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Kolar treats the cannabis growing area of the old Kolar district of Mysore, now Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts, Karnataka, from Buchanan's journey of 1800 to the press reports of 2026. The districts as administrative units are treated at Kolar District and Chikkaballapur District.
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Discussion
Why the area is mapped
- McDonnell's memorandum for the Hemp Drugs Commission (Vol. III, p. 147) says first-class ganja was raised about fifteen years before 1893, and later, in Chickballapur taluk of the Kolar district.
- The Sub-divisional Officer at Chickballapur (supplementary volume of native-states evidence, 1895, p. 49) says the local cultivation was then confined to Chintamani taluk; the Commission's report quotes him (Vol. I, para. 139, p. 54).
- Buchanan (1807, vol. I, pp. 364 and 383) lists hemp "only used to intoxicate" among the kitchen-garden crops of the country between Nandi, Penukonda, Chikballapur and Madhugiri in July 1800.
- Since 2018 the Deccan Herald, The Hindu and Prajavani report cultivation in Chintamani, Mulbagal, Srinivasapura and Kolar taluks.
Growing status
The status is Active: the press reports cultivation in both districts in 2018, 2023 and 2026. The cases reported since 2018 run from a single plant to a field of undisclosed size; the article gives each at the scale the report gives it.
How the border is drawn
- The border is the union of Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts in OpenStreetMap (administrative relations 2020590 and 4452723), simplified, about 8,200 km². It is a proxy: the 1890s sources name the Chickballapur and Chintamani taluks of the old Kolar district, and the modern reports name places in both of today's districts. The Chikkaballapur district administration says the district was carved out of Kolar district; it gives no year, so the article gives none.
- Madhugiri, in Tumakuru district, is left outside. It is named only in Buchanan's description of the country and in a seed seller's lot name (COC-IND-KAR-0100000001); no report of cultivation there was found.
- Buchanan's country ran south to Nandi and north to Penukonda, which is in Andhra Pradesh today. The border stops at the state line.
- The map point (13.37, 78.02) is the centre of the border; the border is not drawn from it.
Sources
- Hemp Drugs Commission. Ricketts's memorandum (Vol. III, p. 135), McDonnell's (Vol. III, p. 147), the report's para. 139 (Vol. I, p. 54) and Krishnasamy Iyengar's (p. 49) and Ricketts's (p. 58) evidence in the 1895 supplementary volume were read on the page images.
- Buchanan. The title page and pp. 1, 364 and 383 of vol. I were read on the page images (Internet Archive, journeyfromMadr1Hami). The year 1800 is from p. 1, where the journey opens on 23 April 1800; the pages at Madhugiri give the month only.
- News. Each article cited was read in full. The Prajavani reports are in Kannada; the article gives their content in English. The Deccan Herald article of 2018 carries an update stamp of July 2019; its publication date, 1 September 2018, is from the page's own metadata.
- Not used. A 2020 Deccan Herald report locates the hillock at Ujjani near Doddaballapur, outside the border; the article quotes only the police's description of plants harvested "in and around Ujjani, Kolar and Chikkaballapur". The Chickballapur officer's statement that the drug was consumed largely in the Chickballapur, Kolar and Bowringpet taluks is about use, not growing.
- Seed lots. A seed seller lists a "Western Karnataka (Kolar)" line (COC-IND-KAR-0100000004). Kolar is in the east of the state, and the listing gives no locality; the lot is filed under this area on its district, not cited for cultivation.
Where the sources disagree
- How much was grown. Ricketts says that apart from three or four failed plots no one tried to grow the plant in Mysore (Vol. III, p. 135; 1895 volume, p. 58). McDonnell and the Chickballapur officer name the Chickballapur and Chintamani taluks. The Commission concluded that cultivation in Mysore was "inconsiderable". The article gives each with its source.