Talk:Chile

Talk

Discussion for: Chile • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Chile is the Country page for Chile. It covers hemp grown for rigging, rope and match-cord under Spanish rule, the fibre crop of the Republic down to its last appearance in the agricultural census of 1997, the control of cannabis as a drug from the pharmacy rules of the early 20th century to Law No. 20.000 and its amendments to May 2026, medical access since 2014, drug-type cultivation, use, the market and enforcement. Seed of Chilean origin is described from the lots received in the United States in 1908 and 1928 and from two genebank accessions held in Russia and Ukraine. The longer history named in the History hatnote is planned as a separate article. The tables of growing regions, growing areas and accessions fill from pages that name Chile as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources and how they were read

Colonial texts. Vázquez de Espinosa's Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales was read in Charles Upson Clark's transcription of 1948, in the scan on Smithsonian Research Online; Clark dates the manuscript to 1628–29 from its internal dates. Ovalle (1646), Rosales (in Vicuña Mackenna's edition of 1877), Juan and Ulloa (1748), Molina (in the Spanish translation of 1788), Salas's report of 1796 (in the 1910 edition of his Escritos) and Góngora (1970) were read in the Memoria Chilena scans. Acarete du Biscay (1698) was read in the Gallica scan. Where a scan has no usable text layer, the passages were read on the page images. Quotations keep the original spelling; the long s is printed as s.
Díaz Ordóñez (2005) was read on the page images of the University of Seville repository's scan, which has no text layer. Where his figures for Chile rest on sources that could be reached (Vázquez de Espinosa, Góngora), the page follows those sources (see below). His note for the 1614 figure cites a web page that quotes Vázquez de Espinosa, not the Compendio itself. His later papers on hemp (2017, with Antonio José Rodríguez Hernández; 2018; two of 2019) were read in the journals' own copies.
Nineteenth-century works. Gay's Agricultura (1862 and 1865) and the botanical volume of his Historia física y política de Chile that treats Cannabis sativa (1849) were read in the Memoria Chilena scans, Solano Pérez's memoir of 1833 in the Biblioteca Nacional Digital and Espech's study of 1887 in its edition of 2012. Gay's account of colonial hemp names few documents; the page gives its dates as his.
The 1926 consular report is a mimeographed sheet (F.S. HE-11, 2 April 1926) in the United States Department of Agriculture's series Foreign News on Hemp, read in the copy on Wikimedia Commons.
Agricultural censuses of 1955 (volumes II and VI), 1964–65, 1975–76 (the volume for the Valparaíso Region) and 1997 (the preliminary results and the summary of October 1997) were read in the scans of the CIREN digital library, as was the planning study of San Felipe and Los Andes of 1968. The hemp rows of the 1955, 1964–65 and 1975–76 tables and of the 1997 comparison table were checked on the page images. The page uses the censuses' areas and numbers of growers, not their production figures: the editors of the 1955 census wrote that enumerators often left out either the seed or the fibre figure for hemp and gave quintals without saying whether metric or Spanish.
Statutes, decrees and regulations were read in the texts served by the Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, each in the version the page describes: the text as enacted for an instrument since replaced or amended, the current text for the law in force. The citations give the date of promulgation. Where publication in the Diario Oficial fell in a later year, the page says so (Decree No. 867, promulgated in August 2007 and published in February 2008; Decree No. 1524 of November 2015, published in January 2016; Decree No. 80 of October 2022, published in September 2023 and in force three months later).
