Talk:Belize
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Page scope
Belize is about cannabis in Belize: the colonial newspaper editorial of 1889 on ganja; the marijuana export boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s; the herbicide spraying of 1983–1995, which has its own page, Herbicide spraying in Belize; the manual eradication that followed; where cannabis has been found in each period, including the Guatemalan border and the Chiquibul; the industrial hemp regulations; the treaties; the decriminalisation act of 2017; and the specimen known from the country. The tables of growing regions, growing areas, accessions and news fill from pages that name Belize as their country.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Sources
- United States government reports. The State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report for 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1995 (scans of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service), 2003 (the End of Term web archive copy of the state.gov page), 2023 (the United Nations Digital Library copy) and 2025; the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee reports for 1985–1986 and 1989; and the Drug Enforcement Administration's Drug Intelligence Briefs on Belize of March 2000 (DEA-20006) and May 2001 (DEA-01010), in the National Archives' harvest of dea.gov. Their hectares, tonnes and plant counts are the agencies' estimates. Page numbers are the printed ones.
- The law. The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2017 (No. 47 of 2017) is cited from the Government Printer's text in the copy held by the Organization of American States. The violation-ticket and industrial hemp regulations are cited from the revised edition of the subsidiary laws under Chapter 103, as at 31 December 2020, published by the Attorney General's Ministry. Treaty dates are from the United Nations Treaty Collection.
- Inter-governmental reports. The Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism reports on Belize of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission for 2005–2006 and 2007–2009; the UNODC World Drug Report 2026, annex table 6.3.1; the International Narcotics Control Board report for 2002.
- Newspapers and agencies. The Belize papers of October 1983 and September 1985 are cited from the Joint Publications Research Service transcripts, as on Herbicide spraying in Belize. United Press International (23 February 1985 and 2 May 1991); Amandala (11 October 2013, 8 August 2014, 14 June 2016 and the column of 1 November 2017); Breaking Belize News (24 September 2015 and 30 December 2020).
- The 1889 editorial is given from the historian Eron Ackerman's essay on ganja in the British Caribbean, published in December 2014 on Points, the blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, and attributed to him.
- The specimen is known from its two GBIF records (the herbarium sheet and the tissue sample, both NMNH, Brooks & Castillo BLB 100).
Where the sources differ
- Belize's rank in the early 1980s. The Drug Enforcement Administration's brief of 2000 puts Belize fourth in world production of marijuana in the early 1980s, as does the State Department's report for 1997 for "a decade ago". United Press International (1991) calls it the fifth supplier to the American market, after Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and Bolivia. The page gives both, each attributed.
- The herbicide of October 1985. The State Department's report of February 1986 names glyphosate for the spraying of October 1985 in northern Belize (printed pp. 48 and 50). In September 1985 the government had said it was looking at "Glythosat" (The Reporter, 29 September 1985, in the JPRS transcript). The page names glyphosate on the State Department's report.
- Eradication in 1985. The State Department gives 512 hectares for the year (spraying and manual eradication together); the NNICC report of 1985–1986 gives about 500 hectares for the aerial effort begun in October. The page gives 512.
- The 1987 campaigns. The State Department's report of 1988 gives an estimated 80 per cent of the crop destroyed in three campaigns and, in another chapter, about 870 hectares; its summary of accomplishments speaks of "virtually all" of the marijuana. The page gives 80 per cent and 870 hectares.
- The operation of January 2012.' Amandalas report of 11 October 2013 dates it to "January last year". It spells the southern village "San Pedro, Colombia"; the village is San Pedro Columbia, the spelling Breaking Belize News uses in 2021.
- The Chiquibul figure.' Amandalas report of 8 August 2014 prints that 37,500 acres of marijuana were discovered in a little over a year. The figure, about 15,000 hectares, is more than ten times the 1,223 hectares the State Department estimated for the whole country in 1985, at the height of the boom, so the page does not give it.
Open questions
- The law after 2017. The page gives the possession and smoking provisions as the amending act of 2017 enacted them. Whether later amendments to Chapter 103 changed those provisions is not settled by the texts cited, and the offences of cultivation and supply appear on the page only through the Amandala column of 1 November 2017.
- The committee of 2015. The Decriminalization of Marijuana Committee and its final report of 2015 are known from the Amandala column only.