Talk:Greek hashish trade

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Greek hashish trade treats the export of hashish grown and made in the Peloponnese, chiefly in the province of Mantineia round Tripoli, from its beginnings in the late 19th century to the burning of the last stocks in 1935: the ports it left from, its markets in Egypt, Asia Minor and French North Africa, the people who carried it, the figures for its size, and the Greek and Egyptian laws that shaped and ended it. The growing of the crop belongs to Mantineia (and Argolis and Messenia); the resin itself and its other producing countries to Hashish; the later supply of Egypt from the Levant to Lebanese hashish trade.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Sources

• Scholarship. Kostis Gkotsinas's history of narcotic drugs in Greece, Poisons sociaux (2022), his article on Greek smugglers in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporain (2023) and his chapter on hashish and tobacco (2020) carry most of the article. All three rest on Greek, British and League of Nations archives and on the Greek press; the 2022 and 2023 texts are cited by OpenEdition paragraph number, since the online editions have no page numbers. Stefanis, Ballas and Madianou (1975) quote the report of the mayor of Orchomenus of 1887. Liat Kozma's essay for the Journal of Levantine Studies (2017) gives the Egyptian side.
• Reports of the period. The report of the United States consul at Patras, Edward I. Nathan, in Monthly Consular and Trade Reports (April 1908) and the British Admiralty's A Handbook of Greece (1918). The memoranda of Alfred Caillard (1892) and George Hunter (1913), the Yugoslav statement at the Opium Advisory Committee (1928) and the figures of Egypt's Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau are quoted from Gkotsinas (2023).
• United Nations. J. Bouquet's survey of cannabis in the Bulletin on Narcotics (1951) and A. Ahmed El Hadka's history of drug control in Egypt in the same journal (1965). The Transnational Institute's history of cannabis in the international control system (2014) is cited once, for Greece's exports to Turkey and Egypt.
• Henri de Monfreid. His account of buying hashish in the Peloponnese, La croisière du hachich (1933), is cited only as Gkotsinas reports it.

Where the sources disagree

• How much was made. Edmond Théry (1905) estimated 90 tonnes a year. Nathan (1908) estimated about 100,000 okas (265,000 pounds) a year shipped from Tripoli alone. The agricultural census of 1911 recorded 1,784 tonnes; Gkotsinas gives almost 1,800 tonnes for 1911, 830 for 1914 and 192 for 1915 from the same series, and notes that a tonne of leaves gave about 50 kilograms of powder. No source reconciles the three orders of size. The article gives each with its source.
• When Greece banned hashish. Stefanis, Ballas and Madianou (1975) date a ban on the import, growing and use of hashish to a circular of the Department of the Interior of 27 March 1890; the Transnational Institute (2014) also gives 1890 for the ban on cultivation, importation and use. Gkotsinas describes the circular of 1890 as forbidding the public use of hashish, and has growing and trade legal until Law 2107/1920; Bouquet (1951) also dates the ban on growing to 1920. Hashish was taxed by Law 3123/1906, which assumes legal growing. The article follows Gkotsinas and Bouquet for growing and trade, and gives the circular of 1890 for use.
• Greece as a source for Egypt in 1926. El Hadka (1965) names Greece, with Syria and Lebanon, among the major sources of Egypt's hashish from 1926. Growing had been banned in Greece since 1920, but Law 3070/1924 allowed stocks to be traded and exported until 1 January 1926, and Gkotsinas and Bouquet describe stocks reaching the market for years after. The article gives El Hadka's statement as his.
• Where the hashish was shipped from. Nathan (1908) names Kalamata and Nauplia, the ports Tripoli sent to. Hunter (1913) wrote that most hashish reaching Egypt came straight from the small islands of the Aegean, and that some came from European ports. The former merchant quoted in Eleftheron Vima sailed from Piraeus. The sources describe different years and different stages of the trade; the article gives each.
• Why Greece banned growing in 1920. Some later writers tied the ban to obligations Greece accepted with the Treaty of Versailles. Gkotsinas, following Joanna Tsiganou's archival study, finds no support for this and ties it to the renewal of the commercial convention with Egypt.

Georeferencing

A town on the route is given a point where two gazetteers, Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, put it within about 2 km of each other. Points are entered to two decimal places.

• Tripoli: 37.51, 22.37. Wikidata 37.508, 22.375; OpenStreetMap 37.510, 22.372; 0.3 km apart.
• Kalamata: 37.04, 22.11. Wikidata 37.038, 22.111; OpenStreetMap 37.037, 22.111; 0.1 km apart.
• Nafplio: 37.57, 22.81. Wikidata 37.566, 22.800; OpenStreetMap 37.566, 22.807; 0.6 km apart.
• Piraeus: 37.94, 23.65. Wikidata 37.943, 23.647; OpenStreetMap 37.943, 23.647; 0.0 km apart.
• Alexandria: 31.20, 29.89. Wikidata 31.198, 29.892; OpenStreetMap 31.199, 29.895; 0.3 km apart.
• Tunis: 36.80, 10.19. Wikidata 36.801, 10.180; OpenStreetMap 36.800, 10.186; 0.5 km apart.

Mantineia, Argolis and Messenia, the growing districts, and Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia, the destination countries, are given without a point: a district or a country has no single point. The islands of the Aegean that Hunter names as a starting point are not a single place and are in the text only.

Infobox

• Period. The first year is 1892, when Caillard's memorandum is the first of the cited texts to place Greek hashish in Egypt. The mayor of Orchomenus reported in 1887 that hashish sold abroad for three or four times its price at home, without naming the market; the first plantation dates from the early 1870s. The last year is 1935, when the stocks handed over to the state were burned. The words "1880s to the 1930s" cover both.
• Route. Tripoli is the origin because Nathan calls it the centre for export; Mantineia, Argolis and Messenia are the growing districts. Kalamata and Nafplio are the ports Nathan names; Piraeus is the port of the former merchant in Eleftheron Vima. The three are alternatives at one stage. Egypt and Alexandria are the main market and its port; Turkey is named by the Admiralty handbook (1918) and the Transnational Institute; Tunisia and Tunis by Bouquet. The European ports to which Nathan says hashish went after 1906 are in the text only.
• Route type. Mixed: from Tripoli, an inland town, to the ports by land, and from there by sea.
• Legal status. Changed over time: legal in Greece until 1920 and taxed from 1906, with export to Egypt forbidden from 1906; banned in Greece from 1920, with trade in existing stocks allowed until 1926; banned in Egypt throughout.
• Scale. Nathan's estimate is the only figure for exports rather than production; the others are in the Scale section.

Images reserved in the article

• Under The route: a schematic map of the central and eastern Mediterranean showing Tripoli in the Peloponnese with the Mantineia plain, the ports of Kalamata and Nafplio, a sea line from Piraeus and the Aegean islands to Alexandria, and lines towards Asia Minor and Tunis. No landing places below city level and no routes through the European ports. The lines are schematic and the caption says so.