Supreme Court judgments (rolls 8134-2013, 13.278-2019 and 60.655-2021) were read in full through the Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional's index of judgments under Law No. 20.000. Its links do not persist, so the judgments are cited by roll number and date without a link.
Bill 11.327-11 was read in the Senate health committee's report of 9 November 2021 and in the Senate's bill-tracking service. The Chamber of Deputies' own pages could not be reached; the Chamber's vote is given as the committee's report gives it.
Fernández Labbé (2011) was read in full in the publisher's copy. The page's statements on the regulation of 1957, the trafficking case of 1959, the law theses of 1961 and 1971, the police study of 20 young detainees and the pharmacists' comment of 1929 rest on his book. The theses, police journals and pharmacy periodicals he used were not read. The page attributes these statements to him.
Abstracts only. Solano and colleagues (2020), Castillo-Carniglia (2025) and Pardo-Villarroel and colleagues (2026, an accepted manuscript) were read as abstracts. The page reports only what the abstracts state.
National figures for use (2010–2024), eradication (2021 and 2024), seizures (2018–2024) and prices (2024) are Chile's returns to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as printed in the statistical annex of the World Drug Report 2026. The reports of the national drug agency (SENDA) and of the Public Prosecutor's drug-trafficking observatory could not be reached in their own copies. The observatory's figure of 79 per cent is given as Zúñiga Fajuri cites it; its presentation of 2018 on "creepy" marihuana was read in the copy on the Organization of American States' site. The Carabineros' figures for 2023–24 come from a Radio Agricultura report, the force's own site being unreachable.
Genebanks and herbaria. The two accessions of Chilean origin were read in Genesys, where the Ukrainian accession's biological status is code 300, traditional cultivar or landrace. The United States plant inventories of 1909 and 1930 were read in the scans on the GRIN-Global site. The label of Plowman's sheet of 1969 was read on the specimen image in the Naturalis Bioportal. GBIF's count (19 occurrences, 11 of them specimens or samples) is for the genus Cannabis with Chile as country, as returned on 4 October 2026.
Forster (1996) was read in the web edition of the Journal of the International Hemp Association. The article has no references and gives its author's affiliation as a seed company. The page cites it only for Forster's account of the varieties grown in Chile, attributed to him. The suggestion about the seed sent from Spain, which Díaz Ordóñez takes from Forster, is given as Díaz Ordóñez's.
Bibliographic details that differ between copies. The title page of Díaz Ordóñez (2005) reads "(siglos XVI–XVII)"; some later citations of it give "XVI–XVIII". The title page of Díaz-Ordóñez (2018) reads "debería haber", while the journal's web page and the DOI registration read "debería de haber". The header of the PDF of Labiano (2021) prints a DOI for volume 11, issue 2, though the same header gives volume 12, issue 1, the issue under which the article's DOI is registered. The first page of Duffau and colleagues (2022) gives volume 5 in its footer, while the running head and the DOI registration give volume 6. Each citation follows the title page or the registered DOI as stated here. The Bulletin on Narcotics web edition of Gomberoff, Florenzano and Thomas (1972) gives the issue and pages but no volume; the citation gives none.

