Upper Kohistan
More actions
| Upper Kohistan | |
|---|---|
| Kohistan Upper | |
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Kohistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) |
| Geography | |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Province/State | Khyber Pakhtunkhwa |
| District | Upper Kohistan District |
| Coordinates | 35.41, 73.28 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 3,700 km² |
| Terrain | Mountain valleys; approximately Upper Kohistan District |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Upper Kohistan is a landrace cannabis growing area in Upper Kohistan District, in the mountains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. In July 2020 the district police destroyed cannabis grown in Kandia tehsil, in villages on the district's boundary with Swat on one side and Ghizer, in Gilgit-Baltistan, on the other.[1] In July 2026 police and agriculture department teams worked for 15 days in the district's mountains and destroyed cannabis cultivated at 52 villages and other places.[2]
The district
Kohistan is divided into three districts: Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas Kohistan. The Indus splits it into a western and an eastern side. Seo, Kandia and Dubair are the main valleys on the western side, and Jalkot, Palas and Kolai on the eastern.[3] On the western side the people speak dialects of Kohistani; in Jalkot, Palas and Kolai they speak Shina.[3]
Reports of cultivation
In 1985 three officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, writing from intelligence reports, named the northern mountains and valleys of Kohistan, with Chitral, Dir, Swat and Hazara, among the places in Pakistan where cannabis was mainly cultivated.[4]: 44
In July 2020 the Upper Kohistan police destroyed cannabis grown in Kandia tehsil; the district police officer, Arif Javed, said the places were so remote that they could be reached only by walking for hours. Police from the Karan station destroyed the crop in Madan Gubar, Simi Dara, Sari Dara, Rechao, Gujri Baigh, Bagro Dara, Gidarm, Bagro, Batri Dara, Karang, Syal Dara and Kangul Kot, and the growers were booked.[1][5]
In August 2024 the police of the Karang station, with the agriculture department, destroyed cannabis cultivated on 1,200 to 1,300 kanals of land at Maidan Kandia, and the work went on in other parts of Kandia.[6]
On 7 July 2026 the district police officer, Tahir Iqbal, sent a special police team to Kandia and told it to stay in the field until every cannabis plant there had been destroyed.[7] The operation began on reports of cannabis cultivated on a wide scale at Kandia, within the limits of the Karang police station, and the officers in charge of the Karang, Kamila and Jalkot stations took part. Over 15 days the teams destroyed cannabis cultivated on 2,534 kanals at 52 villages and other places.[2] In the report of the same operation in Dawn, the district police officer said that cannabis cultivated on more than 5,000 kanals of the district's mountains had been destroyed with the support of clerics and elders in more than 50 villages; agriculture department officials had sprayed young plants that were not yet mature with chemicals.[8]
Use
Amin and colleagues surveyed 20 villages in the Seo, Jalkot, Kandia, Kolai and Dubair valleys of Kohistan and listed Cannabis sativa, called bhang, among the wild plants used in medicine there: its leaves are made into a paste with maize flour and applied to the body for weakness and indigestion.[3]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Cannabis destroyed in Upper Kohistan". The News International. 12 July 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "کوہستان اپر میں 52 مقامات پر 2535 کنال پر کاشت بھنگ کی فصل تلف" [Cannabis crop cultivated on 2,535 kanals at 52 places destroyed in Kohistan Upper]. UrduPoint (in اردو). Associated Press of Pakistan. 24 July 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Amin, Muhammad; Aziz, Muhammad Abdul; Manduzai, Ajmal Khan; Pieroni, Andrea; Alkahtani, Jawaher; AbdelGawwad, Mohamed Ragab; Gafforov, Yusufjon; Nazeer, Abdul; Abbasi, Arshad Mehmood (8 July 2024). "Standard medical ethnobotany of Kohistan, North Pakistan". Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 20 (1) 64. doi:10.1186/s13002-024-00704-w.
- ↑ Stamler, R. T.; Fahlman, R. C.; Vigeant, H. (1985). "Illicit traffic and abuse of cannabis in Canada". Bulletin on Narcotics (4). United Nations: 37–49.
- ↑ "Upper Kohistan police destroy cannabis crop in remote tehsil". Dawn. 12 July 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ "اپر کوہستان پولیس نے 1200 کنال اراضی پر کاشت کی گئی بھنگ تلف کر دی" [Upper Kohistan police destroy cannabis cultivated on 1,200 kanals of land]. UrduPoint (in اردو). Associated Press of Pakistan. 13 August 2024. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ "کندیا میں بھنگ کی کاشت کو جڑ سے اکھاڑ پھینکنے تک آپریشن پوری قوت کے ساتھ جاری رکھا جائے، ڈی پی او کوہستان اپر" [Operation to go on at full strength until cannabis cultivation in Kandia is rooted out, says DPO Kohistan Upper]. UrduPoint (in اردو). Associated Press of Pakistan. 7 July 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ "Cannabis cultivated over 5,000 canals destroyed in Kohistan". Dawn. 25 July 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.