Talk:Punakha
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Punakha treats three gewogs of Punakha District (Shelnga-Bjemi, Kabisa and Goenshari) as one cannabis growing area in the Eastern Himalayas growing region. It covers the wild growth and its harvest there. The district as an administrative unit has its own page; the town would be Punakha (town). Bhutanese drug law is treated at Bhutan and Cannabis in Bhutan.
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Discussion
Why Punakha is a growing area
- The Punakha police, reported by Business Bhutan (19 May 2020), say that Shengana, Kabisa and Goenshari gewogs "are the hotspots for marijuana harvesting for abusers and smugglers since these gewogs have abundant growth of marijuana". This is the one source that places the growth in named gewogs of the district.
- Two other reports are consistent with it but do not by themselves place the area. Two men from Kabesa were caught rubbing marijuana at Genekha, Thimphu, in 2016 (The Bhutanese, 1 October 2016; BBS, 20 September 2016). Leaf samples were taken in July 2018 at Nubri and Mischen, which the sample entries place in Punakha (BioSample BTN011–BTN020).
- No source reports anyone planting cannabis in these gewogs. Business Bhutan speaks of growth and harvesting; the article keeps to those words.
The name
- The bare name goes to the growing area, since the district already has its own title, Punakha District. The town would be Punakha (town).
- Business Bhutan writes "Shengana" gewog. The University of Virginia's Bhutan place dictionary gives two Latin-script names, Shengana and Shenga-Bjemi, for one gewog of Punakha (place 5634, read 20 October 2026); OpenStreetMap calls it Shelnga-Bjemi Gewog, and the border uses that unit. Kabisa is also written Kabjisa.
- "Kabesa" (The Bhutanese, 2016) is probably a spelling of Kabisa, but no place of that exact name was found; the article gives it in the source's spelling and does not place it in the area.
Growing status
The status is Active, on the police statement of 2020 and the samples of 2018. No source says that the plant has stopped growing there.
Extent and border
- The border is a proxy: Shelnga-Bjemi Gewog (OpenStreetMap relation 12182778), Kabisa Gewog (12182774) and Goenshari Gewog (12182775) together, about 355 km², the figure in the infobox.
- The 2018 sample points at Nubri (27.713, 89.758) and Mischen (27.711, 89.765) both fall in Goenshari gewog, inside the border. They are not wiki accessions and were not used to draw the border.
- Shelnga-Bjemi does not touch the other two gewogs (it lies about 9 km to the east of Kabisa), so the border is drawn in two parts. The infobox point (27.66, 89.77) lies in the larger, Kabisa–Goenshari part.
Accessions
- Cooper 3143 (1914) was collected at Gichha, Punakha, on 26 May 1914 at 8,000 ft. Its label says nothing of cultivation, and the place Gichha has not been located within the district, so the sheet is not counted in this area.
- The 2018 leaf samples are recorded at NCBI, not on the wiki.
Sources
- Business Bhutan (19 May 2020): the page shows no byline. The quoted police figures for cases and arrests are not used, because the captured text does not make clear which period they cover.
- Business Bhutan pieces of 2020–2021 on hashish found at "different places in Punakha" report possession cases only and are not used.