Talk:Medellín (growing area)
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Medellín (growing area) treats four municipalities round Medellín, in the department of Antioquia in Colombia, as a cannabis growing area: Medellín, Bello, San Jerónimo and Santa Bárbara, on the reports of marijuana grown there before the export boom of the 1970s and one eradication since. The department as an administrative unit is treated at Antioquia Department, and Colombia's law on cannabis at Colombia. The marijuana eradicated in the east of the department is treated at Eastern Antioquia.
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Discussion
Why the area is on the map
- Sáenz Rovner (2007, pp. 214–215) gives the report presented by the Colombian delegation to the Inter-American Consultative Group on narcotics control in Rio de Janeiro in 1961, which drew on a report of the secret police. For Antioquia it names three municipalities where marijuana was grown: "Bello, Santa Bárbara y San Jerónimo".
- Britto (2020, p. 73) writes that Medellín got its supplies from nearby Bello, in a passage on the crops of the Andean interior before the boom.
- Cruz Olivera and Pereira Arana (2021, p. 51), citing Child and Arango (2017, p. 91), write that around 1972 national production, which had been concentrated "en las riberas del río Cauca en el eje cafetero y los alrededores de Medellín", moved to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
- The Ministry of Defence's open dataset lists one entry of marijuana eradicated in Medellín: 1 hectare, 29 January 2016 (downloaded 3 November 2026). It has none for Bello, San Jerónimo or Santa Bárbara.
Growing status
The status is Active, on the one eradication entry of 2016: a source dated after 2000 shows marijuana grown in the area. The other sources describe the years before 1972. No source says that growing ended.
The name
The sources speak of the crops "round Medellín" and of the municipalities near the city, so the area takes the city's name. The page is titled Medellín (growing area) because Medellín is the title for the city.
Extent and border
- The map border is the union of the four municipalities as drawn in OpenStreetMap (relations 1343264 Medellín, 1307262 Bello, 1343276 San Jerónimo, 1307234 Santa Bárbara), simplified; about 880 km², the figure in the infobox.
- The area is in two parts. Medellín, Bello and San Jerónimo adjoin one another (about 670 km²); Santa Bárbara (about 210 km²) lies about 17 km further south, beyond Caldas, La Estrella and Envigado. No source names the municipalities between them, so they are left out and the gap is not closed.
- The sources name the municipalities, not places in them, so the border takes in the whole of each, the city of Medellín as well as its rural districts.
- The point in the infobox is the centre of the larger part, not a field.
Herbarium sheets
- Soejarto 4236 (20 August 1973), at the Herbario Universidad de Antioquia, is labelled "Plant cultivated in Medellin, alt. 1500 m". The label does not say whether the plant grew in a field or a garden, and 1,500 m is the height of the city, so the sheet is not placed in the area.
- González Patiño 4327 (1952) was collected on the terrace of the Colegio San José, a school in Medellín; it records no crop and is not placed in the area. The sheet from Itagüí (2007, home gardens) is outside the border.