Will Himachal’s cannabis resolution open a Pandora’s box?

In the first week of September, the Himachal Pradesh Assembly adopted the report of a government-constituted committee and passed a resolution legalising cannabis cultivation. The government believes that this will be an economic game changer for the State, and curiously, both the ruling Congress and the BJP-led opposition are on the same page on the issue.

It was in April 2023 that the State government constituted a committee for the legalisation of cannabis cultivation, under the chairmanship of Jagat Singh Negi, Minister for Revenue, Horticulture and Tribal Development, to examine legalising the cultivation of cannabis/hemp (excluding charas) for medicinal, scientific, and industrial purposes under Sections 10 and 14 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, along with Rule 29 of the Himachal Pradesh, NDPS Rules.

Negi panel report

According to the Negi committee report, a copy of which is with Frontline, the committee studied the practices of controlled cultivation of cannabis for non-narcotic purposes in Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The panel members visited the Centre for Aromatic Plants in Dehradun and gathered first-hand information on cannabis cultivation; they met officers in the excise department as well. In Madhya Pradesh, they deliberated with the Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN) on the legal aspects and visited a medicine manufacturing unit at Malanpur that has obtained a licence from the Ministry of Ayush to use cannabis in the production of the drug.

In Jammu and Kashmir, they visited the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine in Srinagar, where they gained an insight into “captive cultivation” of cannabis at the institute’s farms at Gulmarg and Jammu.

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In Himachal Pradesh, the committee sought public opinion from panchayati raj representatives in Chamba, Kangra, Kullu, Mandi, Sirmaur, and Solan districts. According to the committee, there was “overwhelming support” for the cultivation of cannabis in the State, with checks and balances.

The State’s topographical and climatic factors suit cannabis cultivation. The plant currently grows in the wild and is destroyed by government agencies owing to its potential use as a narcotic.

Panel recommendations

The Negi committee said that the State government could exploit the plant’s untapped potential to the benefit of farmers by regulating the cultivation of cannabis for non-narcotic purposes. The committee was of the view that industrial hemp had a wide variety of uses. Its stalk, seed, and leaves could be converted into material for construction, textiles, paper, food, furniture, cosmetics, healthcare products, biofuels, and so on. The panel estimated that the State could generate a revenue of Rs.400-500 crore in the initial years alone.

The panel also argued that industrial hemp farming could dramatically minimise the carbon footprint as the plant could be cultivated with little or no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. The State could encourage research for the production of hemp for medicinal and scientific advancements. Besides, legalising and regulating hemp production could provide economic opportunities and reduce the influence of drug dealers.

The committee recommended that the State NDPS rules be amended to permit and regulate the cultivation of any cannabis plant in a controlled environment. Additionally, it also recommended the production, manufacture, inter-State import and export, possession, sale, purchase, and consumption or use of cannabis purely for medicinal and scientific purposes under the powers conferred on States under Section 10 of the NDPS Act.

Likewise, it suggested that orders be passed to allow the cultivation of any cannabis plant for industrial purposes only for obtaining fibre or seed or for horticultural purposes as provided under Section 14 of the NDPS Act. The Department of State Taxes and Excise could take care of licensing and enforcement.

It also recommended that standard operating procedures be adopted for the cultivation and manufacture of finished products and mooted the constitution of a State-level authority that would provide a single-window system to regulate the processes involved in the non-narcotic production of cannabis, like seed banks, seed dispersal, procurement of produce, and setting up of industrial and pharma units.

The committee also made recommendations for research and development, geotagging, and deployment of extra staff in the excise department.

Complexities abound

However, the proposal has its share of complexities, as the committee noted. In its visit to Uttarakhand, the first State to allow large-scale industrial cultivation of hemp, excise officers apprised the committee members of the challenges.

Under Section 14 of the NDPS Act, the Uttarakhand government had issued an order for the cultivation of industrial hemp with a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of 0.3 per cent or less. But as it turned out, fixing this proportion was not easy and it proved to be a bottleneck in the implementation of the hemp policy.

Not only was it difficult to procure seeds with 0.3 per cent THC content, cross-pollination also posed a challenge in maintaining the desired TCH level.

Given these challenges, the committee recommended that the Himachal Pradesh government assist cultivators in the procurement of seeds or dispense with the requirement of maintaining 0.3 per cent THC content.

Situation in other States

In Madhya Pradesh, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and excise officials said that monitoring was important so that cannabis was not diverted for narcotic use. Cannabis cultivation is permitted in the State, and hemp rules have been amended to allow the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. A company named Sai Phytoceuticals has been granted a licence for the manufacture of medicines using cannabis.

In Jammu, under a private-public partnership arrangement of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, in collaboration with a Canadian firm, cannabis cultivation is being carried out as a pilot project in one farm.

But not everyone agrees with the recommendations. Vijay Singh Thakur, former Vice Chancellor of the Solan-based Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, expressed mild surprise at the unanimous Assembly resolution permitting the legal cultivation of cannabis. He said he was concerned about the growing prevalence of recreational drugs in the State. “Himachal is already facing issues of ganja and chitta [a synthetically produced drug] consumption. Every day, we get reports of young men dying from this. The government’s plan must be to boost farmers’ income,” he told Frontline.

