingdom, Denmark, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canada.[42]: 167
On the Indian side, UNODC cited India's Narcotics Control Bureau for 2002 as finding Nepalese hashish to be about 40 per cent of all the hashish seized in India.[43] The Bureau reported that Nepal was a major source of hashish and that hashish of Nepal origin was 21.95 per cent of India's seizures in 2014, when Uttar Pradesh accounted for the largest share of the hashish and charas seized in the country.[7] In its report for 2015 the INCB described Nepal as a major source of the resin trafficked into India across "a long, open border". The Board reported resin carried from Nepal overland to India and China and by air to Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States and Europe.[44]: paras. 546, 557 Bangladesh is a further destination: its Department of Narcotics Control reported in 2021 that most of the cannabis seized in the country had been smuggled from India and Nepal.[45] In August 2026 the Delhi police reported breaking a network that supplied charas from Nepal to Delhi, with 106.25 kilograms seized in two raids.[46]
Seizures inside Nepal show the size of the crop. The INCB reported 47,086 kilograms of cannabis seized in Nepal in 2012, which it called "a 15-year record", falling to 6,910 kilograms in 2014, when 2,053 kilograms of resin were also seized.[44]: paras. 556–557 For the fiscal year 2023–24 the Board gave two sets of figures for the Nepal Police's seizures of resin and herb: 1,056 kilograms of resin and more than 35 tonnes of herb in its report for 2024, about 675 kilograms of resin and more than 38 tonnes of herb in its report for 2025.[47]: para. 788[48]: para. 567
In May 2024 the government of Nepal announced plans for a legal framework for the commercial production of cannabis for medical purposes.[47]: para. 781 In August 2026 Gandaki Province enacted a law licensing cultivation for medicinal and industrial use; unlicensed cultivation remains a crime under federal law.[49]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", paras. 293–295, pp. 111–112 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, by Mr. T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. para. 29, p. 30 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Fisher, James F. (1975). "Cannabis in Nepal: an overview". In Rubin, Vera (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 247–256. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.247.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 International Narcotics Control Board (1971). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board on its Work in 1971 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/13.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act, 2033 (1976)" (PDF) (English text, as amended). Department of Drug Administration, Government of Nepal. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 UNODC Regional Office for South Asia (September 2005). South Asia Regional Profile, September 2005: Nepal (PDF) (Report). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Narcotics Control Bureau. Annual Report 2014 (PDF) (Report). Narcotics Control Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. p. 13.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VI, "Preparation of the raw drugs from the cultivated and wild plant", para. 272, pp. 102–103 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memo. on Nipal (Shahjahani) charas". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. p. 42 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. Cockburn, Assistant Sub-Deputy Opium Agent, Meja Road, Allahabad District". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 4, pp. 41–42 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Lt.-Col. W. P. Harrison, Deputy Commissioner, Kheri". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 18, p. 18 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Kirkpatrick, William (1811). An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, Being the Substance of Observations Made During a Mission to That Country in the Year 1793. London. pp. 142–143 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 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.
- ↑ Prain, D. (1893). Report on the Cultivation and Use of Gánjá. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press – via National Library of Scotland.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006). "Review of the world cannabis situation" (PDF). Bulletin on Narcotics. LVIII (1 and 2). New York: United Nations (published 2008).
- ↑ Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud (2019). "Cannabis cultivation in the world: heritages, trends and challenges". EchoGéo. 48. doi:10.4000/echogeo.17591.
- ↑ Hamilton, Francis (1819). An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, and of the Territories Annexed to This Dominion by the House of Gorkha. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company. p. 231 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Gonda". Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh. Vol. I: A to G. Lucknow: Oudh Government Press. 1877. pp. 521–522 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", paras. 278–283, pp. 107–108 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Kundan Lall, Agarwala, Drug Contractor, Nawabganj, Bara Banki". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 249, p. 339 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 334, p. 126 – 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. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 292, p. 111 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, by Mr. T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. para. 26, p. 30 – 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. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 103–108, pp. 40–42 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, by Mr. T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. para. 19, p. 27 – 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. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 296, p. 112 – 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. XIV, "The policy of hemp drug administration", paras. 564–567, pp. 272–273 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Chattopadhyaya, Utathya (June 2026). Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India. Oakland: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/luminos.276. ISBN 9780520425699.
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 United Nations Secretariat (1953). "The surprising extinction of the charas traffic". Bulletin on Narcotics (1). United Nations: 1–7.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 International Narcotics Control Board (1969). Report to the Economic and Social Council on the Work of the Board in 1969 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/5.
- ↑ Hasan, Khwaja A. (1975). "Social aspects of the use of cannabis in India". In Rubin, Vera (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 235–246. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.235.
- ↑ Shakya, Dhana Ratna; Upadhaya, Sandesh Raj; Thapa, Milan (2021). "Cannabis use and abuse in Nepal: a review of studies". Journal of Nepal Medical Association. 59 (241): 954–962. doi:10.31729/jnma.6931.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (1972). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1972 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/17.
- ↑ Baker, P. B.; Gough, T. A.; Taylor, B. J. (1980). "Illicitly imported Cannabis products: some physical and chemical features indicative of their origin". Bulletin on Narcotics (2). United Nations: 31–40.
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 International Narcotics Control Board (1974). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1974 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/25.
- ↑ "Telegram 153341 From the Department of State to the Embassy in Nepal". Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976. Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. 16 July 1974. Document 252. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ "Report of the International Narcotics Control Board on its work in 1973". Bulletin on Narcotics (3). United Nations: 31–39. 1974.
- ↑ "Telegram 1751 From the Embassy in Nepal to the Department of State and the Mission to the United Nations". Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976. Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. 30 April 1974. Document 246. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ "Telegram 2896 From the Embassy in Nepal to the Department of State". Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976. Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. 6 July 1976. Document 265. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (1976). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1976 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/33.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (1978). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1978 (PDF) (Report). New York: United Nations. E/INCB/41.
- ↑ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006). World Drug Report 2006. Volume 1: Analysis (PDF) (Report). United Nations. ISBN 92-1-148214-3.
- ↑ UNODC Regional Office for South Asia (September 2005). South Asia Regional Profile, September 2005: India (PDF) (Report). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. p. 38. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 International Narcotics Control Board (2016). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2015 (PDF) (Report). United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-148283-6. E/INCB/2015/1.
- ↑ Department of Narcotics Control. Annual Drug Report Bangladesh 2021 (PDF) (Report). Dhaka: Department of Narcotics Control, Security Services Division, Ministry of Home Affairs.
- ↑ Delhi police report seizing 106.25 kilograms of charas in two raids on a Nepal supply network, 14 August 2026.
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 International Narcotics Control Board (2025). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2024 (PDF) (Report). Vienna: United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-003415-9. E/INCB/2024/1.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (2026). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2025 (PDF) (Report). Vienna: United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-154655-2. E/INCB/2025/1. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Gandaki Province enacts law licensing cannabis cultivation for medicinal and industrial use, 4 August 2026.