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Kazakhstan

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Kazakhstan
Қазақстан (Qazaqstan)
Smirnov 137, gathered on a fallow by the lower Karatal in 1928 (Moscow University Herbarium)
Smirnov 137, gathered on a fallow by the lower Karatal in 1928 (Moscow University Herbarium)
Capital Astana
Continent Asia
Subregion Central Asia
Cannabis Status
Legal Status Illegal (industrial hemp licensed)
Status Since 2025
Enforcement Wild stands mown and burned each summer; penalties graded by weight
Documentation
Growing Regions 2
Growing Areas 4
Accessions 26
Conservation
Populations none documented yet


Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia where cannabis grows wild across the south and east, above all in the Shu Valley of Jambyl Region, the Chu or Chui valley of Russian and United Nations sources. In 2008 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) counted Kazakhstan the largest producer of cannabis in Central Asia, the source of 97 per cent of the cannabis sold in the region.[1] Estimates of the wild area run from 62,000 hectares, in a new map of the Shu Valley drawn up in 2023,[2] to as much as 400,000 hectares for the valley alone in the UNODC's World Drug Report 2006.[3]: 166 Each year the police operation Қарасора (Qarasora) mows and burns the stands.[4][5]

An Early Iron Age settlement at Karakuys in East Kazakhstan has yielded 30 hemp seeds.[6] In the 19th century wild hemp grew along the Irtysh and in the foothills of Semirechye,[7][8] where Russian and Dungan settlers sowed hemp for its oil and fibre.[9] As amended in 1987, the criminal code of the Kazakh SSR named South Chuy hemp among the kinds whose sowing was a crime.[10]

Cannabis is controlled under Law No. 279 of 1998 on narcotic drugs and the Criminal Code of 2014. Its medical use is prohibited.[11][12] Since 2025 licensed legal entities may grow approved varieties of industrial hemp containing up to 0.3 per cent THC in dry matter.[13]

Geography

A herbarium sheet on grey paper with two long leafy cannabis stems bearing palmate leaves, with typed slips over a printed label at the lower right.
Astapova 140, gathered on 14 June 1931 in a steppe hollow between sand ridges in the Moiynkum sands near Akyrtobe and labelled Cannabis ruderalis Janisch.

A UNODC survey of 1999 found cannabis growing wild and in cultivation in Jambyl (49,680 hectares), East Kazakhstan (10,993), West Kazakhstan (8,598), Almaty (2,410) and Atyrau (366). In 2008 the UNODC wrote that cannabis grew wild throughout southern Kazakhstan, most of all in the Shu Valley, and that Jambyl's cannabis had a higher THC content, which traffickers preferred.[1] The valley lies in Jambyl Region and in the Chüy Region of Kyrgyzstan.[14] By the estimate of scientists of the Kazakh Research Institute of Plant Protection and Quarantine, weedy hemp covered more than 130,000 hectares on the Kazakh side. On route surveys of the Shu massif they found 100 or more stems per square metre on about 5,000 hectares, a tenth of the area surveyed, in patches of no more than 1.5 hectares.[15]

The plant prefers light sandy and sandy-loam soils. Its largest and densest thickets grow on former ploughland, along river banks and on ground trampled by stock near sheepfolds and wells. On weakly saline soils, especially in the hollows between sand ridges, plants reach 2.5 to 3 metres and stand up to 150 to the square metre. The growing season lasts 120 to 150 days on meadow sierozem soils and 150 to 200 days on sand.[15] On the desert pastures of the Moiynkum sands, wild hemp infests the grazing land. Soil scientists have tested herbicides against it, with fodder grasses sown afterwards.[16][17]

Further east, on the right-bank floodplain of the lower Ili, weedy hemp grew in seven plant communities among tamarisk, poplar, grasses and wormwood, as an occasional plant, a subdominant or the dominant one. On a stock route by a watering place 50 metres from the river, where overgrazing had broken the soil, it dominated a community with cocklebur and wormwood.[18] It has also been found in the herb layer of a Rosa iliensis community on the Ili below the Kapchagay dam[19] and in the Populus pruinosa woodlands of the middle Ili.[20] In the centre of the country, in Karaganda Region, it has been gathered on roadsides, waste ground, pasture and open steppe.[21]

When the Flora of the USSR was published in 1936, Cannabis ruderalis grew in two floristic districts of Soviet Central Asia, around Lake Balkhash and in the Tian Shan, "very often as a field weed".[22] The national checklist of native vascular plants published in 2026 counts Cannabis sativa subsp. sativa, with C. ruderalis as a synonym, as native in every floristic region and subregion of Kazakhstan.[23] The companion checklist of alien plants lists C. sativa subsp. indica as introduced in two regions, the Ile Alatau and the Kyrgyz Alatau.[24]

Demographics

Communities with cannabis relationships

At the end of the 19th century the settled farmers of the Semirechye Oblast grew hemp as an oil crop. The Russians sowed sunflower, hemp and flax; the Dungans sowed flax, hemp, mustard, rapeseed, sesame and poppy. The fibre of hemp and flax was spun and made into arkan ropes. The oils were eaten and burned for light.[9]

In 1890 the "Kirghiz", as Russian writers of the time called the Kazakhs, used the fibre of kendyr, the dogbane Apocynum, only for very strong ropes; the fibre was beaten out in the same way as hemp. On the shores of Lake Balkhash its stems reached four arshin or more.[25]