He added: “If the revenue-strapped government earns Rs.10,000 crore, it would mean the policy has worked. If cannabis is confined to the pharmaceutical sector, then it is okay, but if it is open to everyone to sow it and get a charas-ganja permit, problems will crop up.”

Other uses

Apart from medicinal and recreational use, there are other uses of cannabis too. It is used in food such as stuffed parathas during the harsh winters and considered a delicacy.

Thakur said: “There must be a charter about who can grow it. The government should receive scientific inputs about which areas are best suited for cannabis. If everyone starts growing, it will be disastrous. Cannabis is in the category of weed; it is not in any agricultural manual.”

It cannot be denied that a serious drug abuse crisis exists in the State. In February 2022, the then State government under the BJP rolled out a State-level Integrated Drug Prevention Policy that included provisions for the rehabilitation of drug addicts and for the creation of alternative livelihoods for those engaged in the illicit cultivation of cannabis.

Drug abuse crisis

O.P. Sharma, a former NCB officer, was involved in the framing of that policy. The policy acknowledged the severity of the problem and that the government had been ignoring the multidimensional nature of the issue. The policy promised to tackle the illicit cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy in forested and non-forest areas. The Department of State Taxes and Excise was designated as the nodal agency for the destruction of illicit crops, and a task force was constituted for the purpose.

The policy recognised that specialised enforcement agencies of the Centre and the State government did not have adequate manpower and resources to take on peddlers. A commitment for a dedicated State drug fund to control drug abuse was made but never followed through on. The policy, by and large, has remained mostly on paper, Sharma told Frontline.

Charas menace

Sharma also recalled that a lot of land under cannabis was destroyed in the 1990s under the provisions of the NDPS Act. Besides, several inter-State and international drug cartels had been busted in the State.

Sharma said: “The problem started when foreigners entered the picture. People started using cannabis as charas. We caught many local cartels and destroyed the acreage under cannabis. The seed was an imported variety; it was not an Indian strain. It was not used for fibre extraction but for hashish for international sale. It was important to eradicate cannabis from private lands.”

There were two issues then: the rehabilitation of farmers engaged in hashish production and the eradication of strains that were being grown in forest areas.

“The message that has now gone to the public with the passage of the State Assembly resolution is that there will be no restriction on charas, and that is bad,” said Sharma, who was also the former convenor of the first-ever Himachal Pradesh Nasha Nivaran Board dedicated to eradication of drug addiction. He estimated that around 36 per cent of the youth had moved towards synthetic and semi-synthetic drugs. This was accompanied by increased social acceptance of cannabis.

There are no detailed surveys, studies, or research on drug abuse, cultivation, and trafficking.

Sharma said that he conducted a survey of 1,170 patients at 27 de-addiction centres during the COVID pandemic and found that drug abuse was rampant. According to him, 22 per cent were charas addicts, 32-33 per cent alcoholics, and 34.41 per cent of those in the 15-25 age group were on chitta/opioids; 3.4 per cent were addicted to prescription drugs.

Now a member of the Institute of Narcotics Studies and Analysis, Sharma said: “Regulating cannabis cultivation is not easy. If THC is involved, the possibility of its diversion into narcotics use is high. If the government develops and provides the seed, then the THC content can be regulated. If not, it will be chaotic. If it gets diverted, the loss to revenue will be additional.”

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He added: “In the mountainous regions, the quality is best over 6,000 feet. Monitoring at those heights itself is a challenge. There are other questions too. Is this policy only for industry? What is the arrangement with farmers? How will the regulation happen? Will the government give land or forests on lease or have control over the seed?”

He suspected the involvement of vested interests in the push for legalising the cultivation of cannabis.

He cited the case of one Galeno Orazi, an Italian smuggler who had been hiding in the forests, beyond Malana, for over 30 years. “I traced him and got him arrested but no case could be filed against him. He was extradited,” he said.

Why farmers grow cannabis illegally

Sharma also said that in Sirmaur, Shimla, Mandi, Kullu, and some parts of Kangra and Chamba districts, farmers grew cannabis for hashish purposes. But this was purely poverty- and livelihood-driven. The problem, he said, was unemployment and the lack of alternatives.

An interministerial committee was formed at the Centre, but the committee never received enough information. Sharma said: “No State gives truthful data. Meetings are hurried through. States suppress facts, including drug prevalence data. Every State should have a need-based policy. The NDPS is, after all, a broad Act. Only Himachal came up with a policy. But that was not taken forward. The Himachal Pradesh Nasha Nivaran Board never took off.”

He added: “The NDPS Act also has a consultative ministry. The enforcing agency ultimately is the State Taxes and Excise Department but they don’t file any cases. They should do surveys and, in coordination with the Health Department, frame appropriate policies. The police and the excise department compete with each other.”

As of now, the resolution legalising cannabis cultivation has been passed. But clearly, it is not enough. Things should get clearer once the blueprint for its regulated cultivation is made public.