Uzbekistan
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| Uzbekistan | |
|---|---|
| Oʻzbekiston | |
| |
| The Toypan pass, Chatkal biosphere reserve, Tashkent Region | |
| Capital | Tashkent |
| Continent | Asia |
| Subregion | Central Asia |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal (industrial hemp licensed) |
| Status Since | 2020 |
| Enforcement | Nationwide Qoradori operations, with helicopter searches for household plots |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 2 |
| Growing Areas | 2 |
| Accessions | 4 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Uzbekistan is a country in Central Asia where, in the 19th century, hemp was grown in the Emirate of Bukhara for the oil of its seeds and for bang. Travellers found nasha or bang smoked in the Kokand Khanate and in the towns of Russian Turkestan.[1][2][3]: 127, 257 In 2006 the government reported 0.4 hectares of wild cannabis and 1.44 hectares of illicit cultivation; 621 people were convicted that year of planting narcotic plants.[4]
Cannabis is in List I of the national control list. Law No. 813-I of 1999 on narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances forbids any handling of the drugs on that list except in the cases it names.[5] Since an amendment of 2020, licensed legal entities may grow cannabis containing up to 0.2 per cent THC for industrial purposes.[6] The State Security Service and the interior ministry run nationwide operations under the name Qoradori.[7]
Geography
Cannabis has been gathered for herbaria in the Fergana Valley and around Tashkent. G. K. Verner gathered a sheet in Kokand uezd in May 1910.[8] Štěpán Husák collected on the banks of the ponds of a fish farm south-east of Tashkent in July 1972.[9] In July 1973 V. Vašák gathered a sheet, labelled Cannabis ruderalis, by the Kara-su river north-east of the city at 480 metres.[10] Botanists of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan collected it in 2022 on sandy soil at the monument of Akbarobod in Fergana Region[11] and in 2025 at the village of Shirmonbulaq in Andijan Region.[12]
John McPartland and Ernest Small place Uzbekistan within the range of herbarium specimens of a wild-type phenotype, which they assign to Cannabis sativa subsp. indica var. asperrima.[13]
Agriculture
Alexander Burnes, in Bukhara in 1832, found hemp reared by people who did not know its use in manufactures. They pressed oil from the seeds, made bang from the plant and gave the stalks to cattle.[2] In the country Eugene Schuyler crossed in 1873, sesame, poppies, flax and hemp were grown only for the oil of their seeds, though hemp stalks were sometimes made into rope.[3]: 294 Hempseed oil was little used in cooking, "because it acts on the head in the same way as hashish".[3]: 182 When Ole Olufsen described Bukhara in 1911, hemp, kendir, was grown everywhere there; it grew taller than a man and was used for ropes, mats and cloth.[14]: 496
In January 2018 President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was shown plans to grow industrial hemp in Tashkent Region.[15] A law of March 2020 opened the licensed growing of industrial hemp. A Cabinet of Ministers resolution of 7 December 2020 set the rules for it.[6][16] In July 2020, before those rules were set, the foreign ministry announced that a French-Uzbek joint venture would grow industrial hemp in Khorezm.[17] From 2022 to 2024 five cultivars of industrial hemp, Feramon, Santhica, Felina, Fedora and Rodnik, were studied in a collection nursery in the Khavast district of Syrdarya Region.[18]
Cannabis in Uzbekistan
In Tashkent in 1873 Schuyler heard the drug called bang, "prepared from the Indian hemp"; at Samarkand he wrote nasha, "or hemp".[3]: 127, 257 Aleksei Fedchenko wrote наша (nasha) and glossed it as гашиш (hashish).[1] Ármin Vámbéry and Olufsen wrote beng; both said it was made of flax.[19][14]: 465 Olufsen's word for hemp grown for fibre was kendir.[14]: 496 The national control list names гашиш (анаша) (hashish, anasha), cannabis resin and каннабис, марихуана (cannabis, marijuana).[5]
History
The khanates and Russian Turkestan (to 1917)
