Sri Lanka eradication campaigns (2026)
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Sri Lanka eradication campaigns (2026) covers cannabis eradication reporting from Sri Lanka during 2026. The year's enforcement activity has been organised under A Nation United, a multi-strand national anti-narcotics campaign launched in early 2026 by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasuriya. By 11 February 2026 the campaign had accumulated more than 91,000 drug-related arrests across all substances, 1,818 detentions under long-term investigation orders and 1,566 referrals to rehabilitation, with investigations opened on more than one hundred illegal-asset cases.[1]
Cannabis-specific enforcement reporting in 2026 to date concentrates in Uva Province, particularly in Monaragala District forest reserves. The three cannabis enforcement operations recorded between January and April 2026, at Yala National Park (2 March), the Kotiyagala/Kebilihtha system (9 March) and the Udawalawe Reserve (11 April), all took place inside protected wildlife areas accessible only by multi-hour foot approach.citation needed Operations are conducted through a distributed multi-agency framework involving the Police, the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB), the Sri Lanka Army Military Intelligence Corps and provincial police divisions, coordinated under the IGP rather than under a single dedicated eradication command. Plant destruction outpaces cultivator arrest in the available reporting: the three operations destroyed in excess of 220,000 plants and produced two named arrests.citation needed
Background
The 2026 reporting period is shaped by three contextual factors: the launch of the A Nation United national campaign, the inherited multi-agency enforcement framework, and the absence of a coordinated single annual eradication operation comparable to those run in Cambodia or the Philippines.
A Nation United national campaign. On 11 February 2026, President Dissanayake launched the Central Province phase of the A Nation United campaign at an event in Nuwara Eliya, framing illicit drugs as a national disaster and calling for whole-of-society participation alongside enforcement. The campaign has four operational strands: an awareness mechanism delivered through religious and educational networks; dismantling of trafficking networks via Police and Armed Forces operations; expansion of rehabilitation capacity (1,566 referrals by 11 February); and asset-seizure investigations targeting trafficker financial networks.[1] The cumulative figures issued at the Nuwara Eliya event are headline-level totals across all controlled substances; cannabis-specific figures within them are not separately reported.citation needed
Provincial rollouts. Following the Central Province launch, the Inspector General of Police inaugurated the Uva Province phase of the campaign at Thanamalwila Police Station on 14 February 2026, with senior police officers for Badulla and Monaragala in attendance alongside the Thanamalwila Divisional Secretary, the District Medical Officer, school principals and community committee representatives. The Uva phase explicitly bundles cannabis, other narcotics and illicit liquor under a single youth-protection framing.[2]
Inherited enforcement framework. Cannabis eradication in Sri Lanka has historically been a continuous activity rather than a campaign with named annual operations. The UNODC noted in 2005 that the Excise Department and Police "have been conducting eradication campaigns periodically to curtail the cultivation of cannabis."[3] A Nation United is the first 2020s-era national-level branded campaign to overlay this distributed activity, though the operational substrate of division-level raids, PNB-led specialist operations and joint Army, Navy and Police coordination is continuous with prior years.citation needed For longer-run context including arrest, seizure and provincial-distribution statistics, see Sri Lanka#Enforcement.
Map
Regional summaries
Uva Province — Monaragala District forest reserves
All three cannabis enforcement operations recorded for 2026 to date have taken place in Monaragala District forest reserves, in or adjacent to the Walawe basin and the Yala–Kataragama corridor.citation needed All three sites sit within designated wildlife reserves or national parks, where access requires multi-hour foot approaches and aerial surveillance is constrained by canopy cover and protected-area regulations.