The police operations in the Shu Valley aim to stop people harvesting the wild crop and carrying it out of the valley.[26][4] Shu hemp is seized from couriers in Kazakhstan and in Russia.[27]

Agriculture

In 1857 the Russian settlement of Lepsinsk, with 440 houses, had 30 desyatinas under flax and one under hemp, with excellent yields of both.[8] In 1896 the whole Semirechye Oblast, which then also took in the Pishpek district of today's Kyrgyzstan, harvested 15,885 pud of hemp against 51,236 of flax.[9] In Russian Turkestan as a whole, hemp was grown as an oil plant at the turn of the century, and its fibre had little use beyond rope.[28]

In the Shu Valley the wild plant lowers the forage value of the grass.[15] Kazakh plant-protection and soil institutes have studied herbicides and the sowing of fodder grasses as ways to restore infested desert pastures.[16][17] Plans to process the wild hemp industrially came to nothing. A foundation stone for a hemp-processing plant was laid in the southern industrial zone of the town of Shu in 2004; construction was postponed indefinitely in 2009. The plant was never built.[4]

Industrial hemp became legal to grow under licence in 2025. By April 2025, when the Mazhilis was considering the hemp bill, four licences for industrial production had been issued.[29] The list of permitted varieties approved in September 2025 had 218 entries.[30]

Cannabis in Kazakhstan

A Kazakh-language review of 2026 calls the plant қарасора (qarasora) and names кенеп (kenep, canvas), with rope and industrial thread, among the goods made from its fibre.[31] The Kazakh summaries of a botanical paper and an archaeological one write кендір (kendir) for cannabis.[18][6] The Russian word кендырь (kendyr) names a different fibre plant, the dogbane Apocynum, which grows wild on the river banks of Central Asia.[32] In 1895 A. Kulyasov, a teacher at a Russian-Kirghiz school in the Ural district, sent Moscow a herbarium sheet of hemp under its local name, киндер шагыр (kinder shagyr), marked Kirghiz. Hemp grew wild everywhere there on weedy ground.[33]

History

Main article: History of cannabis in Kazakhstan

Archaeological finds

Flotation of soil samples from Early Iron Age Karakuys in East Kazakhstan recovered 30 hemp seeds, 1.3 to 1.5 by 3 to 4 millimetres, with ribwort plantain and grains of soft wheat. The excavators take the hemp and the plantain to be wild plants with medicinal properties, and the finds near the hearth to show that plants were used for food and medicine.[6] At the Urdzhar kurgan, also in East Kazakhstan, a woman was buried alone in a stone cist. Clearing the burial layer by layer, the excavators recovered many plant remains, among them 11 achenes that the authors assign, probably, to Cannabis.[34]

Biogeographers have placed the origin of cannabis in "Central Asia", mainly on the evidence of where wild-type plants grow. A synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies by John McPartland and colleagues placed it instead on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau.[35] A whole-genome study of 2021 found a single domestication of Cannabis sativa in East Asia, with feral plants from Central Asia falling within one of the hemp-type groups.[36] A review of cannabis remains across Eurasia called for more well-dated evidence, especially from southern Russia and Central Asia.[37]

Naturalists and settlers under the Russian Empire (1840–1917)

A herbarium sheet with a single dense, plume-like cannabis top bearing many narrow leaves, a printed label and a typed slip at the lower right.
Karelin & Kirilov 1043, issued with a printed label that gives two habitats, meadows by the Irtysh and the sands by Lake Zaysan.

In 1840 G. S. Karelin and I. P. Kirilov gathered cannabis, which grew frequently in the meadows along the Irtysh and also on the desert sands at Lake Noor-Saissan, today's Zaysan.[7] Alphonse de Candolle wrote in 1885 that the species had been found wild "beyond a doubt" near the Irtysh and in the "desert of Kirghiz", which McPartland glosses as the Kazakh steppe.[38]

On his journey to the Tian Shan in 1857, Pyotr Semenov listed Cannabis sativa in the flora of the foothills around Arasan and Kopal, which he visited from 3 to 8 May. In July he found wild hemp in a belt of vegetation above the valley of the Chilik.[8] McPartland and Ernest Small figure an achene from a sheet he collected in the Kailiyskiy Alatau in 1857, held in St Petersburg.[39]

Botanists of the early 20th century reported wild hemp from across the steppe. Nikolai Vavilov brought their finds together in 1926: wild hemp in the Turgay and Ural oblasts; on river banks and in valleys of the Zaysan district and the Akmola oblast; in the Semipalatinsk and Syr-Darya oblasts, the last from the Aulie-Ata district around today's Taraz. He proposed to treat the wild form, whose fruits are about one and a half times smaller than those of cultivated hemp, as Cannabis sativa var. spontanea.[40]

Around 1900, in the governor-generalship of Turkestan, which then included the Syr-Darya and Semirechye oblasts, hemp was grown as an oil plant and its flowering parts were made into гашиш (hashish) and smoked with tobacco.[28]

Soviet botany and law (1920–1991)

V. I. Smirnov, on an expedition of 1928 led by N. V. Pavlov, gathered Smirnov 137 on 21 June 1928 on a one-year fallow, on ground where millet had been sown, on the second terrace of the lower Karatal.[41] In 1931 T. Astapova gathered a sheet in the Moiynkum sands near Akyrtobe, labelled Cannabis ruderalis Janisch.,[42] the name Dmitri Janischewsky had given in 1924 to a weedy hemp of the Saratov region.[43] The Flora of the USSR kept C. ruderalis as a species. The plant's fibre was of high quality and already in industrial use, but the Flora called the plant "a noxious weed".[22]