In the Khanate of Khiva in 1863 Vámbéry found dervishes at Shurakhan who had grown "as thin as skeletons" from "that opium called beng (prepared from flax)" and from another drug, djers. He wrote that beng was the favourite narcotic in Khiva, where many were addicted because the Quran forbids wine.[19] Fedchenko, travelling through the Kokand Khanate towards Shakhimardan, found that the riders sent ahead of his party had smoked nasha and fallen asleep; he wrote that most of the local people smoked it. It was made from the flowers of hemp and the small leaves around them, rubbed with water; the powdery mass dried into lumps, which were smoked in a water pipe with tobacco. He took dry narcotics, nasha and opium, to stand in Muslim countries for the alcohol the Quran forbids.[1]
In Tashkent in 1873, Schuyler found opium smoked by some but rare; bang was the usual narcotic.[3]: 127 At Samarkand he saw dervishes "half stupid from smoking nasha, or hemp". Those who were persuaded to sing for him first shared a pipe of it.[3]: 257 Around 1900, across Russian Turkestan, the flowering parts of hemp were made into гашиш (hashish), which was smoked with tobacco or taken as sweets.[20] Annette Meakin wrote of a kind of nas, a chewed tobacco, made of hemp or hashish: "Though forbidden by both Mohammedan and Russian law, it still finds much favour with the natives."[21] Olufsen wrote that beng was rare in Bukhara but common in Khiva, from where it came.[14]: 465
Soviet Uzbekistan (1924–1991)
The criminal code of the Uzbek SSR of 1926, which also applied in the Tajik ASSR, punished the illegal making, keeping and sale of narcotics for gain with up to three years' imprisonment, with or without confiscation of property.[22]: 19–20 In 1922 the psychiatrist Leonid Antsyferov presented a paper on "hashishism in Turkestan" at the First Scientific Congress of Physicians of Turkestan. In 1934, citing the Republican Psychiatric Hospital in Tashkent but giving no figures, he wrote that most of the "hashishists" who ended up in treatment were non-native Russians.[23]
In a monograph of 1929 Tatyana Serebryakova classed "hemps from Central Asian republics" as a type of "Indian, or hashish hemp".[24] McPartland and Small list herbarium specimens of the domesticated var. afghanica from the 19th and early 20th centuries from Turkestan, which took in today's Uzbekistan. They write that these plants were grown for sieved hashish (nasha, charas) and sometimes for seed oil.[13]
Independent Uzbekistan (since 1991)
The Criminal Code of Uzbekistan dates from 22 September 1994.[25] Uzbekistan acceded to the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 12 July 1995. It acceded to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as amended in 1972 and to the 1988 convention against illicit traffic on 24 August 1995.[26][27][28] Law No. 813-I on narcotic drugs followed on 19 August 1999. Article 21-1, added by Law No. ZRU-612 of 17 March 2020, opened the licensed growing of low-THC cannabis for industry.[6]
Cultivation
The UNODC could not judge the scale of illicit cultivation from the 621 convictions of 2006, since it did not know whether they were for a few plants or several acres.[4] The International Narcotics Control Board counted Uzbekistan among the countries of West and Central Asia with sizeable illicit cannabis cultivation in 2011–2021, with some decline in 2022.[29]: 115 In the second phase of Qoradori-2026, in September 2026, helicopters flew over every region and 70 kilograms of narcotic plants grown in households were destroyed. In the Oltinkoʻl district of Andijan Region the manager of a farm was charged with growing 520 cannabis plants on 200 square metres.[30]
Germplasm
The seed collection of the Vavilov Institute in St Petersburg held four Uzbek accessions among its 496 cannabis accessions in May 1998.[31] Seed of accession 457, from the Kattakurgan district of Samarkand, did not germinate when it was sown for regeneration in 1997.[32] A whole-genome study of 2021 sequenced three plants of the institute's accession VIR 483, from Uzbekistan.[33][34] In that study a sample from Uzbekistan aligned with hemp-type plants, a result that a later phylogeographic study found consistent with its own.[35] A Chinese marker study of 2020 included one Uzbek accession among 199.[36]
In August 2026 a donor gave the United States' National Plant Germplasm System two seed lots from Uzbekistan, G 34127 "Tashkent" and G 34133 "Uzbek". Both are entered as landraces; the donor described each as "Ostensibly an IBL of an Uzbek landrace".[37][38]
Preparations and consumption
Nasha in the Kokand Khanate was hemp flowers and leaves rubbed with water and dried into lumps, smoked with tobacco in a water pipe.[1] In 1901 hashish across Russian Turkestan was smoked with tobacco or eaten in sweets.[20] The UNODC estimated in 2000 that 4.2 per cent of adults in Uzbekistan used cannabis in a year.[39]: 28
