Jomotshangkha
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| Jomotshangkha | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Eastern Himalayas |
| Geography | |
| Country | Bhutan |
| Province/State | Samdrup Jongkhar District |
| Coordinates | 27.06, 91.94 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 575 km² |
| Terrain | Hill country of the Jomotshangkha sub-district where wild cannabis is uprooted and dried for sale; approximately Lauri and Serthig gewogs |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Jomotshangkha is a cannabis growing area in Bhutan, in the Jomotshangkha dungkhag (sub-district) of Samdrup Jongkhar District. It takes in the gewogs (village blocks) of Lauri and Serthig, where cannabis grows wild and villagers have long uprooted and dried it to sell across the border.[1][2] The area belongs to the Eastern Himalayas growing region.
Wild stands and harvest
"We don't cultivate marijuana. It grows of its own, whereby people uproot and dry it to sell in border areas for money," an official of Serthig gewog told The Bhutanese in May 2016. He said the practice went back to the time of the villagers' grandparents, and the paper's sources said that people in the gewog dried the plant both for use in the off season and for sale.[1] In 2023 BBS reported that the plant grew abundantly in both Lauri and Serthig.[3] Jay Wexler and Sonam Tshering, in a 2025 study of Bhutanese cannabis policy, write that wild cannabis grows abundantly in the two gewogs and has been a reliable source of income there.[4]: 99, 108
Trade
A villager told BBS in 2016 that the trade had gone on since his parents' time, when dried marijuana was bartered for rice and other necessities. He said that villagers had gone into it twenty years before because there was no other work and no road, and that many had stopped once they were told there were rules against it. A civil servant from Serthig said that he had paid for his schooling by selling it. A kilogram of the dried plant was said to fetch Rs 1,600–1,700 across the border, and students on holiday were paid Nu 30 a kilogram to carry it.[2] The load seized in May 2016 was on its way from Serthig to Tinali in Assam, and the Serthig official said that the villagers also dealt with people from Arunachal Pradesh, which lies close to the gewog.[1]
BBS's sources called trafficking "one of the key sources of income" for the villagers of Serthig in 2018, and the police said that the two men they arrested that year bought the plant from villagers and sold it across the border.[5] By 2023 people in the two gewogs said that the plant had once been a significant source of income.[3] That year the member of parliament for Jomotshangkha–Martshala asked in the National Assembly whether its cultivation could be legalised, since it had once been a source of income for the people of Jomotshangkha and Martshala.[6]
Seizures
Six men were held at Jomotshangkha in November 2012 with ten sacks of dried plants weighing more than 300 kg.[7] In May 2016 the police stopped a pick-up carrying 17 bags, about 680 kg, from Serthig, and by July that year the Jomotshangkha police had seized about 748 kg of dried marijuana from the two gewogs.[1][2] In 2018 two men were arrested with 83 kg at Jampani, about three kilometres from Jomotshangkha on the road to Serthig.[5] In 2019 a village representative (tshogpa) from Serthig was arrested over 133 kg hidden in the jungle about a kilometre from Jomotshangkha town.[8] BBS counted about 25 villagers of Lauri and Serthig arrested over marijuana trafficking in the five years to 2023.[3]
Calls for legal sale
At the Samdrup Jongkhar district council in 2023, local leaders decided to ask the National Assembly to legalise the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The head (gup) of Lauri, Jigme Tshewang, argued that the gewogs were remote and that a legal medicinal trade could help both the villagers and the country, and a resident of Lauri said that vegetables did not pay there for lack of markets.[3] In parliament the prime minister answered that the sale of cannabis could not be legalised.[6] Wexler and Tshering write that the push for legalisation is particularly strong in Lauri and Serthig.[4]: 99
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Pem, Damchoe (7 May 2016). "Man arrested for illicit trafficking of 680 kg of marijuana and its derivatives". The Bhutanese. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Few villagers of Samdrup Jongkhar still into marijuana smuggling". BBS. 18 July 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Wangchuk, Kinley (19 September 2023). "Samdrup Jongkhar local leaders call for marijuana legalisation for medicinal purposes". BBS. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Wexler, Jay D.; Tshering, Sonam (February 2025). "THC meets GNH: considering cannabis policy in Bhutan through a Gross National Happiness lens". The Journal of Gross National Happiness and Law. 2: 76–109. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Two arrested on charges of illicit trafficking of marijuana". BBS. 3 November 2018. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Dekar, Tashi (10 October 2023). "PM says no to legalising cannabis". BBS. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Six men arrested for possessing marijuana". BBS. 12 November 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Chiwog Tshogpa arrested in marijuana smuggling case". BBS. 20 September 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026.