A decree of 27 October 1934 banned the sowing of opium poppy and Indian hemp across the Soviet Union, except in state-run crops for medical use.[44] In its article 213, the criminal code of the Kazakh SSR, approved on 22 July 1959, punished the sowing or growing of opium poppy and of «индийской, южной маньчжурской, южной чуйской, южной архонской и южной краснодарской конопли» (Indian, South Manchurian, South Chuy, South Arkhon and South Krasnodar hemp) with up to five years' imprisonment. An article added in 1987 punished the illegal sowing of oil poppy and of other hemp when repeated within a year of an administrative penalty.[10] Temporary instructions for the control of weedy hemp were issued at Alma-Ata in 1990.[15] A report of 1991 dealt with controlling weedy hemp in the desert zone of Dzhambul region.[17]

Independent Kazakhstan (since 1991)

Kazakhstan acceded on 29 April 1997 to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 convention against illicit traffic.[45][46][47] Its law on narcotic drugs followed on 10 July 1998.[11] After drug use was decriminalised in 2011, the number of reported drug offences fell to below half that of the year before.[48]

In January 2014 the interior minister told the Mazhilis that his ministry was looking for a way to contain and destroy the wild hemp under the agriculture ministry's programme. Dariga Nazarbayeva, a member of the Mazhilis, proposed using the valley's hemp for medicine.[14] In December 2020 Kazakhstan voted against the decision of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the Single Convention.[49] Industrial hemp was legalised in 2025 (see Legal status).

Cultivation

A review of 2014 found Kazakhstan's drug seizures by far the largest in post-Soviet Central Asia; wild cannabis made up 90 per cent of them.[48] The UNODC estimated in 2006 that the Shu Valley's wild stands could yield 6,000 tons, of which about 500 tons were harvested.[3]: 166 Sown crops are also found: Kazakh authorities detected 276 cases of illicit cannabis cultivation in 2022, 16 per cent more than the year before.[50]: 115 The interior ministry said in 2024 that "Indian" and "Dutch" hemp high in THC had been grown in Kyzylorda Region since 2014. For ten years the ministry had flown helicopter searches against them.[51]

Wild-type plants

Badaev and Boltaev call the Shu plant Cannabis ruderalis and describe it as differing from cultivated hemp in stable characters of form and biology.[15] McPartland and Small assign herbarium specimens of a wild-type phenotype from north-western Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Xinjiang to Cannabis sativa subsp. indica var. asperrima. They trace wild-type plants along an arc of mountains in Central and South Asia, from the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan to the Himalaya. Outliers in other floristic regions they take to be naturalised escapes. Truly wild plants, they add, are hard to tell from cultivated ones that have reverted to a wild type.[39] Karl Hillig's allozyme survey of 157 accessions found a third putative gene pool in the ruderal populations of Central Asia.[52]

K. N. Sarsenbaev and E. S. Boribay, who worked on medicinal extracts with the German firm THC Pharm, report that Shu hemp usually contains 2 to 8 per cent THC, and describe stands high in cannabidiol and a great many populations in the valley with different combinations of cannabinoids.[53] Badaev and Boltaev and the authors of the herbicide trials in the Moiynkum call the plant a high-cannabinoid form.[15][17]

Germplasm

Kazakh seed entered the collection of the Vavilov Institute in St Petersburg. In 1998 the institute held 12 Kazakh accessions among its 496 cannabis accessions.[54] Accession 484 is named "Alma-Ata, Dikorastushchaya" (wild-growing).[55] Accession 413, a local form from East Kazakhstan, was among the earliest-maturing female lines in the institute's trials at Pushkin and Pavlovsk.[56] The three Kazakh genomes in the domestication study of 2021 came from plants of accession VIR 469,[57][36] an accession named "Kazakhskaya" in the institute's report of 1995.[58]

Other genetic studies have included Kazakh material: two Kazakh accessions among 199 in a Chinese marker study,[59] a diploid accession in a survey of genome size[60] and plants that a phylogeographic study grouped with those of Europe, Russia, north-western China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and western Mongolia.[61]

Preparations and consumption

The national control list distinguishes marijuana, the dried or undried flowering tops and leaves; cannabis resin, the separated resin; and cannabis extract, called гашишное масло (hashish oil), a concentrate made with an organic solvent or a vegetable oil.[12] In the first four months of 2025 the police seized about two tonnes of marijuana and 303 kilograms of hashish.[62] In 2013 hashish fetched about 2,000 dollars a kilogram at Karaganda prices; prices in Russia were higher.[26]

Sarsenbaev and Boribay describe a sieve method for medicinal extracts. Leaf trichomes chilled to 0–4 °C broke away and were passed through sieves of 100 and 40 microns, giving an extract that, they report, held 60 per cent THC, 9 per cent CBD and 10 per cent CBN, from plant "dust" gathered in the Shu Valley at the end of September.[53]