The control list sets the amounts that grade offences. For hashish (anasha), up to 0.2 grams is a small amount and more than 2 grams a large one; for cannabis resin the limits are 0.1 and 0.5 grams. For dried cannabis or marijuana, up to 1 gram is small and more than 10 grams large; for undried plant material the limits are 10 and 50 grams. The cannabis plant with up to 0.2 per cent THC grown for industry is excepted.[5]
Trade and commerce
Uzbek law enforcement seized 428.7 kilograms of cannabis in 2006, against 5,544.0 kilograms in 1996; seizures had been declining since 2003. The main places of seizure were Tashkent Region (81.35 kilograms), the city of Tashkent (79.2) and Samarkand (67.3).[39]: 26 Seizures of cannabis rose by 25 per cent in 2022.[29]: 115 In the first stage of Qoradori, on 3 and 4 February 2025, 653 operations stopped the supply of 112.257 kilograms of heroin, opium, hashish and synthetic drugs.[7] In the first ten months of 2025 the interior ministry recorded 12,848 drug crimes and seized 2,761 kilograms of narcotic, psychotropic and potent substances of all kinds.[40]
Legal status
Law No. 813-I of 19 August 1999 defines narcotic drugs as substances, preparations and plants on the national lists. Any handling of the drugs of List I is forbidden except in the cases the law names. State institutions may grow the narcotic plants of List I for science. Article 21-1, added in 2020, allows licensed legal entities to grow, import, export, process, store, sell, buy and carry the cannabis plant with up to 0.2 per cent THC for industrial purposes; the Cabinet of Ministers sets the varieties and the conditions. Landowners and land users must destroy narcotic plants growing on their land.[6] The resolution of 7 December 2020 regulates the growing and use of industrial hemp.[16] Cannabis and marijuana, hashish and cannabis resin are in List I of the national control list, approved by a Cabinet of Ministers resolution of 12 November 2015.[5]
Article 270 of the Criminal Code punishes the illegal sowing or growing of opium or oil poppy, the cannabis plant or other plants containing narcotics with a fine of 25 to 50 base calculation units, community work, correctional labour, restriction of liberty or up to three years' imprisonment. A repeat offence, growing by a group acting by prior agreement, or a medium-sized area carries three to five years; an organised group or a large area, five to ten years. Trafficking with intent to sell is punished under Article 273 with up to three years, rising to five to seven years for amounts above a small one and seven to ten years in aggravated cases. Making, keeping or carrying narcotics without intent to sell carries up to three years under Article 276.[25]
Enforcement
Qoradori (also written Корадори) is a nationwide set of operations by the State Security Service and the interior ministry; its first stage of 2025 ran on 3 and 4 February.[7] The edition of 2026, Қорадори-2026, consists of "operational preventive measures". During it, in May 2026, a man in Namangan Region was found with 10 grams of hashish.[41] The second phase of Қорадори-2026, in September 2026, used helicopter flights to find plants grown in households.[30] For 2006 Uzbekistan reported 1.84 hectares of cannabis eradicated, the whole area of wild growth and cultivation it had reported; the UNODC saw reason to doubt such success across the region.[39]: 24
Growing Regions
Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki:
| Region |
|---|
| Fergana Valley |
| Zarafshan Valley |
Growing Areas
Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:
| Growing Area | Has growing region |
|---|---|
| Bukhara | Zarafshan Valley |
| Samarkand | Zarafshan Valley |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBG-UZB-UNK-0120020001 | Taskenti 2002 | ||
| NPG-UZB-TAS-0020260001 | NPG Tashkent IBL | ||
| NPG-UZB-UNK-0020260001 | NPG Uzbek IBL | ||
| Verner s.n., Kokand (1910) | Verner herbarium specimen, environs of the town, Kokand uezd, Uzbekistan (1910) |
Conservation status
Uzbek seed is held in the Vavilov Institute[31] and, since 2026, in the United States genebank.[37] Herbarium sheets from 1910 to 2022 are held in Moscow, Brno, Vienna and Tashkent.[8][9][10][11] McPartland and Small called the collection and conservation of germplasm of the indigenous landraces of Central and South Asia, in their centres of diversity, "urgently needed".[13] The law requires landowners to destroy narcotic plants on their land.[6]
