Talk:Jomotshangkha

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Page scope

Jomotshangkha treats the Lauri and Serthig gewogs of the Jomotshangkha dungkhag, Samdrup Jongkhar District, as one cannabis growing area in the Eastern Himalayas growing region. It covers the wild stands, their harvest and the cross-border trade in the dried plant. The district as an administrative unit has its own page; Bhutanese drug law is treated at Bhutan and Cannabis in Bhutan.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why Jomotshangkha is a growing area

Five sources say that the plant grows and is harvested in Lauri and Serthig. The Bhutanese (7 May 2016) quotes an official of Serthig gewog: the villagers do not cultivate it; it grows of its own, and people uproot and dry it for sale. BBS (18 July 2016) reports 748 kg seized from the two gewogs by July that year and a trade going back to the villagers' parents. BBS (3 November 2018) calls trafficking a key source of income in Serthig. BBS (19 September 2023) says the plant is abundant in both gewogs. Wexler and Tshering (2025, pp. 99 and 108) describe wild cannabis growing abundantly there.
No source reports anyone planting cannabis in either gewog. The area is a wild stand that is harvested, not a cultivated one; the article says so in the sources' words.
Martshala gewog appears once, in the member of parliament's question of 2023, which says that cannabis was once a source of income there. No source describes the plant or its harvest there, so the border leaves it out.

The name

The area takes the name of the Jomotshangkha dungkhag, whose police made the seizures from both gewogs, and of the parliamentary constituency of Jomotshangkha–Martshala. The Bhutanese spells the town Jumotsangkha and the gewog both Serthig and Serting; BBS writes Serthi once (6 May 2016). The town itself, if it gets a page, would be Jomotshangkha (town).

Growing status

The status is Active: the reports run from 2012 (a seizure at Jomotshangkha) to 2023, and Wexler and Tshering write in 2025. The sources say that the trade once mattered more, and BBS reported in 2016 that many people in the two gewogs had turned to cash crops; none says the plant has stopped growing or being harvested.

Extent and border

The border is a proxy: Lauri Gewog (OpenStreetMap relation 12097692) and Serthig Gewog (relation 12097693) together, about 575 km², the figure in the infobox.
No source gives the area of the stands.
The infobox point (27.06, 91.94) is the centre of the two gewogs. The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Accessions

The wiki holds no accession from the two gewogs. Ten of the eleven Bhutanese herbarium sheets on the wiki name other districts; the eleventh, Ludlow 19635 (1949), names only Tsalimape, at 7,000 ft.

Sources

BBS (6 May 2016), "Man caught for possessing 17 sacks of dried Marijuana", reports the same seizure as The Bhutanese of 7 May 2016 and says that the plant came from Serthi village; the article cites The Bhutanese for it.
BBS (18 August 2016), "Man, on the run for a year, arrested": the Jomotshangkha dungkhag court sentenced two men from Jomotshangkha for trafficking marijuana (a case of June 2015, 180 kg). Not used: the article does not say where the plant came from.
The 748 kg of 2016 is the figure for the year up to mid-July and may include the 680 kg seized in May; BBS does not say.