Trade and commerce

By the estimate of the Dublin Group's regional report of 2012, about 97 per cent of the marijuana sold in Central Asia came from Kazakhstan, the wild stands of the Shu Valley covered 140,000 hectares, and they could produce 5,000 to 6,000 tons of hashish a year.[63] Marijuana and hashish from the Shu Valley move to the northern regions of Kazakhstan and on to the border regions of Russia.[64] Sergei Golunov counted parts of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, above all the Chu (Shu) valley, among the large suppliers of cannabis to Russia.[65] Russian authorities told the UNODC that 15 per cent of the herbal cannabis consumed in Russia came from Kazakhstan and Ukraine.[3]: 166 In the view of the International Narcotics Control Board in 2023, cannabis produced in Central Asia goes mainly to domestic markets, with limited amounts trafficked to Russia and sometimes to Europe.[50]: 115

By a press estimate of 2013, the valley's hemp amounted to about 24,000 tonnes of plant material, enough for 4,600 tonnes of marijuana. The heaviest load of dried marijuana that anyone had tried to carry out of the valley that year weighed 1,600 kilograms.[26]

Law No. 279 of 10 July 1998 governs narcotic drugs. Licensed legal entities may cultivate plants containing narcotic drugs for industrial, medical, educational and scientific purposes within a quota set by the government. The cultivation of opium poppy, coca and cannabis to make narcotic medicines is prohibited, except for scientific and teaching use. Legal entities without a licence, and citizens who own or use land on which such plants grow, must destroy them.[11] Cannabis is in the first table of the national control list, among the drugs whose medical use is prohibited. The list defines the cannabis plant as any plant of the genus containing THC, with seeds excepted unless they come with the plant or its parts.[12] Commenting on the vote of December 2020 at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the foreign ministry pointed to Kazakhstan's strict ban on trade in cannabis and its derivatives.[49]

The Criminal Code of 3 July 2014 grades penalties by quantity.[66] A government decree of 2019, its table restated in 2026, sets the amounts: for dried marijuana, 0.5 to 50 grams is a small amount; over 50 and up to 1,000 grams, a large one; over 1,000 grams, an especially large one.[12] Possession of an especially large amount without intent to sell carries three to seven years' imprisonment. Acquisition, storage or transport for sale carries five to eight years with confiscation of property. The sowing or growing of prohibited plants, varieties of hemp among them, is punishable by a fine of up to 2,000 monthly calculation indices or by up to two years' restriction of liberty or imprisonment, among other penalties.[66] Non-medical use that does not amount to a crime has been an administrative offence since 2025, with a fine of 40 monthly calculation indices or ten days' arrest. Failure to destroy wild hemp in crops, orchards, field margins, irrigation networks and road and railway verges after an official order is also an administrative offence.[67]

Industrial hemp became legal through a law of 30 June 2025, which added three paragraphs on hemp to Article 22 of the 1998 law. The government sets the permitted varieties and the rules for cultivation, THC content and processing.[68] Decrees of September and November 2025 approved the list of varieties,[69] the conditions of cultivation[13] and the rules for processing.[70] Crops are grown only under licence and may contain up to 0.3 per cent THC in dry matter; seed of the second and later generations may not be sown. Industrial crops must lie at least 300 metres from settlements, public roads and other crops; seed crops must lie at least two kilometres away. Crops over the THC limit are destroyed.[13] A decree of April 2026 restated the variety list and the distance rules.[71] In August 2026 the interior ministry published for consultation a draft law that would remove from the Criminal Code two provisions punishing drug use.[72]

Enforcement

The police run a seasonal operation against the wild crop each year. The operation Мак (Poppy) usually lasted one and a half to two months; in 2007 it was extended, and it opened with a briefing at Shu on 25 May. In 2006, of 23 tonnes of marijuana seized, more than seven had been taken in Jambyl Region.[27] A special unit for the valley, Delta-Dolina, was formed in 2007.[73] By 2013 the operation, also called Кокнар, ran from early summer to 1 November. Anatoly Vyborov, head of the interior ministry's anti-drug committee, said that about 30 tonnes of drugs were seized each year, most of them marijuana and hashish from the Shu Valley.[26]

The operation has been called Қарасора since at least 2020, when the police mowed the wild hemp in one forestry district and burned it.[64] By 10 September 2022 it had destroyed 107.9 tonnes on 212 hectares.[74] In 2024, when it ran nationwide from 1 June to 31 October, more than 100 tonnes were destroyed on more than 380 hectares of the Shu district.[75] In 2025, 4,500 hectares were mown in the zones bordering the sands and more than 3,000 tonnes burned.[76] By early July 2026 the work had covered 110 hectares and destroyed 71 tonnes.[5] Badaev and Boltaev found that measures which break the turf, among them burning the clumps, are followed the next year by a catastrophic increase in hemp.[15] A study of 2001 reported biological control of feral hemp in Kazakhstan with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cannabis.[77]

A topographic survey of 1989 found wild hemp on 138,000 hectares, most of them in the Merke and Shu districts; the interior ministry still used the figure in 2023.[4] In 2009 the UNODC estimated the Shu Valley's wild and cultivated area at more than 300,000 hectares.[78] Kazakhstan's delegate to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs cited 140,000 hectares in 2020,[79] and the Jambyl police more than 148,000 hectares in 2022.[73] A new map drawn up in 2023, the first in more than 30 years and checked against aerial images, found 62,000 hectares, with the stands shifted from the Merke district towards the Ryskulov district.[2]