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Fedchenko, A.P. (1875). "Путешествие в Туркестан". Известия Императорского общества любителей естествознания, антропологии и этнографии (in русский). XI (7). St Petersburg: 99–100 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Burnes, A. (1834). Travels into Bokhara. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 166–167 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Schuyler, E. (1876). Turkistan: notes of a journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja. Vol. 1 (3rd revised ed.). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington – via HathiTrust.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia (April 2008). Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (PDF) (Report). Paris Pact Initiative. p. 23.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 О совершенствовании порядка ввоза, вывоза и транзита наркотических средств, психотропных веществ и прекурсоров, а также контроля за их оборотом(Постановление Кабинета Министров Республики Узбекистан No. 330), 12 November 2015, annex 4, list I.Uzbekistan.Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 О наркотических средствах и психотропных веществах(Закон Республики Узбекистан No. 813-I), 19 August 1999, arts. 11, 21 and 21-1.Uzbekistan.Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan (5 February 2025). "Структурами СГБ и МВД Республики Узбекистан 3-4 февраля текущего года проведен первый этап широкомасштабных мероприятий «Корадори», проводимых по всей стране". gov.uz (in русский). Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Specimen MW0818717: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Occurrence 6176588999: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Occurrence 1898923950: Cannabis ruderalis Janisch". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Occurrence 4899550281: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 6553511156: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 McPartland, J.M.; Small, E. (2020). "A classification of endangered high-THC cannabis (Cannabis sativa subsp. indica) domesticates and their wild relatives". PhytoKeys. 144: 81–112. doi:10.3897/phytokeys.144.46700.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Olufsen, O. (1911). The Emir of Bokhara and his country: journeys and studies in Bokhara (with a chapter on my voyage on the Amu Darya to Khiva). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, Nordisk Forlag – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "В Ташкентской области планируют выращивать техническую коноплю". Spot.uz (in русский). 6 January 2018. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 О мерах по упорядочению деятельности по выращиванию и использованию растения каннабис в промышленных целях, не связанных с производством или изготовлением наркотических средств и психотропных веществ(Постановление Кабинета Министров Республики Узбекистан No. 770), 7 December 2020.Uzbekistan.Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ "Uzbekistan returns to its roots with cannabis cultivation". Eurasianet. 21 July 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ Khîtamov, M.M.; Kim, V.V.; Gaybullaev, G.S.; Eshonqulov, B.M.; Fayzimurodov, J.B.; Singh, B. (2025). "Cultivation of a new culture of technical Cannabis in Uzbekistan". Flora and Fauna. 31 (1): 39–48. doi:10.33451/florafauna.v31i1pp39-48.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Vámbéry, A. (1865). Travels in Central Asia: being the account of a journey from Teheran across the Turkoman desert on the eastern shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand, performed in the year 1863. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 183–184 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Туркестан". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XXXIV. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1901. pp. 174–203 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ Meakin, A.M.B. (1903). In Russian Turkestan: a garden of Asia and its people. London: George Allen. p. 69 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Yuldasheva, G.M. (2026). Уголовная ответственность за незаконный оборот наркотических средств и психотропных веществ по законодательству Республики Таджикистан (PDF) (Candidate of Legal Sciences thesis) (in русский). Dushanbe: Tajik National University.
