Talk:Balkh
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Balkh treats the cannabis growing area of Balkh Province in northern Afghanistan: what the UNODC and Ministry of Counter Narcotics cannabis surveys of 2009 to 2012 report for the province, how its resin powder and hashish were made, its trade and seizures, the provincial bans, and the seed lots from the province. The province as an administrative unit is treated at Balkh Province, the city of Balkh at Balkh (city), and the country's cannabis as a whole at Afghanistan.
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Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Why the area is mapped
- The page rests on the four cannabis surveys of the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the UNODC (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012). Each reports cultivation by province, and each reports cannabis cultivation in Balkh: "yes" in table 1 of the 2009 survey, and "Yes" for 2009 to 2012 in table 1 of the 2012 survey. None of them gives an area for Balkh or for any one province; the 2009 and 2012 reports say their sampling could not estimate provinces with enough accuracy.
- Bradford and Mansfield (2019) give prices and yields for Balkh in 2015 from fieldwork (para. 23).
- The six seed lots from the province name only the province, Mazar-i-Sharif or the city of Balkh. One lot, Balkh Hash Plant 2018, carries coordinates (36.76, 66.90), which fall in Balkh District near the city. The lots support the page's existence only through the surveys; none of them places the crop more closely.
- The growing status is Active: the surveys found cultivation each year from 2009 to 2012, and Bradford and Mansfield give figures for 2015. No source read says that growing in the province ended.
How the border is drawn
- The map border is Balkh Province in OpenStreetMap (administrative relation 1674795, AF-BAL; about 16,750 km²), simplified. It is a proxy: the surveys report by province, so the province is the unit they support. The infobox gives the province's area, about 16,740 km², and names the unit in its terrain line.
- A narrower border on the districts of Chahar Bolak, Chimtal and Sholgara (about 4,100 km²) was considered and not used. The only statement naming those districts for cultivation rests on a citation that does not support it (below), the only lot with coordinates and the provincial capital both lie outside them, and the 2009 survey names the town of Balkh among the province's trading centres.
- The border is not drawn from the accession point.
Sources
- The surveys. All four reports were read in full on 18 October 2026, from the UNODC copies for 2009, 2010 and 2011 and from the ReliefWeb copy of the 2012 report (no UNODC copy was found). Page numbers in the article are the reports' printed numbers. The 2011 and 2012 province tables were read from the PDFs' text layer.
- Bradford and Mansfield (2019). Read in full at journals.openedition.org/echogeo/17626; cited by paragraph number.
Where the sources disagree
- Gurziwan. The 2009 survey lists the trading centres "Chimtal, Balkh, Chaharbolak and Gurziwan in Balkh province" (p. 35). Gurziwan is a district of Faryab Province, not Balkh, so the article names only the three that lie in Balkh.
- The citation for the 2010 districts. Bradford and Mansfield cite Mansfield (2011), Between a Rock and a Hard Place, p. 11, for their statement (para. 22) that cannabis was grown in the districts of Charbolak, Chemtal and Shulgara in the summer of 2010, before opium poppy returned in 2010–11. Page 11 of that report (read on 18 October 2026) discusses Khogiani in Nangarhar and does not mention Balkh. The article does not use the statement; it is kept here as a lead. Adam Pain's Opium Poppy Strikes Back: The 2011 Return of Opium in Balkh and Badakhshan Provinces (AREU, July 2011) is a likely primary source and has not been read.
- 2007 or 2008. The 2009 survey's commentary dates a "governor-led crackdown on drug cultivation" to 2007; Bradford and Mansfield date the governor's ban on cannabis to 2008, after his opium ban of 2007. The article gives both, each attributed.
- Spellings. The 2009 survey writes Chimtal and Chaharbolak; its maps write Chahar Bolak; Bradford and Mansfield write Charbolak, Chemtal and Shulgara. The article links Chimtal District and Chahar Bolak District. Bradford and Mansfield call the governor Noor Mohammed Atta; the article uses Atta Muhammad Nur.
- Varieties in the north. The 2009 and 2011 surveys say that the Northern region mainly grew Mazari; the 2010 survey reports Logari Shadani (40 per cent). The article gives all three years.
Sources not used
- Paul Fishstein, Briefing note on fieldwork in Balkh Province, May 2015 (AREU, October 2015), based on ten villages in Chimtal and Char Bolak districts, could not be opened: the copies found sit behind a browser check.
- Adam Pain (2011), above: the repository copy sits behind a browser check.
- IWPR, "Hashish Trade Resurgent in Afghan North" (10 December 2010), which reportedly quotes a farmer in Chimtal district, returned "forbidden" on 18 October 2026.
- The Balkh provincial profile of about 2007 hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School says that "poppy and hashish cultivation in Balkh is still significant". Its author and date are not stated, so it is not cited.