Madagascar
More actions
| Madagascar | |
|---|---|
| Madagasikara | |
| |
| The Andringitra massif | |
| Capital | Antananarivo |
| Continent | Africa |
| Subregion | East Africa |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal |
| Status Since | 1997 |
| Enforcement | Eradication and seizure |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 0 |
| Growing Areas | 2 |
| Accessions | 7 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Madagascar is an island country in the Indian Ocean off East Africa. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime calls it the most significant cannabis producer among the western Indian Ocean islands, with its major production regions at Betroka in the south and Analabe in the north. Their crop largely supplies the country's urban centres, the capital among them; some is smuggled to other island states.[1]
The Real Seed Company lists Malagasy landrace lines under the name Dzamal, collected in 2025 and 2026. Its listings describe two of them as from the humid highlands of the north and the dry interior highlands of the south.[2][3]
Cannabis is prohibited.[1]
Geography
Madagascar is a large island with a central highland spine falling to a humid east coast and a dry south-west.[citation needed] The Real Seed Company's northern line comes from the humid highlands at about 14° S, its southern line from the dry interior highlands at about 23° S.[2][3] Its listings of April 2026 named the places as the highlands of Ambanja District, in Diana, which they also called the Sambirano highlands, and the highlands of Betroka District, in Anosy.[4][5]
The two producing areas are Analabe, in Ambanja district in the north, and Betroka in the south. In the Ambanja district the rural commune of Antsahabe alone produces at least 200 tonnes a year, by the Global Initiative's estimate.[1]
Demographics
Agriculture
Cannabis is grown by subsistence farmers to add to their incomes, with local young people working in the fields or transporting the product. The Global Initiative calls the crop a significant source of income in the communities that grow it.[1]
Growers sold green cannabis at about 20,000 ariary a kilogram, while traffickers sold it on to consumers for between 100,000 and 150,000 ariary a kilogram.[1] The Global Initiative's price surveys found retail prices in 2020 of about US$0.03 a gram, the lowest they recorded in the islands.[1]
Cannabis in Madagascar
History
Étienne de Flacourt described hemp in 1661, writing that the island's inhabitants grew it with care so that they could smoke its leaf like tobacco.[6] Its name in Malagasy is rongony.[7] Smoking it was made a capital offence by the Merina ruler Andrianampoinimerina, according to the royal traditions collected in the Tantara ny Andriana.[8]: 700–701 Under French rule a decree of 1915 banned its preparation, sale and consumption.[9] Pollen of the Cannabis/Humulus type in lake cores from the central highlands has been dated to about 2,200 years ago and read as a sign of the island's first human settlers, an age and a reading that are both disputed.[10]
Cultivation
A single enforcement operation in May and June 2020 destroyed more than 80,000 individual plants and seized more than 16 tonnes.[1]
Preparations and consumption
The Malagasy government's latest figure reported to UNODC, from 2004, put adult prevalence at 9.1 per cent; the cannabis research consultancy New Frontier Data reported a figure of 14.2 per cent for past-year use in 2019, which the Global Initiative renders as more than two million people.[1]
Trade and commerce
The crop largely supplies Madagascar's urban centres, including the capital, Antananarivo, and some is smuggled to the island states of the Seychelles, Mauritius, the Comoros and Mayotte.[1]
Hundreds of traffickers operated clandestinely in Analabe, in networks drawn from provinces across the country. Law-enforcement officials said that traffickers carry Kalashnikovs and "shoot without warning", which kept gendarmes out of the remote cannabis forests, and one official called the groups "truly cartels who don't hesitate to kill".[1] The Gendarmerie nationale seized nearly 53 tonnes in 2020, including several individual seizures of more than a tonne.[1]
Legal status
Cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis are illegal in Madagascar under Law n° 97-039 on the control of narcotics, psychotropic substances and precursors.[1]
The statute divides controlled substances into high-risk drugs and risk drugs and attaches its penalties to those classes. Contravening the provisions on the cultivation, production, manufacture, extraction, preparation or processing of high-risk drugs carries a term of hard labour and a fine of 500,000 to 5,000,000 Malagasy francs; international trafficking and domestic trafficking in high-risk drugs carry the same term with fines to 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 respectively; facilitating use carries five to ten years and a fine. The corresponding offences for risk drugs, including cultivation, carry five to ten years and a fine of 500,000 to 10,000,000, or either penalty alone.[11]
Growing Regions
No growing regions documented yet.
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Has growing region |
|---|---|
| Analabe | |
| Betroka |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATA-MDG-UNK-0120230001 | 2023 ATA Madagascar Zamala Reproduction | ||
| RSC-MDG-ANO-0120250001 | Dzamal (South) General Population 2025 | Betroka | |
| RSC-MDG-DIA-0120250001 | Dzamal (North) General Population 2025 | Analabe | |
| RSC-MDG-UNK-0120250001 | Dzamal (Southwest) General Population 2025 | ||
| RSC-MDG-UNK-0120260001 | Dzamal (East) General Population 2026 | ||
| RSC-MDG-UNK-0120260002 | Dzamal (Southeast) General Population 2026 | ||
| VIB-MDG-UNK-0100000001 | Madagascar Zamala General Population |
Conservation status
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (April–May 2021). Madagascar's large-scale cannabis market remains a criminal enterprise. East and Southern Africa Risk Bulletin (Report).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Dzamal – Madagascar (North)". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Dzamal – Madagascar (South)". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ "Dzamal – Madagascar (North)". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 21 April 2026. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Dzamal – Madagascar (South)". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 21 April 2026. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ Flacourt, Étienne de (1661). Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar (in français). Troyes and Paris: Nicolas Oudot and Gervais Clouzier. pp. 145–146 – via Gallica.
- ↑ Abinal, A.; Malzac, V. (1888). Dictionnaire malgache-français (in français). Tananarive: Imprimerie de la Mission catholique.
- ↑ Callet. Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagascar: documents historiques d'après les manuscrits malgaches (in Malagasy). Vol. 1 (Académie malgache reissue of the 2nd ed.). Tananarive: Imprimerie officielle – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Pruvost, Henry (1917). Substances vénéneuses : étude de législation comparée (Pharmacy thesis) (in français). Laval: Université de Nancy, École supérieure de pharmacie.
- ↑ Mitchell, Peter (2020). "Settling Madagascar: When Did People First Colonize the World's Largest Island?". The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 15 (4): 576–595. doi:10.1080/15564894.2019.1582567.
- ↑ "Loi n° 97-039 sur le contrôle des stupéfiants, des substances psychotropes et des précurseurs, articles 90, 91 and 95–103". SHERLOC legal database (in français). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved 24 September 2026.