Reporting establishes a recurring pattern across the three operations. PNB or division-level police, sometimes with Army Military Intelligence support, locate cultivation through informant intelligence; large numbers of plants are destroyed in situ by burning; cultivators have generally evaded arrest at the point of operation. The 11 April 2026 Udawalawe operation, jointly led by Military Intelligence and Hambegamuwa Police, destroyed approximately 155,000 plants on a three-acre site without any reported arrest.[4] The 9 March 2026 Kotiyagala operation by Athimale Police and the PNB destroyed 55,220 plants and produced a named arrest, a 34-year-old resident of the Embilipitiya area, suggesting that the cultivator pool draws from settlements outside the immediate forest fringe.[5]
Plant maturity at destruction has varied across the 2026 sites. The Kotiyagala site held plants of approximately six feet in height; the Udawalawe site held plants of approximately three feet. Whether this reflects different planting cycles, varietal differences or the timing of enforcement relative to a single sown crop has not been established in current reporting.citation needed
Maritime interdiction — Kerala Cannabis
Maritime interdiction targeting Kerala Cannabis traffic across the Palk Strait is a separate operational strand from forest-reserve eradication, conducted by the Sri Lanka Navy in coordination with the Police. The Navy publishes monthly cannabis seizure statistics on its public statistics portal; 2026 figures will be aggregated as the year progresses.
Other provinces
No 2026 enforcement reporting from outside Uva Province has yet been logged on Landrace.Wiki. The 2024 NDDCB Drug Abuse Trend Report documents continuing cannabis enforcement activity across the Southern, Sabaragamuwa, North Western and Eastern provinces.[6] Items from these provinces will be added as they surface.
Timeline
| Date | Category | Event | Province | Locality | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| News:2026-03-09/Enforcement/suspect-arrested-in-raid-on-two-acre-cannabis-cultivation-in-kebilihtha-reserve | 9 March 2026 | Enforcement | Suspect arrested in raid on two-acre cannabis cultivation in Kebilihtha Reserve | Uva Province | Kotiyagala |
| News:2026-03-02/Enforcement/police-seize-cannabis-and-firearm-in-yala | 2 March 2026 | Enforcement | Police seize cannabis and firearm in Yala | Uva Province | Wandama |
Agencies
- Sri Lanka Police
- Lead civilian agency for cannabis eradication. Under the IGP, all civilian operations and division-level raids are coordinated through the regional command structure (Senior DIG Uva Province, DIG Badulla District, DIG Monaragala District). Provincial campaign launches are conducted by the IGP personally, as at Thanamalwila on 14 February 2026.
- Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB)
- Specialist anti-narcotics unit of the Police. Lead operational role in joint cultivation-site raids alongside division police, including the 9 March 2026 Kotiyagala operation with Athimale Division.
- Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF)
- Paramilitary unit of the Police. Provided operational lead in widespread 2025 cannabis enforcement operations and continues as a coordinating agency under A Nation United.
- Sri Lanka Army
- Operates through the Military Intelligence Corps for cannabis-related intelligence gathering and joint operations with division police. Operational lead in the 11 April 2026 Udawalawe Reserve raid.
- Sri Lanka Navy
- Maritime intercepts in the Palk Strait targeting Kerala Cannabis traffic. Publishes monthly cannabis seizure data on the navy.lk operations statistics portal.
- Sri Lanka Excise Department
- Co-participant in joint operations under the broader Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance framework. Identified by the UNODC in 2005 as the primary partner agency in periodic eradication campaigns.[3]
- National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB)
- Coordination, statistics and rehabilitation lead. Compiles the annual Handbook of Drug Abuse Information and Drug Abuse Trend Report, which provide the published baseline against which campaign figures are read.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "A Nation United National Campaign: 91,000 Held in Crackdown on Drug Trafficking", President's Media Division (Presidential Secretariat of Sri Lanka), 11 February 2026.
- ↑ "Special operation launched to eliminate drugs and illicit liquor in Uva Province", Sri Lanka Police, 14 February 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 UNODC. South Asia: Regional Profile. September 2005, p. 103.
- ↑ "Based on Information Received by Military Intelligence Corps, Cannabis Cultivation Worth Rs. 4.5 Million Discovered", Sri Lanka Army, 13 April 2026.
- ↑ "A separate suspect was arrested following a raid on a two-acre cannabis cultivation located within the Kebilihtha Reserve", Sri Lanka Police, 10 March 2026.
- ↑ National Dangerous Drugs Control Board. Drug Abuse Trend Report: Sri Lanka 2024. Rajagiriya: NDDCB, 2024.