Seizures of cannabis-type drugs rose from 27.8 tonnes in 2010 to 33.6 tonnes in 2011.[63] In the ten years to 2024 the interior ministry destroyed more than 230 tonnes of cannabis-type drugs; seizures were highest, about 30 tonnes a year, in 2015–2017 and have fallen since 2019.[51] Pre-trial investigations under the first two parts of Article 296 of the Criminal Code, public use and small amounts, fell from 4,602 in 2020 to 2,993 in 2025.[72]

Growing Regions

Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki:

Region
Moyynkum
Tian Shan (growing region)

Growing Areas

Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:

Growing AreaHas growing region
Chu ValleyTian Shan (growing region)
Kyzylorda
Lower Ili
Turkestan (growing area)

Accessions

Map

List

Accession IDNameCollectedArea
Anon. s.n., Akyrtobe (1934)Anonymous herbarium specimen, Akyrtobe, Moyynkum desert, Jambyl Region, Kazakhstan (1934)
Anon. s.n., Atyrau (1895)Herbarium specimen of the head of the Guryev navigation classes, environs of Atyrau, Kazakhstan (1895)
Astapova 140 (1931)Astapova 140 herbarium specimen, Muyunkum near Akyrtobe, Jambyl, Kazakhstan (1931)
Bykov 142 (1928)Bykov 142 herbarium specimen, Taldy-Kurgan uezd, Kazakhstan (1928)
Dmitrieva s.n., Fedulev (1929)Dmitrieva herbarium specimen, Fedulev settlement, Ural okrug, Kazakhstan (1929)
Gremiatschensky s.n., Inder (by 1855)Gremiatschensky herbarium specimen, Inder hills, Kazakhstan (by 1855)
Gubanov 843 (1958)Gubanov 843 herbarium specimen, Moyynkum sands 60 km east of Taraz, Jambyl Region, Kazakhstan (1958)
Karelin & Kirilov 1043 (1840)Karelin & Kirilov 1043 herbarium specimen, Irtysh meadows or lake Zaysan, Kazakhstan (1840)
Kartasheva s.n., Aksuat (1957)Kartasheva herbarium specimen, ditch in Aksuat, Mendykara District, Kostanay Region, Kazakhstan (1957)
Krasnoborov 147 (1988)Krasnoborov 147 herbarium specimen, Prokhodnaya valley near Alma-Arasan, Almaty, Kazakhstan (1988)
Kulyasov 183 (1895)Kulyasov 183 herbarium specimen, Ural uezd, Kazakhstan (1895)
Leschina s.n., Ubagan (1956)Leschina herbarium specimen, Shcherbakov state farm, Ubagan raion, Kostanay Region, Kazakhstan (1956)
Nazarov 13038 (1930)Nazarov 13038 herbarium specimen, Syr Darya near Terenozek, Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan (1930)
Pavlov 9 (1943)Pavlov 9 herbarium specimen, Kaskelen mouth at Iliysk, Almaty Region, Kazakhstan (1943)
RLB-KAZ-JAM-0120190001Kazakh Ruderalis General Population 2019
RSC-KAZ-JAM-01201900012019 RSC Kazakh Ruderalis Feral Reproduction
Rodin 1299 (1931)Rodin 1299 herbarium specimen, Ketmen range, Almaty Region, Kazakhstan (1931)
Skvortsov s.n., Enbekshi (1985)Skvortsov herbarium specimen, Enbekshi on the Usek, Panfilov District, Jetisu Region, Kazakhstan (1985)
Smirnov 1025 (1928)Smirnov 1025 herbarium specimen, Kyzylagash to Kapal road, Jetisu, Kazakhstan (1928)
Smirnov 137 (1928)Smirnov 137 herbarium specimen, fallow on the lower Karatal, Jetisu, Kazakhstan (1928)
Smirnov 919 (1928)Smirnov 919 herbarium specimen, lower Karatal, Jetisu, Kazakhstan (1928)
Smirnov 921 (1928)Smirnov 921 herbarium specimen, lower Karatal, Jetisu, Kazakhstan (1928)
Smirnov 922 (1928)Smirnov 922 herbarium specimen, lower Karatal, Jetisu, Kazakhstan (1928)
Titov s.n. (1920)Titov herbarium specimen, Dzharkent uezd, Kazakhstan (1920)
Voronov 10 (1932)Voronov 10 herbarium specimen, Irtysh slope near Oskemen, Kazakhstan (1932)
Voronov 403 (1933)Voronov 403 herbarium specimen, Kumsay, upper Or, Aktobe, Kazakhstan (1933)

Conservation status

Cannabis sativa counts among the crop wild relatives of the Kazakh Tien Shan and has been recorded in the floristic district of the Kungei and Terskei Alatau and the Ketmen. Kazakhstan had no seed bank for crop wild relatives until a programme run by the botanists who listed them set out to create such banks in botanical gardens.[80] Kazakh seed survives in the Vavilov Institute,[54] whose collection is considered the largest of cannabis genetic resources in Europe; lack of funding is thought to have compromised its regeneration and cost it unique diversity.[81]

In 2025 the police mowed 4,500 hectares of the wild stands.[76] Herbicides have been tested and proposed against them.[16][14] McPartland and Small called the collection and conservation of germplasm of indigenous Central and South Asian landraces in their centres of diversity "urgently needed".[39]

