Himachal Pradesh
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| Himachal Pradesh | |
|---|---|
| हिमाचल प्रदेश | |
| State | |
| General | |
| Coordinates | 31.10°N 77.17°E |
| Country | India |
| Region | Western Himalayas |
| Administration | |
| Capital | Shimla |
| Districts | 1(12 districts; Kullu among them) |
| Demographics | |
| Population(2011 Census) | |
| Total | 6,864,602 |
| Density | 123/km² (320/sq mi) |
| Urban | 10.03% |
| Rural | 89.97% |
| Geography | |
| Area | |
| Total | 55,673 km² (21,495 sq mi) |
| Language | |
| Official | Hindi |
| Additional official | Sanskrit |
| Official script | Devanagari |
| Cannabis documentation | |
| Growing regions | 2 |
| Growing areas | 5 |
| Appellations | 28 |
| Accessions | 151 |
| Eradication campaigns | 0 |
| News items | 18 |
| Research items | 3 |
Himachal Pradesh (hɪˈmɑːtʃəl prəˈdɛʃ; Hindi: हिमाचल प्रदेश) is a state in northern India, lying wholly within the Western Himalayas. It had a population of 6,864,602 across an area of 55,673 km² (21,495 sq mi) at the 2011 Census, of which 89.97 per cent was rural, the second-highest rural share of any Indian state.[1] The state is administered from Shimla and is divided into 12 districts, among them Kullu, which contains the Parvati, Kullu and Malana valleys, three landrace cannabis growing areas.[1] Himachal Pradesh sits within the South Asian Gene Pool and attaches to it through the Western Himalayas growing region.
Cannabis grows both wild and under cultivation across the state's middle- and high-altitude valleys, and the Kullu-Parvati area is known for its hand-rubbed resin, charas. The plant is indigenous to the Manikaran valley of Kullu district, where wild stands are used for fibre, food, medicine and ritual.[2] Since 2024 the state government has moved towards licensed cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and industrial use.[3]
Geography
Himachal Pradesh lies wholly within the Western Himalayas in northern India, bordered by Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to the north, Punjab to the west, Haryana to the south-west, Uttarakhand to the south-east and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the east.[citation needed] Elevations rise from about 350 m in the outer foothills to over 6,800 m on the high peaks of the interior, and the state spans the Shivalik (outer), lesser and greater Himalayan ranges together with the trans-Himalayan cold desert of Lahaul and Spiti.[citation needed] The principal river systems are the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and the Yamuna headwaters, whose valleys carry most of the state's settlement and cultivation.[citation needed] The Kullu, Parvati and Malana valleys lie in the Beas catchment of the central districts.[citation needed]
Administrative subdivisions
Himachal Pradesh is divided into 12 districts.[citation needed]
| District |
|---|
| Kullu District |
Demographics
Himachal Pradesh had a population of 6,864,602 at the 2011 Census, of which 89.97 per cent was rural, the second-highest rural share of any Indian state, at a density of about 123 persons per km².[1] The population is overwhelmingly Hindu, with Buddhist communities concentrated in the trans-Himalayan districts of Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur; the principal languages are Hindi and a group of Western Pahari (Himachali) dialects, with Kinnauri, Lahauli and other Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in the high interior.[citation needed]
Population
At the 2011 Census the state's population was 6,864,602 in an area of 55,673 km², a density of about 123 persons per km² and one of the lowest urbanisation rates of any Indian state at 10.03 per cent urban.[1]
Languages
Hindi is the official language of the state and Sanskrit an additional official language.[citation needed] The everyday speech of most districts belongs to the Western Pahari (Himachali) group of Indo-Aryan dialects, while Kinnauri, Lahauli, Pattani and other Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in Kinnaur and Lahaul and Spiti.[citation needed]
Religion
The population is predominantly Hindu, with a Buddhist minority concentrated in the trans-Himalayan districts of Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur and smaller Muslim and Sikh populations.[citation needed] Shaiva worship is prominent in the western Himalayan valleys.[citation needed]
Scheduled Tribes
Himachal Pradesh has a substantial Scheduled Tribe population concentrated in the high interior, including the Gaddi and Gujjar transhumant pastoralists of the Chamba and Kangra ranges, the Kinnaura of Kinnaur, and the Lahaula and Pangwala of Lahaul and the Pangi valley.[citation needed]
Communities with cannabis relationships
Cannabis figures in the material and ritual life of the western Himalayan valleys, where hemp fibre, seed and resin have long-standing local uses. In the Manikaran valley of Kullu district the resident communities used wild hemp in medicine, food, material culture and ritual.[2]
Agriculture
Agriculture and horticulture are the principal rural livelihoods of Himachal Pradesh, whose economy rests heavily on temperate fruit cultivation, with apple the dominant commercial crop of the middle- and high-altitude districts alongside cereals, pulses, potato and off-season vegetables.[citation needed] Cannabis grows both wild and under cultivation across the state's middle- and high-altitude valleys, historically for fibre, seed and resin.[citation needed]
Cannabis in Himachal Pradesh
Cannabis grows both wild and under cultivation across the middle- and high-altitude valleys of Himachal Pradesh, and the Kullu-Parvati area is known for its hand-rubbed resin, charas.[citation needed] The state has two traditions: a lower-altitude fibre-and-seed cultivation in the Mandi-district belt, grown from locally saved seed alongside wild stands and now largely ended by enforcement; and the high-valley resin tradition of Kullu, the Parvati valley and Malana, oriented to hand-rubbed charas.[3]
History
In the western Himalayan valleys the plant was grown from locally saved seed, known in the Mandi-district vernacular as bijo, for fibre and food alongside wild stands.[3] Household cultivation for fibre and seed continued in parts of the state until the mid-1990s, when stricter enforcement of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act curtailed it.[3] A state eradication drive in 2000 destroyed an estimated 80 per cent of the crop around Khalwahan in Mandi district, effectively ending open fibre-and-food cultivation there.[3] In the Manikaran valley of Kullu district an ethnobotanical survey carried out between 2015 and 2017 found the plant used for fibre, food, medicine and Shaiva ritual.[2]