- ↑ Latypov, A.B. (2011). "The Soviet doctor and the treatment of drug addiction: "A difficult and most ungracious task"". Harm Reduction Journal. 8 32. doi:10.1186/1477-7517-8-32.
- ↑ McPartland, J.M. (2021). "Tatyana Yakovlevna Serebryakova: a forgotten hemp expert". Proceedings on Applied Botany, Genetics and Breeding. 182 (4): 166–171. doi:10.30901/2227-8834-2021-4-166-171.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 Уголовный кодекс Республики Узбекистан, 22 September 1994, arts. 270, 273 and 276, consolidated text to Law No. ZRU-1151 of 11 June 2026.Uzbekistan.Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: status". United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 19. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 International Narcotics Control Board (2024). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2023 (PDF) (Report). Vienna: United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-003052-6. E/INCB/2023/1.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 "Control through helicopters: 70 kg of narcotic plants destroyed". Zamon.uz. 16 September 2026. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Clarke, R.C. (1998). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank: five year report". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 5 (2): 75–79.
- ↑ Kutuzova, S.N.; Grigoryev, S.V.; Rumyantseva, L.T.; Clarke, R.C. (1998). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1997". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 5 (1): 28–31.
- ↑ "BioProject PRJNA734114: Cannabis sativa whole genome resequencing reads". NCBI BioProject. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Ren, G.; Zhang, X.; Li, Y.; Ridout, K.; Serrano-Serrano, M.L.; Yang, Y.; Liu, A.; Ravikanth, G.; Nawaz, M.A.; Mumtaz, A.S.; Salamin, N.; Fumagalli, L. (2021). "Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa". Science Advances. 7 (29) eabg2286. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abg2286.
- ↑ Balant, M.; Vitales, D.; Wang, Z.; Barina, Z.; et al. (20 October 2024). "Integrating target capture with whole genome sequencing of recent and natural history collections to explain the phylogeography of wild-growing and cultivated Cannabis". bioRxiv. doi:10.1101/2024.10.17.618884.
- ↑ Zhang, Jiangjiang; Yan, Jiangtao; Huang, Siqi; Pan, Gen; Chang, Li; Li, Jianjun; Zhang, Chao; Tang, Huijuan; Chen, Anguo; Peng, Dingxiang; Biswas, Ashok; Zhang, Cuiping; Zhao, Lining; Li, Defang (2020). "Genetic diversity and population structure of Cannabis based on the genome-wide development of simple sequence repeat markers". Frontiers in Genetics. 11 958. doi:10.3389/fgene.2020.00958.
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 "G 34127, Cannabis sativa L., Tashkent". GRIN-Global. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ "G 34133, Cannabis sativa L., Uzbek". GRIN-Global. USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia (April 2008). Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (PDF) (Report). Paris Pact Initiative.
- ↑ Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan (1 December 2025). "Борьба с торговлей наркотическими веществами и организованной преступностью - важный вопрос, требующий жесткого и постоянного контроля". gov.uz (in русский). Retrieved 13 October 2026.
- ↑ Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan (20 May 2026). "В рамках оперативных профилактических мероприятий "Қорадори-2026" В Самаркандской и Наманганской областях пресечен незаконный оборот наркотиков". gov.uz (in русский). Retrieved 13 October 2026.