Talk:Chu Valley
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Chu Valley treats the valley of the Chu (Shu) river, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as one cannabis growing area. It covers the valley's wild cannabis, the estimates of its area, the harvest and trade, and the efforts to control or use the plant. Kazakh and Kyrgyz drug law is treated at Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
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Why the Chu Valley is a growing area
- The UNODC's Illicit drug trends in Central Asia (April 2008) names the Chu valley as the largest single location of wild cannabis in southern Kazakhstan, and reports from a UNODC mission of 2007 that wild growth and cultivation there were well above the 128,000 hectares officially reported and that more than half of the cannabis was being harvested (p. 23).
- Tengrinews (9 October 2014) places the valley in Kazakhstan's Zhambyl Oblast and Kyrgyzstan's Chui Province, with about 140,000 hectares of intensive cannabis growth.
- Caravan (30 May 2007) and Zakon.kz (15 August 2013) describe people gathering the plant in the valley for marijuana and hashish, and how it is carried out.
- The UNODC's World Drug Report 2006 (p. 166) gives an estimated harvest of 500 tons from the Chui valley's wild cannabis.
- The cannabis is wild, as every source says. It is harvested, which is why the valley is treated as a growing area.
- The status is Active: the sources report the stands and the harvest from 2007 to 2026. The yearly mowing and burning do not change it, since no source says that the cannabis has gone.
One page for two countries
- Tengrinews (2014) and Kazinform (2023) describe one valley shared by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, so the page covers both sides under one title. Shu Valley (the Kazakh form) and Chüy Valley (the Kyrgyz form) redirect here.
- Most sources describe the Kazakh side. The only Kyrgyz figure read for this page is the UNODC survey of 1998–1999, which found 87.4 hectares of wild growth and cultivation in Chüy Region (UNODC 2008, p. 23). The Dublin Group's report of 2012 says that cannabis grows wild over wide areas of Kyrgyzstan, especially in the Chui valley region (p. 28).
Extent and border
- No source read for this page draws a line round the valley. Kazinform (2023) and Caravan (2007) both place the Kazakh part of the valley in seven districts of Jambyl Region: Bayzak, Turar Ryskulov, Shu, Jambyl, Moyynkum, Merki and Qorday. The district figures of the 1989 survey (Kazinform 2023) fall in six of them.
- The map border is approximate. It joins those seven districts, as mapped in OpenStreetMap, to the whole of Chüy Region of Kyrgyzstan, which Tengrinews names as the Kyrgyz part of the valley. It covers about 116,000 km², and the infobox area is rounded from the border.
- The border is far larger than the stands. The estimates run from 62,000 hectares (620 km², the map of 2023) to 400,000 hectares (4,000 km², World Drug Report 2006). It takes in the whole of each district, including the Moyynkum sands, where the 1989 survey counted only 1,000 hectares, and the cities of Taraz and Bishkek, which lie within the units used.
- Jambyl Region's Sarysu, Talas and Zhualy districts are left out, as no source read places them in the valley. Chüy Region is taken whole because no source read divides it.
Accessions not filed here
- The two Kazakh seed lots from Jambyl Region (RLB-KAZ-JAM-0120190001 and its reproduction RSC-KAZ-JAM-0120190001) are not filed under this area. The seller describes them as feral, collected in the southern Karatau, and the listings name no site in the valley.
- Herbarium sheets from inside the border, the three gathered in the Moyynkum sands (1931–1958), Frolova's sheet from Kant raion (1969) and the sheet labelled Taldy-Bulak (2004), record wild or weedy plants, not cultivation or harvest, and are not filed here either.
Sources
- UNODC (2008). The cannabis section (pp. 23–28) and every other mention of cannabis in the report were read. The Kazakh government's figures for 2006, 0.23 hectares of wild growth and 0.36 hectares of cultivation, are not used. The report does not say whether the 128,000 hectares officially reported refer to the valley or to the whole country.
- World Drug Report 2006. The 400,000-hectare figure is footnoted to the US International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of 1998 (note 73), which was not read.
- Area figures. The estimates (128,000; 130,000; 138,000; 140,000; more than 145,000; 400,000; and 62,000 hectares) come from different years and methods and are given by source, not reconciled.
- Badaev and Boltaev (2013). Read in full. Their name for the plant, Cannabis ruderalis, is theirs.
- Sarsenbaev and Boribay (2014). Read in full. The THC range of 2 to 8 per cent is the authors' own statement and gives no sample or method.
- Origin story. The three press versions of the Kolpakovsky story give three different centuries; no primary source for it was found. It is reported on the page only as a press account.
- Kazinform (2023). Read in full. A second processing plant announced in 2010 is not used, as the article does not place it in the valley.
Sources not used
- A Bizmedia.kz report of 17 November 2023 gives the 2023 map as 62,057 hectares and says that twice as much wild cannabis was destroyed in the valley in 2023 as in 2022 (220 against 110 tonnes). It agrees with the BES.media figure used on the page.
- A UNODC release on drones for the Kyrgyz anti-drug police gives about 10,000 hectares of wild cannabis for Kyrgyzstan as a whole, with no province.