Cultivation
The high valleys of Kullu district, principally the Parvati valley and the side valley of Malana, are the centre of a hand-rubbed resin tradition. Charas is produced by rubbing the resin from living or freshly cut flowering plants between the palms and working it into a pliable mass.[citation needed] The resin of the Malana area sells under the trade name "Malana Cream".[citation needed]
The landrace populations under cultivation in the Parvati and Kullu valleys are distinct from the wild and feral stands of the surrounding forest.[citation needed] Cultivation in these valleys is oriented to resin rather than to the fibre and seed of the lower Mandi-district belt.[3]
Wild Cannabis sativa is common in the middle-altitude forest and on the disturbed ground of the western Himalayan valleys.[citation needed]
Preparations and consumption
The main cannabis product of Himachal Pradesh is charas, the hand-rubbed resin of the Kullu and Parvati high valleys.[citation needed] In the Manikaran valley people also used the plant in other ways: seed oil applied for arthritis, leaf preparations used for wounds, joint pain and insect stings, and the roasted and ground seed (locally mangolu) used as a condiment and in the traditional dishes siddu and aaksalu.[2] Hemp fibre (locally shel) was retted in irrigation channels and worked into pullan footwear, rope and matting.[2]
Religious and cultural use
Cannabis figures in the Shaiva ritual life of the western Himalayan valleys. In the Manikaran valley of Kullu district a hemp offering, ghota, was prepared for Shiva at Shivaratri.[2]
Trade and commerce
Legal status
Cannabis in Himachal Pradesh is governed by the central Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, whose definition of cannabis covers charas, the resin separated from the plant, and ganja, its flowering or fruiting tops; seeds and leaves are excluded when they are not accompanied by the tops.[4] The central government's national drug policy holds that bhang, a preparation made from cannabis leaves, is not covered by the Act, and notes that many state governments permit its production and sale.[5]: para. 21 The Act leaves the cultivation of the cannabis plant to state governments, which may permit and regulate it by rules and may confine it to cultivators the state has licensed.[6][7]
From 2024 the state moved towards licensed cultivation. On 6 September 2024 the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly adopted, unanimously, a resolution accepting a committee report that recommended controlled cultivation of cannabis for non-narcotic, industrial and medicinal use. The committee, chaired by Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi and constituted during the 2023 Budget Session, visited every district of the state and examined cultivation models in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh before reporting.[8] On 24 January 2025 the state cabinet, under Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, approved a pilot study into the feasibility of medicinal and industrial cultivation, assigning it jointly to Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Agriculture University at Palampur in Kangra district and Dr Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture at Nauni in Solan district, with the state Agriculture Department as the nodal agency.[3] On 6 June 2026 the cabinet approved amendments to the state's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Rules, 1989, establishing a framework for the regulated cultivation, processing, storage and transport of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes.[9][10] Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi said on 20 June 2026 that medicinal cannabis would be produced through a regulated system similar to licensed opium cultivation in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and that only a limited number of licences would be issued at first.[11]
Growing Regions
Growing Areas
Accessions
Map
List
Conservation status
Himachal Pradesh sits within the South Asian Gene Pool, to which its landrace populations attach through the Western Himalayas growing region. The conservation value of these populations lies in their status as regionally adapted landraces under pressure from enforcement, market selection towards resin yield, and the prospective shift to a licensed cultivation regime.[citation needed]
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, Census of India 2011: Himachal Pradesh, Primary Census Abstract, Series 03, New Delhi: Government of India, 2013.[verification needed]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Rathore, S.; Shashni, S.; Samant, S.S.; Sundriyal, R.C. (2018). "Indigenous uses of wild hemp (Cannabis sativa) by the local inhabitants in Manikaran Valley of Himachal Pradesh, North Western Himalaya". Journal of Non-Timber Forest Products. 25 (3): 127–130. doi:10.54207/bsmps2000-2018-7393KF.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Bhagirath (28 January 2025). "Himachal Pradesh launches pilot project for cannabis farming to capitalise its medicinal and industrial value". Down to Earth.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 2(iii).India.
- ↑ Government of India, Department of Revenue. National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 16 October 2026 – via Central Bureau of Narcotics.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 10(1)(a)(iii).India.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 10(2).India.
- ↑ "Himachal assembly passes resolution for legal cannabis cultivation". DD News. 6 September 2024.
- ↑ Sourav, Saket (9 June 2026). "Himachal Pradesh approves regulated cannabis cultivation for medical use". LawStreet Journal.
- ↑ हिमाचल: भांग की खेती को एनडीपीएस नियमों में होगा संशोधन, हिमकेयर में बढ़ेगा बीमा कवर, जानें कैबिनेट के फैसले [Himachal: NDPS rules to be amended for cannabis cultivation, Himcare insurance cover to rise: the cabinet's decisions]. Amar Ujala (in हिन्दी). 6 June 2026.
- ↑ "Himachal Cabinet approves regulated cannabis farming; farmers to benefit from high-value crop: Jagat Singh Negi". Webindia123. Asian News International. 20 June 2026.