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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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India: Cannabis cultivation continues to thrive in Kullu
Daily India
Monday 19 Mar 2007 Kullu (Himachal Pradesh), Mar 19: Picturesque hill town of Kullu continues to be under the grip of illicit drug cultivation and trade. While drugs seized in 2006 was comparatively less compared to the previous year, the number of people arrested for their involvement in the banned drug's cultivation and trade has gone up. "In 2006, in connection with the 111 cases registered, 105 persons have been arrested. Out of 105, 75 were Indians, nine foreigners and 21 Nepalese. A total of around 106 kilograms of Charas (hand-rolled Indian hashish) was recovered," said Superintendent of Police, Kullu, G D Bhargava. In 2005, police made 67 arrests, seizing about 124 kilograms of Charas. So far this year, eight persons have been arrested and nearly 26 kilograms of Charas has been recovered from them. "We have been focusing on not letting go cases of small transactions. So that we can cover the smallest of peddlers who might be supplying small quantities to children through parchoon (knick-knack) shops," said Additional Superintendent of Police, Kullu, Hardev Bisht. According to the officials, the difficulty in clamping down on the stocks of the crop, which forms the raw material for various drugs, was the active involvement of communities in the interior in cannabis cultivation. Local residents complain the youth are increasingly falling a prey to the powerful drug mafia in Kullu and other places in Himachal Pradesh. Farmers say that depleting forest cover compelled them to look for alternative source of income and cannabis cultivation offered them an opportunity to make quick money.Farmers get 5,000 rupees for one kilogram of poppy, which fetches about ten million rupees in the international market. In the past, the police have destroyed more than 1,500 acres of cannabis crop. About 130,000 farmers are engaged in the cultivation of illegal opium on the land, which forms the world's largest area, for the pharmaceutical industry. In 2001, India produced 726 metric tons of opium from 19,393 hectares planted with opium poppy. http://www.dailyindia.com/ Posted by http://www.lca-uk.org/
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