Talk:Shashamane
Discussion page of Shashamane
More actions
Talk
Discussion for: Shashamane • View • Links • Related changes
Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.
Page scope
Shashamane treats the farmland around the town of Shashamane, in the West Arsi Zone of Oromia Region, as a cannabis growing area: the growing and the seizures from farmers described in 1999, the plants taken from growing plots in 2013 and the farms destroyed in 2018–19. Ethiopia's law on cannabis and the national picture are treated at Ethiopia. The town and its Rastafari community are separate subjects.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Why Shashamane is a growing area
- The United Nations study The Drug Nexus in Africa (1999, p. 22) says that police seized cannabis plants from farmers between 1993 and 1997 "in many parts of the Oromia region, especially Shashamene", and describes growing by Ethiopian farmers around the town from field visits and interviews of February 1998. On p. 31 it writes of "the main production centre around Shashamene".
- Zerihun et al. (2015) analysed cannabis seized by the police in 2013; the samples from Sheshemene were whole fresh plants taken from growing plots before harvest.
- Xinhua (via The New Times, 2 September 2019) quotes the Ethiopian Federal Police on more than seven hectares of cannabis farms destroyed "in the cities of Shashemene and the capital Addis Ababa" in the fiscal year 2018–19.
- The title uses the spelling Shashamane, the form of the seed accession named for the town. The sources spell it Shashamene (1999), Sheshemene (2015) and Shashemene (2019); the woreda is mapped as Shashemene Zuria.
How the border is drawn
- The line follows the Shashemene Zuria woreda of West Arsi Zone (OpenStreetMap relation 21302071, about 780 km², the figure in the infobox). The map data has no separate unit for the town, which lies inside this polygon.
- The sources name the town, the "Sheshemene district" and the "Shashamene region"; none maps the fields, so the border could not follow them more closely. Neighbouring woredas, among them Wondo Genet, Arsi Negele and the city of Hawassa, lie outside the line.
- The infobox point (7.20, 38.59) is the centre of the woreda border; it falls beside the town.
Growing status
The status is Active: police took plants from growing plots at Shashamane in 2013 and destroyed cannabis farms there in 2018–19. No source says that growing has stopped.
Sources
- The Drug Nexus in Africa (1999). Read in the UNODC PDF; page numbers are the printed ones. The Ethiopia passages are on pp. 22 (seizures 1993–1997, the settlers, the farmers), 31 (the highway junction and export), 97 (cannabis found throughout the country often coming from the Shashamene region) and 99 (no major arrests at Shashamene; farmers on bribery). The study calls the settlers "the Jamaican Rastafarian community"; on p. 97 it dates their land grant to the 1940s. The article does not repeat the date or the p. 97 phrase "virtual sovereignty", which is the study's characterisation.
- Zerihun et al. (2015). Four authors (Crossref: Agalu Zerihun, Bhagwan Singh Chandravanshi, Ayalew Debebe, Bewketu Mehari), SpringerPlus 4, article 359, read in full on PubMed Central. Its sentence on "the main areas of cannabis cultivation in Ethiopia" (Alemaya, Shebedino, Sheshemene, Debre Berhan) sits in a paragraph that closes with a citation to a seed company's web page (Sensi 2014), so the article does not use it; it uses only the study's own samples. Table 1 gives the sampling site as 7°12′N 38°36′E, 2,009 m, 240 km south-east of Addis Ababa.
- Xinhua (2019). Read in The New Times (Kigali), which carries the Xinhua text; Xinhua cites the Ethiopian News Agency. The officer spoke "late on Friday", 30 August 2019. The seven hectares are a total for Shashemene and Addis Ababa together.
Not used
- Seed company and travel-guide pages that describe Shashamane as a centre of growing, and a figure of 17 acres for the 2019 destruction on one of them, are not used.
- A 2018 study of cannabis use disorder among young adults in Shashemene town is about use, not growing.
Open questions
- Whether growing extends into the neighbouring woredas. The 1999 study speaks of the "Shashamene region" and of growing scattered into new areas after the eradication campaign of 1996.