Recent news

ArticleDateCategory
News:2026-07-08/Eradication/police-stop-a-car-on-the-bakanas-topar-road-in-balkhash-district-then-mow-1-27-tonnes-of-wild-cannabis-at-theEradication
News:2025-09-05/Eradication/police-cut-and-destroy-over-8-000-wild-cannabis-bushes-on-over-20-hectares-in-ulan-and-zaysan-districts-east-kEradication
News:2025-08-17/Eradication/police-find-233-cannabis-bushes-among-maize-on-a-4-5-hectare-farm-in-enbekshikazakh-district-in-karasora-2025Eradication
News:2025-07-19/Eradication/prosecutors-find-six-hectares-of-wild-cannabis-at-kyzylshekara-in-raiymbek-district-almaty-region-and-destroyEradication
News:2024-08-05/Eradication/prosecutors-and-shelek-police-find-over-5-hectares-of-wild-cannabis-in-enbekshikazakh-district-almaty-regionEradication
News:2024-07-30/Eradication/sayram-district-police-seize-281-cannabis-bushes-from-the-yard-of-a-51-year-old-residentEradication
News:2023-10-16/Eradication/police-find-indian-cannabis-between-rows-of-a-15-hectare-apple-orchard-near-turgen-almaty-region-and-seize-oveEradication
News:2023-10-09/Eradication/interior-ministry-reports-65-cultivated-cannabis-plantations-eliminated-in-kyzylorda-turkestan-and-alatau-regiEradication
News:2023-09-11/Eradication/police-mow-a-five-kilometre-field-of-wild-hemp-in-zaysan-district-east-kazakhstan-region-and-burn-2-5-tonnesEradication
News:2023-08-28/Eradication/police-use-drones-to-find-a-cannabis-plantation-in-balkhash-district-almaty-region-and-destroy-over-5-tonnesEradication
... further results