Where the sources differ

The first order on hemp in the Indies. The Recopilación de leyes de Indias (book IV, title 18, law 20) dates the order that viceroys and governors should have flax and hemp sown to 13 June 1545. Gay gives the same date. Díaz Ordóñez (2005, p. 46) gives a royal order of 13 June 1554 to the viceroys of Peru and New Spain, after Serrera Contreras. The page gives 1545.
Osorno, 1577. Gay places the first Chilean crop in the fields of Osorno by 1577, introduced by Rodríguez de Quiroga. He names no document. Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández (2017) repeat it after Correa Vergara (1938). No colonial document for it was found. The page gives it as Gay's.
The workshop at Quillota in 1605. Góngora (1970, p. 30) gives the inventory's source as a notarial will and describes the workshop as one making coarse woollen cloth that also held hemp and gear for laying cables. Díaz Ordóñez (2005, p. 52) presents it as a complete inventory taken in 1605 by the visitor Gregorio Sánchez, of a workshop making both woollen cloth and cordage. The visit by Sánchez that Góngora describes (p. 25) concerns Luis Jufré's encomienda, a separate document. The page follows Góngora.
Machado's figure of 1614. Vázquez de Espinosa (p. 677) gives 1,270 quintals of hemp as the quantity produced in the valley of Quillota in the year of the oidor Machado's inspection, 1614. He adds that more was being sown at the time of writing. Díaz Ordóñez (2005, p. 49) gives the 1,270 quintals as annual production. The page gives the primary's reading and states his separately.
The size of the harvest. Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández (2017, p. 12) report Governor Córdoba y Arce's letter of February 1627 as giving about 8,000 quintals a year for the valleys of Quillota and La Ligua. Díaz-Ordóñez (2018, p. 276) writes that the harvest always stayed below 100 tonnes a year. His paper of 2019 in Espacio, Tiempo y Forma gives about 90 tonnes a year from the middle of the 17th century, citing the same letter of 1627. Neither paper gives a conversion between quintals and tonnes. The page gives the figure of 1627 as the paper of 2017 reports it and uses neither tonnage.
Martín de Espinosa's proposal of 1644. Góngora (pp. 215–216) lists the quintals of cordage assigned to each estate owner and sums them for six districts (Santiago 10,200; Quillota 7,450; Colchagua 5,750; Aculeo 2,900; Melipilla 2,200; Aconcagua 1,700), but gives no sum for La Ligua and no grand total. Díaz Ordóñez's table (2005, p. 55) adds La Ligua at 1,950 and a total of 32,150. Díaz-Ordóñez (2018) describes the offer as more than 1,300 tonnes a year. The page attributes the total of 32,150 to Díaz Ordóñez.
Cordage exports, 1622–1655. Góngora's table of the export duty at Valparaíso (p. 224) gives 646 quintals for 1641 and prints no total. Díaz Ordóñez's version (2005, p. 56) gives 546 for 1641 and a total of 4,045. The page gives only the range of Góngora's figures, from 45 quintals (1634) to 845 (1629).
Exports to Spain in 1645. Gay writes that 27,300 quintals were shipped to Spain in 1645, naming no document. Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández (2017) conclude that the scheme to export cordage to Spain was not carried out. The page does not give Gay's figure.
Where Quillota lies. Díaz Ordóñez (2005, p. 53) places Quillota close to the port of Concepción. On his own map (p. 51) Quillota lies north-west of Santiago, towards Valparaíso. The census of 1975–76 counts it in the Valparaíso Region. The page does not use the passage.
Hemp after 1975. Forster (1996) writes that hemp farms "continued on a grand scale into the early 1980's". The census of 1975–76 found 725 hectares, all in the Valparaíso Region; that of 1997 found three hectares on one holding. The page follows the censuses.
Law No. 3.133. Forster writes that "Chilean Law # 3133 prohibits the retting of hemp in stagnant waters". Law No. 3.133 of 1916 governs the liquid waste of industrial establishments; its text does not name hemp. The page does not use the statement.
FAOSTAT. The FAO's series "True hemp, raw or retted" for Chile runs every year from 1961 to 2024 at between 3,200 and 4,627 hectares. Every value in it is flagged as estimated, imputed or unofficial. The censuses give 725 hectares in 1975–76 and three in 1997. The page uses the censuses.
The student surveys of the early 1970s. Fernández Labbé (2011) reports from Richard, Viveros and Ortiz (1972) that more than 60 per cent of the students had never smoked marihuana; Santa Cruz (2020) reports from the same book that 35 per cent acknowledged use. The two figures may rest on different bases. The book was not read; the page uses neither. In Gomberoff, Florenzano and Thomas (1972) the text gives 734 pupils and the total row of its first table 732; the paper's own rate, 6.96 per cent, is 51 of 732. The page gives the text's figure of 734 and no rate.
National prevalence. SENDA's presentations, which label that survey round inconsistently, give 10.1 per cent for past-year use in 2024 for ages 12 to 65. Chile's return to the UNODC gives 10.64 per cent for ages 15 to 64. The page uses the UNODC series throughout. In the school surveys, Libuy and colleagues (2020) give past-year use in 2017 as 31.3 per cent in their abstract and 31.1 per cent in their results; the page gives their figures for 2003 and 2015 only.
The licensed crops of 2014 and 2015. For the La Florida project of 2014 the SAG's notice gives about 200 patients and no plant count, while radio reports gave 214 plants and, later, 850 seeds of four varieties. For Colbún the SAG authorised 6,900 seeds in October 2015; agency and newspaper reports of March 2016 give 6,000 plants harvested, or 6,400. The page gives the SAG's figures.
The first registration of Sativex. The ISP announced it on 13 October 2016; an ISP notice of September 2017 dates the registration to 6 October 2016. The page says October 2016.
The march of 2019. Fundación Daya put attendance at about 80,000 and the intendant of the Metropolitan Region at about 10,000. Both figures are on the page.
The PDI's balance of 11 March 2022 gives "más de 8.000 mil plantas" eradicated in one paragraph and 82,906 plants in another. The page takes no figure from it.
Lo Vicuña. The Putaendo heritage study gives a lease of the Lo Vicuña estate in 1942 and, in another passage, the start of hemp growing there at the end of the 1950s. It does not connect the two. The page gives only the second.

