Talk:Phu Phan

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Discussion for: Phu Phan • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Phu Phan treats the Phu Phan range as a cannabis growing area: its terrain, forests and rivers, its climate, the insurgency and development programmes of the late 20th century in the hills, the peoples of the Sakon Nakhon side, the names and cultivation of its cannabis, the accessions collected there, enforcement, regulated cultivation since 2019 and the conservation of the range's cannabis. The north-east as a region, and the genetics and chemistry of the registered cultivars, are treated at Northeastern Thailand; the product and its export trade at Thai stick.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Sources

Shared with Northeastern Thailand. Choenkwan and colleagues (2014), Chenrai and colleagues (2022), Timsuksai and Rambo (2016), the Department of Agriculture notice of July 2021, Matichon (6 November 2019), Maguire and Ritter (2013), the State Department report of 1990, Pongnaratorn and colleagues (2025), Watanakul and colleagues (2024), Charoenchai and colleagues (2023), Thansettakij (2022), Thai PBS (February 2019) and The Nation (2025) are cited with the same definitions as on that page. Five were checked again against their Crossref entries, and the Matichon report and page 2 of the Department of Agriculture notice were read again in full.
Geography and climate. The Department of National Parks pages for Phu Phan and Phu Pha Lek national parks were read in Thai; the Phu Phan page gives no station or period for its rainfall and temperature figures. The Meteorological Department's normals for 1991 to 2020 are for the Sakon Nakhon station in the town, on the basin floor, not on the range. The Thailex entry on the Phu Phan Formation summarises Meesook (2011) and other geological works. Rujirawan and colleagues (2025) and Ruksajai and colleagues (2023) were read for their study-area sections; Kumbanchat and colleagues (2015) and Phromphinit and colleagues (2018) in full, in Thai.
History. Puttapon Mongkolworawan's thesis of 2005 on the communist movement in the Phu Phan area was read in its Thai and English abstracts; the thesis itself could not be reached. Nibhatsukit (2025) and document 137 of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, volume XX, are also cited. The Mekong River Commission case study on the Phu Phan Development Study Centre carries no author or date; its references are Royal Development Projects Board publications of 1996 to 2000.
People and culture. Somkham (2025), in Thai, and Appamaraka and colleagues (2023) were read for their introductions and study areas; Hongsuwan and colleagues (2022), in Thai, in full. The National Farmers Council release of April 2019 is used only for the names its vice-president gave.
Enforcement and regulated cultivation. MGR Online (2009), Post Today (2020), Matichon (March 2019), Thai PBS (December 2019 and August 2022) and InfoQuest (May 2021) are used for named, dated events and official statements.
Accessions. The cultivation, processing and conservation details in the article summarise the structured fields of the 37 accession pages that name the growing area, as they stood on 12 October 2026.

Where the sources disagree

Rainfall. Choenkwan and colleagues (2014): a mean of 1,724 mm a year for the Phu Phan range over 2000 to 2012. Department of National Parks: about 1,353 mm for Phu Phan National Park and 1,000 to 1,300 mm for Phu Pha Lek, with no period given. Meteorological Department: 1,658 mm at Sakon Nakhon town, 1991 to 2020. The article gives the first for the range and the last for the station.
The dry season. Kumbanchat and colleagues (2015) write that rain falls almost all year in Phu Phan District; the other sources give a dry season from October or November to April. The article gives the dry season.
When the range was raised. The 1958 United States Geological Survey paper dates the range to crustal movement at the end of the Triassic; Chenrai and colleagues (2022) report a dispute between a Mid-Cretaceous and a Tertiary uplift; the Thailex entry dates the formation's sandstone itself to the Early Cretaceous. The article gives the dispute and the age of the rock.
The highest ground. Phu Phan National Park: 567 m at Phu Khiao, in Kalasin. Phu Pha Lek National Park: 695 m at Phu Ang So. The article gives both, each for its park.
The clash at Ban Na Bua. The Communist Party of Thailand dated it 7 August 1965; Singtomas (2017, note 6) reports evidence, confirmed in Puttapon's thesis from Police Department documents in the National Archives, for 8 August. Nibhatsukit (2025) places Ban Na Bua in Renu Nakhon subdistrict of That Phanom District; Singtomas in Renu Nakhon District. The article gives August 1965 and Nakhon Phanom.
The Kaloeng. The name is written Kaloeng (Appamaraka and colleagues), Kaleng (the English title of Somkham's article) and Kalaeng (Timsuksai and Rambo).
The third generation of Hang Kra Rog Phu Phan ST1. The Department of Agriculture notice gives its sowing as 24 July 2020 in the text and 24 September 2020 in its own table. The article gives neither date.
The village season at Ban Bua. The running text of one Ban Bua accession page gives planting from May to June and harvest from October to February; its structured fields, like those of all 37 accessions, give sowing from July to September and harvest from December or January to March. The article gives the structured fields.

Not used

The physiography paragraph of Veeravinantanakul and colleagues (Bulletin of Earth Sciences of Thailand, 2018), which lists the provinces of the range and gives 641 m for Phu Lang Ka, reads word for word as the English Wikipedia article on the Phu Phan Mountains. It is not used.
Statements in newspapers and by advocacy bodies that the Phu Phan range is the origin of the Thai stick, or of one of the world's best cannabis types (Prachatai English and Post Today, January 2018; Komchadluek, March 2019; Naewna, March 2021), are claims about history in news reports and are not used.
A Post Today feature of 2016 dating the start of work on the Phu Phan Rajanivet palace to 1975 is a news feature; the palace's own official page could not be read. Not used.
Creation dates and populations of Phu Phan and Kut Bak districts appear in the Royal Gazette notices only as image scans and were not read; the figures on Thai Wikipedia are not used.
Monton and colleagues (2023, Phytochemistry Letters) and Sunanta and colleagues (2024) could not be read. Fakthongphan and Inthachub (2023) and Dechlay and colleagues (2025) grew seed that is not said to come from the Phu Phan.

What the sources do not cover

No published account describes how villagers on the range sow, tend, harvest or dry their cannabis. The article's cultivation sections rest on the accessions' collection data and the enforcement reports; the accounts of the export era by Maguire and Ritter and by the State Department concern the north-east as a whole and are given for it.
No source read ties the communist insurgency in the hills to cannabis growing, and none gives a geographical indication or seed-bank holdings of Phu Phan provenance outside the accessions.
The range's length, the founding year of Phu Phan National Park and the districts' areas were not found in an official or peer-reviewed source.

Images reserved in the article

One image has a place in the article but is not yet uploaded. It is reserved until the file exists:

File:Cannabis-Phu-Phan-range-map.jpg (Geography), a map to be drawn: the Phu Phan range in Sakon Nakhon Province with Phu Phan and Kut Bak districts, Phu Phan and Phu Pha Lek national parks, the lake of Nong Han, the Nam Un and the town of Sakon Nakhon, the Kalasin border to the south, and dots at Ban Nan Toeng, Khok Phu and Ban Bua, with a smaller inset placing Na Kae and Si Songkhram districts of Nakhon Phanom.