Lice
More actions
| Lice | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Turkey |
| Province/State | Diyarbakır |
| District | Lice District |
| Coordinates | 38.46, 40.65 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 950 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Lice district |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2026 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Lice is a landrace cannabis growing area in Diyarbakır Province, Turkey, mapped on the district of Lice. Hakan Cem Çetin and Hacı Duru, of the Bilecik and Isparta police directorates, wrote in 2015 that two-thirds of Turkey's illegal cannabis was grown in Diyarbakır. Of the province's growing districts they put Lice first, "başta Lice olmak üzere" (Lice above all), together with Kocaköy, Hani, Hazro and Kulp.[1]: 33, 37 Security sources counted 81 million cannabis plants seized in the district in the five years to December 2016, and a gendarmerie operation of 2023 destroyed 13.5 million.[2][3]
The tract
Çetin and Duru place all the growing districts in the north-east of Diyarbakır Province. What they share, in their account, is plentiful water, fertile soil, mountainous ground and dense vegetation.[1]: 37 A police report of 2013 on cannabis growing in Turkey, summarised by the newspaper Daily Sabah, said that the climate favoured the crop and that the mountains of the Lice–Kulp–Hani country made it hard for the security forces to reach. The same article said that more cannabis was grown on the Fis plain, under the gendarmerie post of Kayacık in Lice, than anywhere else in the country.[4]
Operations against the crop have been reported in the rural neighbourhoods and villages of the district, among them Dibek, Yalaza, Ortaç, Bağlan, Birlik, Tepe and Budak.[5][4][6] Some fields are watered: an operation of May 2020 in Birlik, Tepe and Budak seized 2,620 metres of hose used to irrigate a cannabis field, together with water pumps and generators.[6]
History
Çetin and Duru wrote that cannabis was grown in places such as Lice before the insurgency of the PKK began. They argued that growing in the district rose many times over after 2004, when the PKK, which had lost Syrian support, ended its ceasefire and backed the illegal crop to fund itself.[1]: 37, 43 Security sources quoted in the press, and the names given to the operations, call them narkoterör (narco-terror) operations and describe the crop as a source of finance for the PKK.[2]
In October 2012 the gendarmerie destroyed 60,000 female cannabis plants at Dibek and found 15.5 tonnes of cannabis buried in barrels in the forest south of the village.[5] In January 2013 an operation in Yalaza, Ortaç and Bağlan seized 21 tonnes of narcotics.[4] In December 2016 the security forces put the cannabis seized in Lice over the previous five years at 81,355,978 plants and about 84 tonnes of esrar.[2] The journalist Yüksel Genç wrote during the operations of June 2016 that, while readers in the west of the country saw cannabis fields burning, people in Diyarbakır saw the forests and the wheat and chickpea fields of villages in Lice, Hazro, Kocaköy and elsewhere being burned.[7]
Diyarbakır was not among the 19 provinces where licensed hemp growing was allowed in 2019. People in Lice asked for the right to grow the crop legally. Abdullah Akar, who said he had begun growing 13 years earlier and had since given it up after a prison term, told a reporter for DW Türkçe: "Bu kenevir işi bizim işimiz. Nasıl ekilir, nasıl yetiştirilir biz biliyoruz. Yıllardır buralarda yapılıyor" ("This hemp work is our work. We know how to sow it and how to grow it. It has been done here for years").[8] İrfan Yıldırım writes that the authorities mark the district out by the making and selling of drugs, while its people see it through its history.[9]: 15
Operations went on in the 2020s. In September 2023, 74 teams with 1,120 personnel worked the neighbourhoods of Bağlan and Yalaza and destroyed 12,759,450 cannabis plants and 755,100 skunk plants.[3] In June 2025 an operation with helicopters, drones and remote sensing seized 12,389,000 cannabis and skunk plants.[10] The Ministry of the Interior announced in September 2026 that 217,608 cannabis and skunk plants had been destroyed at 99 sites in Lice and Kulp.[11]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Çetin, Hakan Cem; Duru, Hacı (2015). "Bitmeyen Savaş: Diyarbakır'da Terör-Uyuşturucu İlişkisi" [Never-ending battle: the terrorism–drugs nexus in Diyarbakır]. Anadolu Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (in Türkçe). 15 (2): 33–44. doi:10.18037/ausbd.50155.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Terörün finans kaynağı uyuşturucuya Lice'de büyük darbe vuruldu" [Heavy blow in Lice to drugs, the finance source of terror]. Karar (in Türkçe). 10 December 2016. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Aslan, Aziz; Arik, Aydın (19 September 2023). "Diyarbakır'da 2 ton 121 kilogram esrar, 13 milyon 514 bin 550 kök kenevir bitkisi ele geçirildi" [2 tonnes 121 kilograms of cannabis and 13,514,550 cannabis plants seized in Diyarbakır]. Anadolu Ajansı (in Türkçe). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Sancar, Alper; Cebe, Özgür (2 July 2013). "Diyarbakir's Lice is Turkey's center for drug cultivation". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "16 tons of narcotics linked to PKK seized". Hürriyet Daily News. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Diyarbakır'da rekor uyuşturucu ele geçti" [Record drug seizure in Diyarbakır]. CNN Türk (in Türkçe). Demirören Haber Ajansı. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Genç, Yüksel (28 June 2016). "Lice'de Ne Oluyor?" [What is happening in Lice?]. Bianet (in Türkçe). Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Kenevirin en çok üretildiği Lice'ye yasal izin yok" [No legal permit for Lice, where hemp is grown most]. Memurlar.net (in Türkçe). 23 January 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Yıldırım, İrfan (April 2024). "Lice'nin Muhalif Bir Duruş Sergilemesinde Etkili Faktörler ve 1975'teki Depremin Rolü" [Factors in Lice's oppositional stance and the role of the 1975 earthquake]. International Journal of Kurdiname (in Türkçe) (10): 14–29. doi:10.55106/kurdiname.1431190.
- ↑ "Diyarbakır'da 12,3 milyon kök kenevir ve skunk ele geçirildi; 22 tutuklama" [12.3 million cannabis and skunk plants seized in Diyarbakır; 22 arrests]. Demirören Haber Ajansı (in Türkçe). 14 June 2025. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Diyarbakır'da Yasa Dışı Kenevir Ekimine Yönelik Operasyonlarda 5 Ton Toz Esrar Elde Edilebilecek 217 Bin 608 Kök Kenevir ve Skunk İmha Edildi" [217,608 cannabis and skunk plants, from which 5 tonnes of powdered cannabis could be obtained, destroyed in operations against illegal cannabis growing in Diyarbakır] (Press release) (in Türkçe). T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı. 21 September 2026. Retrieved 19 October 2026.