Not used, and why

Forster (1996) as a source for facts beyond his own account of varieties: the article gives no references (see above).
FAOSTAT's hemp series for Chile (see above).
Gay's 27,300 quintals shipped to Spain in 1645 (see above).
Richard, Viveros and Ortiz (1972), ¿Fuma marihuana el estudiante chileno?: not read; the two secondary accounts of it disagree (see above).
Barr-Melej (2017), Psychedelic Chile; Becerra (2020); a thesis by Vilches: only abstracts or summaries could be read.
The exhibition text of the Fundación Cáñamo Aconcagua, which calls Chile "one of the world powers" in hemp fibre and a Los Andes mill the largest hemp factory in South America: published by the foundation and not found in any other source.
Labiano (2021) on Chile as "un destacado productor mundial de cáñamo" and on jeans exchanged for cannabis tops in the Aconcagua: the sentence cites no source; the story traces to a trade book (Ibáñez 2018) that was not read.
A letter of Governor Jaraquemada of 1611 on putting Indigenous workers to grow hemp, which Díaz-Ordóñez and Rodríguez Hernández (2017) cite to Gay's Agricultura of 1862, p. 251: that page is in Gay's chapter on irrigation. The letter could not be traced at the place cited.
Contreras Cruces (1999 and 2004), Keller (1960), Bengoa (1990), De Ramón and Larraín (1982): not reached. Díaz Ordóñez's papers give different titles for Contreras Cruces (1999) and different authors and pages for Keller (1960).
SENDA's survey presentations on other sites: the UNODC figures are used instead (see above).
"Cultivo Seguro" as the name of a bill: in the Senate health committee's report of 2021 the words occur only in a witness's call for "una ley de cultivo seguro". No bill of that title was found in the Senate's bill-tracking service. The page names Bill 11.327-11 by its number.

Open questions

The two genebank accessions. The Ukrainian accession UF0600315, acquired in 1992, carries the Vavilov Institute's number. The Vavilov accession is named "LOCAL". Genesys does not say whether the two are one seed lot, or where and when the seed was collected in Chile. Neither institute's own catalogue has been read.
Indigenous and folk use. No source read says anything about cannabis among Chile's Indigenous peoples or in Chilean folk medicine. The review of Mapuche medicinal flora by Molares and Ladio (2009) and the Chilean dictionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries have not been read.
Hemp between 1878 and 1955. Apart from the consular figures for 1922–24, no national series for these years has been found. The census of 1930 published a figure for "cáñamo común" that has not been read.
The earliest prosecutions. The earliest dated enforcement in the sources read is the trafficking case of January 1959. Court and police sources from before 1959 have not been read.
Law No. 21.817. The law of May 2026 leaves it to the drug law's regulation, to be amended within six months, to say which substances are capable of grave toxic effects. Whether cannabis tops and resin remain in that class after the amendment is not yet known.
Recent hemp growing. A CORFO-funded project on hemp fibre in the Biobío Region (2022–2027) and a seeding-rate trial at Los Ángeles reported in a University of Concepción thesis of 2024 are known from the project's public entry and the thesis. Neither is described in the page.
Chilean names for cannabis beyond pito and prensado: the Academia Chilena de la Lengua's Diccionario de uso del español de Chile (2010) and the Diccionario de americanismos (2010) could not be consulted for them.

Images reserved in the article

Two images have places in the article but are not yet uploaded. Their file links are kept hidden in the page source and can be restored once the files exist:

File:Cannabis-hemp-area-Chile-censuses-1955-1997-chart.jpg (Agriculture), a chart to be drawn: four bars for the area under hemp in Chile's national agricultural censuses, 3,016 hectares in 1955, 2,208 in 1964–65, 725 in 1975–76 and three in 1997, with the census years along the foot and hectares up the side.
File:Cannabis-hemp-districts-central-Chile-17th-century-map.jpg (History), a map to be drawn: central Chile between the Pacific and the Andes from La Ligua south to Colchagua, with the districts of Martín de Espinosa's proposal of 1644 shaded and named (La Ligua, Quillota, Aconcagua, Santiago, Melipilla, Aculeo, Colchagua), the port of Valparaíso, the estancia of Lleuque and the workshop at Chocalán marked. No modern borders are to be drawn.