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 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.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "В Чуйской долине вдвое уменьшилась площадь прорастания дикорастущей конопли". BES.media (in русский). Interfax-Kazakhstan. 28 May 2024. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006). World Drug Report 2006. Volume 1: Analysis (PDF) (Report). United Nations. ISBN 92-1-148214-3.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Скрипник, Г. (29 August 2023). "Как в Казахстане появилась индийская конопля и что из нее можно сделать". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Поляков, А. (9 July 2026). "Более 70 тонн дикорастущей конопли ликвидировали в Жамбылской области". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Zharylgassynova, B.; Duisenbay, D. (2026). "Agricultural culture of the Karakuys settlement: based on archaeobotanical materials of the Early Iron Age". Otan tarikhy. 29 (3): 1405–1417. doi:10.51943/2788-9718_2026_29_3_1405-1417.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Occurrence 1928042850: Cannabis sativa var. spontanea Vavilov". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, P.P. (1946). Мемуары. Том 2: Путешествие в Тянь-Шань в 1856–1857 годах (in русский). Moscow: OGIZ – via Wikisource.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Семиреченская область". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XXIX. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1900. pp. 457–461 – via Wikisource.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Уголовный кодекс Казахской ССР, 22 July 1959, arts. 212-1 and 213, as worded by the Ukaz of 30 July 1987.Kazakh SSR.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 О наркотических средствах, психотропных веществах, их аналогах и прекурсорах и мерах противодействия их незаконному обороту и злоупотреблению ими(Закон Республики Казахстан No. 279), 10 July 1998, arts. 21 and 22.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Об утверждении Списка наркотических средств, психотропных веществ и прекурсоров, подлежащих контролю в Республике Казахстан, Сводной таблицы об отнесении наркотических средств, психотропных веществ, их аналогов и прекурсоров, обнаруженных в незаконном обороте, к небольшим, крупным и особо крупным размерам, Списка заместителей атомов водорода, галогенов и (или) гидроксильных групп в структурных формулах наркотических средств, психотропных веществ(Постановление Правительства Республики Казахстан No. 470), 3 July 2019.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Об утверждении требований к условиям культивирования и определению допустимого содержания тетрагидроканнабинола в растении конопли (каннабиса), разрешенном к культивированию в промышленных целях, не связанных с производством или изготовлением наркотических средств и психотропных веществ(Постановление Правительства Республики Казахстан No. 797), 26 September 2025, paras 2, 4, 5 and 7.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "Cannabis valley in Kazakhstan to be destroyed with herbicides". Tengrinews. 9 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 Badaev, E.A.; Boltaev, M.D. (2013). "Каннабиноидная сорная конопля Шуской долины". Защита и карантин растений (in русский) (3): 32–34.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Kukenov, M.K.; Demeuov, S.N.; Zharokova, R.G. (2008). "Современное состояние и агроэкологическая оценка использования гербицидов в борьбе с дикорастущей наркосодержащей коноплей сорной". Почвоведение и агрохимия (in русский) (2): 72–78.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Zharokova, R.G.; Demeuov, S.N. (2008). "Гербициды как метод наиболее быстрого восстановления продуктивности законопляных кормовых угодий на пустынных пастбищах массива «Мойынкум»". Почвоведение и агрохимия (in русский) (3): 60–66.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Kasymbekov, B.K.; Faleev, D.G. (2014). "Арбускулярная микориза ассоциированная с Cannabis ruderalis Janisch предгорий Заилийского Алатау". Вестник КазНУ. Серия экологическая (in русский) (1/1 (40)): 281–284.
  19. ↑ Childibayeva, A.; Ametov, A.; Kurbatova, N.V.; Akhmetova, A.; Tynybekov, B.M.; Mukanova, G.A. (2022). "Structural characteristics of Rosa iliensis Chrshan. under conditions of the floodplains of the rivers Ili and Sharyn". Journal of Ecological Engineering. 23 (1): 296–304. doi:10.12911/22998993/143943.
  20. ↑ Stikhareva, T.; Ivashchenko, A.; Kirillov, V.; Rakhimzhanov, A. (2021). "Floristic diversity of threatened woodlands of Kazakhstan formed by Populus pruinosa Schrenk". Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry. 45 (2): 165–178. doi:10.3906/tar-2006-70.
  21. ↑ "Herbarium of Karaganda Buketov University (QAR)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. doi:10.15468/3asvbx. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Komarov, V.L., ed. (1970) [1936]. Flora of the U.S.S.R. Vol. 5. Translated by N. Landau. Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations. pp. 302–304 – via Internet Archive.
  23. ↑ Kubentayev, S.; et al. (2026). "Checklist of native vascular plants of Kazakhstan". GBIF. Astana International University. doi:10.15468/m75hmd. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  24. ↑ Alibekov, D.; et al. (2026). "Checklist of alien vascular plants of Kazakhstan". GBIF. Astana International University. doi:10.15468/tz64jk. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  25. ↑ "Апоцинум". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. Ia. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1890. pp. 917–918 – via Wikisource.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 "Полет в «чудную» долину (фото)". Zakon.kz (in русский). 15 August 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "ЧУдная долина". Caravan.kz (in русский). 30 May 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 "Туркестан". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XXXIV. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1901. pp. 174–203 – via Wikisource.
  29. ↑ Кущанова, К. (16 April 2025). "Разрешить выращивать некоторые виды конопли предложили в Казахстане". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  30. ↑ Кущанова, К. (24 September 2025). "В Казахстане определены сорта конопли для промышленного использования". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  31. ↑ Yekibayeva, G.N. (2026). "Қарасораны Қазақстанда өсірудің мүмкіндіктері мен ғылыми зерттеу бағыттары". Yessenov Science Journal (in қазақша) (2 (55)): 152–157. doi:10.56525/OPAN7608.
  32. ↑ "Кендырь". Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона (in русский). Vol. XIVa. St Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron. 1895. p. 932 – via Wikisource.
  33. ↑ "Specimen MW0818721: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  34. ↑ Nigmatova, S.A.; Baitanaev, B.A. (2019). "Карпологический анализ материалов кургана Урджар". Археология Казахстана (in русский) (4 (6)): 64–78. doi:10.52967/akz2019.4.6.64.78.
  35. ↑ McPartland, J.M.; Hegman, W.; Long, T. (2019). "Cannabis in Asia: its center of origin and early cultivation, based on a synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies". Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. 28 (6): 691–702. doi:10.1007/s00334-019-00731-8.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 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.
  37. ↑ Long, Tengwen; Wagner, Mayke; Demske, Dieter; Leipe, Christian; Tarasov, Pavel E. (2017). "Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections". Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. 26 (2): 245–258. doi:10.1007/s00334-016-0579-6.
  38. ↑ McPartland, J.M. (2018). "Cannabis systematics at the levels of family, genus, and species". Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. 3 (1): 203–212. doi:10.1089/can.2018.0039.
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 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.
