Talk:Sri Lanka
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Discussion for: Sri Lanka • View • Links • Related changes
Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.
- Data aggregates from accession pages where possible
- Legal/policy info needs dates and citations
- Culinary and recreational use (stub)
- Cultivation (provincial detail, methods, civil war effects)
- Kerala Cannabis (morphological comparison, trade history)
- Varieties and Genetics (entirely empty pending fieldwork)
- Conservation Status
- Drug price history
- Several [citation needed] tags remain
Discussion
Page history
This country page was built across multiple sessions in March 2026 as part of the Landrace.Wiki Sri Lanka documentation project.
Session 1 (2 March 2026): Source verification of 8 previously rejected historical news items (1675--1961). Established sourcing status for all items. Identified the 1675 Dutch ban claim as unsourced. Uploaded Uragoda (1983), SLMA (2018), and Weliange (2018) to project files. Produced the source verification report.
Session 2 (3 March 2026): Drafted the country page, the Uragoda (1983) and Weliange (2018) Historical Source pages, and the first Patreon blog post ("Twenty Texts, Seventeen Centuries"). Integrated all seven colonial policy items (1867--1961) directly into the Legal History section rather than as standalone news items. Drafted the Knox (1681) and Hooke (1689) Historical Source pages and accompanying blog post ("The Sailor, the Scientist, and the Bangue").
Session 3 (4 March 2026): Drafted the Thalpathe Piliyam Historical Source page and the Diddeniya & Kulatunga (2021) Research Item, based on a newly identified peer-reviewed paper reviewing 267 cannabis formulations in the government's 21-volume ola leaf transcription series. Accompanying blog post ("267 Formulations on Palm Leaf") and talk page for the Thalpathe Piliyam page. Updated country page to reference Thalpathe Piliyam findings. -- Éloïse Dillon
The 1675 Dutch ban
The claim that the Dutch banned narcotic trafficking in Ceylon in 1675 is flagged on the page as unverified. Uragoda (1983), the most thorough scholarly treatment of the Dutch period, does not mention it. The claim circulates through a chain of secondary sources originating from Wikipedia. The best lead is Jayasuriya (1986), which we have not been able to consult. If anyone can check Jayasuriya pp. 4--5, this could be resolved. -- Éloïse Dillon
Van Goens memoirs
A standalone Historical Source page for Ryckloff Van Goens' memoirs (1663) was drafted but not published. The memoirs document the opium trade under Dutch administration but contain no cannabis content. The Uragoda (1983) page already cites Van Goens appropriately. A standalone page for a non-cannabis source was hard to justify. -- Éloïse Dillon
Thalpathe Piliyam as Historical Source
The Thalpathe Piliyam is a modern government publication (1992--present), not a historical text in the conventional sense. It was given a Historical Source page because its content derives from ola leaf manuscripts of unknown but potentially considerable age, and the 267 cannabis formulations it contains constitute primary evidence of how cannabis was used in Sri Lankan traditional medicine. Full editorial reasoning is on the Thalpathe Piliyam talk page. -- Éloïse Dillon
Policy items as page sections
The seven colonial legislative milestones (1867 Ordinance, 1893 meeting, 1897 import ban, 1907 debate, 1907 Indian Hemp Ordinance, 1935 PODD, 1961 Ayurveda Act) were integrated into the Legal History section rather than created as standalone news items or pages. They are sourced from Uragoda (1983) and UNODC (2005), neither of which has a URL suitable for the news item source field, and the narrative context is better served by connected prose than isolated items. -- Éloïse Dillon
Topics not yet covered
The article does not yet cover the following.
- Fuller vocabulary. Historical terms in Ayurvedic texts (bhang, vijaya and others); Tamil vocabulary from Jaffna and the estate communities; regional dialect terms; slang and contemporary usage. Weliange (2018) and the Ayurvedic pharmacopoeias are leads.
- Use outside the Ayurvedic system. Historical recreational and social use among Sinhala and Tamil communities; bhang traditions shared with the Indian subcontinent; contemporary patterns; Knox's 1681 account of bangue among the Sinhalese. Uragoda (1983) and UNODC (2005) are leads.
- Cultivation. A provincial breakdown of cultivation areas; Eastern against Southern province; methods and seasonal cycle; intercropping and concealment; the effect of the civil war (1983–2009).
- Traditional cultivation. Growing methods referenced in Ayurvedic texts, if any; traditional processing for medicinal use (shodhana purification); seed saving and selection; regional variation; the role of traditional knowledge in Ayurvedic production. Weliange (2018) and Diddeniya and Kulatunga (2021) are leads.
- Modern growing practices. Intercropping and concealment; seasonal cycle and harvest timing; irrigation and fertilisation; drying, curing and storage; selection pressures under eradication; comparison with Kerala cannabis across the strait; the civil war's effect on cultivation geography and methods.
- Varieties. Domestic Sri Lankan cannabis (morphology, growing characteristics); the distinct characteristics of Kerala cannabis as documented by the NDDCB; varieties referenced in Ayurvedic texts; any modern hybrid introduction; chemotype data, if any exist.
- Kerala cannabis. Its morphological and quality differences from domestic cannabis; its price comparison; the historical depth of the cross-strait trade; the connection to the Indian Kerala ganja landrace; smuggling methods and vessel types; the role of fishing communities; the Indian enforcement perspective; seasonal patterns of smuggling.
- Prices. The differential between domestic and Kerala cannabis; 2017–2019 price data from the NDDCB Handbook 2022; comparison with regional markets in India and Southeast Asia. The NDDCB Handbooks of 2022 and 2025 and UNODC (2005) are leads.