Talk:Dolpa
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Dolpa treats Dolpa District, in Karnali Province of north-west Nepal, as a cannabis growing area: the seed-oil crop of the district's Magars described in the 1970s, and the later records from the district. Cannabis in the rest of Nepal's hills is treated at Central Himalayas, and the district as an administrative unit would be the subject of Dolpa District.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Why Dolpa is a growing area
- James Fisher's chapter "Cannabis in Nepal: an overview", in Vera Rubin (ed.), Cannabis and Culture (1975), says of the Magars of Dolpa District: "Although it is extensively cultivated, it is never used as an intoxicant" (p. 251). The seed was pressed for the area's main cooking oil (pp. 251–252). This is the only source read that describes cultivation in the district, and it names the district, not a village or valley.
- The status is Active. Fisher's account alone, from the early 1970s, would make the area Historical. The seed lot G 33704 at the United States National Plant Germplasm System, named "Dolpa", is the evidence since 2000: its donor, who is also the person named as collector in the record, writes that it was collected in Karnali Province in November 2021, describes it as a multipurpose landrace cultivated for seed, fibre and charas, and refers to Lower Dolpo. The record gives no village or coordinates.
- The police report of the destruction in June 2026 (Onlinekhabar, 1 July 2026) is not taken as evidence of cultivation: it says the plants destroyed had sprung up in public places, though its headline calls them planted.
Extent and border
- The map border is approximate. It is drawn on Dolpa District as mapped in OpenStreetMap (about 7,900 km²). Fisher's account is given for the district as a whole, and no source read places the crop within it more closely.
- The point in the infobox is the centre of the district border, not a field.
- Fisher sets Dolpa beside the Jumla area, where he says cannabis was both smoked and pressed for oil (p. 251, note 2). Jumla District lies outside this area.
Sources
- Fisher (1975). Read in full (pp. 247–256). His description of Dolpa covers the Magars; other peoples of the district are not described.
- GRIN-Global, G 33704. The donor narrative and the curators' notes from the 2024 trials in New York were read on the record's page.
- GBIF occurrence 2012690230 (Lund, LD 2055992, Tarakot, 1973). The record has no habitat, notes or image, so the sheet is not counted as a cultivated plant.
- Onlinekhabar (2026). Read in Nepali. The dates are given in the Nepali calendar (11–16 Asar 2083).
Sources not used
- Two ethnobotanical studies of Dolpa do not list cannabis: Kunwar and Adhikari (2005), on medicinal plants around Dunai, and Ghimire and Aumeeruddy-Thomas, on the plant names of the agro-pastoralists of Dolpo. That they leave it out says nothing either way about its cultivation.
- A 2003 Asia Times article names Dolpa among five districts that, it says, account for most of Nepal's illicit cultivation. It gives no source and no figure for Dolpa, and it was read only in a copy on another site.
- A trekking guide that mentions large cannabis plants on a disused road near Tarakot is not a reliable source for cultivation.
- Fisher's Trans-Himalayan Traders (1986), his monograph on a Magar community in the district, could not be read.