  40. ↑ Vavilov, N.I. (1926). Центры происхождения культурных растений [Studies on the origin of cultivated plants] (in русский). Leningrad: Всесоюзный институт прикладной ботаники и новых культур. pp. 107–121 – via Internet Archive.
  41. ↑ "Specimen MW0818736: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  42. ↑ "Specimen MW0818731: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  43. ↑ Janischewsky, D.E. (1924). "Forma konopli na sornykh mestakh v Yugovostochnoi Rossii". Uchenye Zapiski Saratovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. 2 (2): 3–17.
  44. ↑ Danilov, V.V. (2015). "История и нормативно-правовое регулирование оборота наркотических средств и наркопреступности в СССР и России в XX веке". Мир науки и образования (in русский) (3).
  45. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  46. ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  47. ↑ "United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 19. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Zábranský, T.; Mravčík, V.; Talu, A.; Jasaitis, E. (2014). "Post-Soviet Central Asia: a summary of the drug situation". International Journal of Drug Policy. 25 (6): 1186–1194. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.05.004.
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 "Казахстан не поддержал решение ООН об исключении каннабиса из списка особо опасных наркотиков". Informburo (in русский). 7 December 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 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.
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 Макаров, А. (19 August 2024). "Министерство внутренних дел Казахстана представило многолетние данные". Bizmedia.kz (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  52. ↑ Hillig, K.W. (2005). "Genetic evidence for speciation in Cannabis (Cannabaceae)". Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. 52 (2): 161–180. doi:10.1007/s10722-003-4452-y.
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Sarsenbaev, K.N.; Boribay, E.S. (2014). "Современные методы получения медицинских препаратов из конопли". Вестник Казахского Национального медицинского университета (in русский) (4): 288–292.
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 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.
  55. ↑ 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.
  56. ↑ Grigoryev, S.V. (2018). "Новые источники селекционно значимых признаков конопли из коллекции ВИР". Труды по прикладной ботанике, генетике и селекции (in русский). 179 (4): 50–57. doi:10.30901/2227-8834-2018-4-50-57.
  57. ↑ "BioProject PRJNA734114: Cannabis sativa whole genome resequencing reads". NCBI BioProject. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  58. ↑ Kutuzova, S.; Rumyantseva, L.; Clarke, R.C. (1996). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1995". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 3 (1): 10–12.
  59. ↑ 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.
  60. ↑ Balant, M.; Rodríguez González, R.; Garcia, S.; Garnatje, T.; Pellicer, J.; Vallès, J.; Vitales, D.; Hidalgo, O. (2022). "Novel insights into the nature of intraspecific genome size diversity in Cannabis sativa L." Plants. 11 (20) 2736. doi:10.3390/plants11202736.
  61. ↑ 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.
  62. ↑ "Тонны наркотиков изъяли с начала 2025 года в Казахстане – МВД РК". Inbusiness.kz (in русский). 12 May 2025. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  63. ↑ 63.0 63.1 Council of the European Union (23 May 2012). Regional report on Central Asia (Report). Note from the Italian regional chair of the Dublin Group. Brussels. Doc. 10291/12, CORDROGUE 39, ASIE 54.
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 Скрипник, Г. (29 August 2020). "«Карасора-2020»: в Шуской долине сжигают заросли дикорастущей конопли". Kazinform (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  65. ↑ Golunov, S. (2007). "Drug-trafficking through Russia's post-Soviet borders: problems, misperceptions, and countermeasures". Acta Slavica Iaponica. 24: 24–46. hdl:2115/39514.
  66. ↑ 66.0 66.1 Уголовный кодекс Республики Казахстан(Кодекс Республики Казахстан No. 226-V), 3 July 2014, arts. 296, 297 and 300.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  67. ↑ Кодекс Республики Казахстан об административных правонарушениях(Кодекс Республики Казахстан No. 235-V), 5 July 2014, arts. 420 and 440-1.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  68. ↑ О внесении изменений и дополнений в некоторые законодательные акты Республики Казахстан по вопросам совершенствования правоохранительной службы, жилищного обеспечения и социальной защиты сотрудников правоохранительных, специальных государственных органов, органов гражданской защиты и военнослужащих, а также исключения излишней законодательной регламентации в сфере деятельности органов внутренних дел(Закон Республики Казахстан No. 203-VIII), 30 June 2025, art. 1.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  69. ↑ Об утверждении сортов растения конопли (каннабиса), разрешенных к культивированию в промышленных целях, не связанных с производством или изготовлением наркотических средств и психотропных веществ(Постановление Правительства Республики Казахстан No. 780), 22 September 2025.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  70. ↑ Об утверждении Правил промышленной переработки сортов растения конопли (каннабиса), разрешенных к культивированию в промышленных целях, не связанных с производством или изготовлением наркотических средств и психотропных веществ(Постановление Правительства Республики Казахстан No. 936), 7 November 2025.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  71. ↑ О внесении изменений в постановления Правительства Республики Казахстан от 22 сентября 2025 года № 780 и от 26 сентября 2025 года № 797(Постановление Правительства Республики Казахстан No. 259), 11 April 2026.Kazakhstan.Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  72. ↑ 72.0 72.1 "В Казахстане планируют изменить наказание за употребление наркотиков". Zakon.kz (in русский). 28 August 2026. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  73. ↑ 73.0 73.1 "Более тонны наркотиков изъяли жамбылские полицейские в ходе операции «Қарасора-2022»". Kazinform (in русский). 24 September 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  74. ↑ "Более 28 тонн дикорастущей конопли сожгли полицейские в Жамбылской области". Kazinform (in русский). 10 September 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  75. ↑ "Более 20 тонн наркотиков изъяли казахстанские полицейские с начала июня 2024 года". Inbusiness.kz (in русский). 11 November 2024. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  76. ↑ 76.0 76.1 Тё, М. (21 August 2025). "Три тысячи тонн дикорастущей конопли". Kazakhstanskaya Pravda (in русский). Retrieved 12 October 2026.
  77. ↑ Tiourebaev, K.S.; Semenchenko, G.V.; Dolgovskaya, M.; McCarthy, M.K.; Anderson, T.W.; Carsten, L.D.; Pilgeram, A.L.; Sands, D.C. (2001). "Biological control of infestations of ditchweed (Cannabis sativa) with Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cannabis in Kazakhstan". Biocontrol Science and Technology. 11 (4): 535–540. doi:10.1080/09583150120067562.
  78. ↑ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2009). "1.3 Cannabis market" (PDF). World Drug Report 2009. Vienna: United Nations. p. 95.
  79. ↑ Commission on Narcotic Drugs (15 December 2020). Statements following the voting on the WHO scheduling recommendations on cannabis and cannabis-related substances (PDF) (Report). p. 23. E/CN.7/2020/CRP.24.
  80. ↑ Sitpayeva, G.T.; Kudabayeva, G.M.; Dimeyeva, L.A.; Gemejiyeva, N.G.; Vesselova, P.V. (2020). "Crop wild relatives of Kazakhstani Tien Shan: flora, vegetation, resources". Plant Diversity. 42 (1): 19–32. doi:10.1016/j.pld.2019.10.003.
  81. ↑ Welling, M.T.; Shapter, T.; Rose, T.J.; Liu, L.; Stanger, R.; King, G.J. (2016). "A belated green revolution for Cannabis: virtual genetic resources to fast-track cultivar development". Frontiers in Plant Science. 7 1113. doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01113.
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