Naga Hills
More actions
| Naga Hills | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Indo-Burman Range |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Nagaland |
| Coordinates | 26.00, 94.40 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 16,600 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately the state of Nagaland, on the Myanmar border |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Naga Hills (district, Assam) |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Naga Hills is a landrace cannabis growing area in Nagaland, in north-east India, on the border with Myanmar. It is one of the growing areas of the Indo-Burman Range growing region. Cannabis growing in Nagaland was destroyed at Kiphire in 2017[1] and on the banks of the Dhansiri in Peren District in 2018,[2] and a senior police officer said in 2017 that local people were turning to cannabis cultivation.[3] In 1893 the Excise Commissioner of Assam told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that in the Naga Hills ganja grew profusely.[4]
Geography
In 1893 J. J. S. Driberg wrote that the Naga tribes extended southwards to the Patkoi mountains and eastwards to the Noa Dehing river. Part of their country formed the Naga Hills district of Assam, run by a deputy commissioner under special rules; the remaining tribes were, in his words, "practically independent".[4] Kiphire District, in the east of the present state on the Myanmar border, covers 1,255 km² between Saramati, the highest mountain in the state, and the Jingkhu mountains. Its three recognised tribes are the Sangtam, Yimchungrü and Sümi.[5]
History
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission found the hemp plant growing without cultivation in the hill ranges of Assam, and noted that in the Naga Hills it was "looked upon as a jungle product".[6] For the hill tracts of the province it judged the evidence to point to "cultivation of a very inferior sort, if indeed the plant is tended at all", and noted reports that the Nagas regarded the plant as a jungle product and that the ganja smuggled down from the hills was hardly distinguishable from the produce of the wild hemp.[7]
Driberg said that hemp was cultivated surreptitiously in every district of Assam and in the adjoining hills, "more largely by the Nagas on the Sibsagar frontier".[4] McCabe, who had often been shown plants beside the tracks in the lower ranges of the Naga Hills, said the hill people told him they had once traded it to the plains, but that they had not planted it and took no trouble to cultivate it; he had not seen it grown in fields or gardens there. He had never seen the people of the higher Naga Hills smoke ganja.[8][9] The Statistical Account of Assam of 1879 states that neither jute nor hemp was cultivated in the Naga Hills district, where the Nagas wove the bark fibre of a nettle into cloth.[10]
Cultivation
In August 2017 residents of Kipongya ward, in Kiphire town, destroyed about 100 marijuana plants growing in the ward and handed them to the police.[1] On 8 April 2018 the Assam Rifles found marijuana growing on the banks of the Dhansiri about 3 km from Beisumpuikam village, towards the Intangki Reserve Forest, and a team of the civil administration, the police and village representatives destroyed it on 11 April.[2]
In June 2017 K. Mero, Inspector General of Police (Crime), said that local people in the state were "slowly and discreetly turning to cultivation of especially cannabis".[3] An Eastern Mirror editorial took up his statement.[11] A Morung Express editorial of December 2022 said that local cultivation had not been reported in Nagaland.[12]
A survey of medicinal plants in 20 villages of nine districts, carried out from 2005 to 2010, recorded the Sangtam, Konyak and Ao using the leaves and flowers of Cannabis sativa as a sedative, tonic, intoxicant, stomachic, narcotic and analgesic.[13]
Trade
The Narcotics Control Bureau named Nagaland in 2016 among the main transit routes for ganja from north-east India to the eastern states.[14] Between 2016 and June 2017, 9,711 kg of ganja was seized in the state.[3]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for Naga Hills yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Marijuana plants destroyed in Kiphire". Nagaland Post. 19 August 2017. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Morung Express News (21 April 2018). "Marijuana destruction: AR say did not violate law". The Morung Express. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Morung Express News (26 June 2017). "'Nagaland a fertile ground for drug dealing and usage'". The Morung Express. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. J. S. Driberg, Commissioner of Excise and Inspector General of Police and Jails". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 2, pp. 531–533 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Kiphire District Administration. "About District". District Kiphire, Government of Nagaland. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 35–40, pp. 21–23 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 101–102, pp. 39–40 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. McCabe". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 5, p. 538 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. McCabe". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 5, p. 539 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Hunter, W. W. (1879). A Statistical Account of Assam. Vol. II: Districts of Goalpara (including the Eastern Dwars), the Garo Hills, the Naga Hills, the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, Sylhet, and Cachar (PDF). London: Trübner & Co. "Statistical Account of the Naga Hills", p. 191 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ The Editorial Team (3 July 2017). "Drug control". Eastern Mirror. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Jamir, Moa (7 December 2022). "Combating substance abuse in Nagaland". The Morung Express. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Zhasa, N. N.; Hazarika, P.; Tripathi, Y. C. (April 2015). "Indigenous Knowledge on Utilization of plant Biodiversity for Treatment and Cure of diseases of Human beings in Nagaland, India: A case study" (PDF). International Research Journal of Biological Sciences. 4 (4): 89–106. ISSN 2278-3202. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Narcotics Control Bureau. Annual Report 2016 (PDF) (Report). Narcotics Control Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. PDF pp. 9, 16, 26. Retrieved 19 October 2026.