Hemp cultivation: Uttarakhand's plan to hand out licences to grow the plant is a welcome step for farmers' livelihood
ALMORA, UTTARAKHAND: These were among the tweets in response to Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat’s recent comments that the state would encourage hemp cultivation and hand out licences to farmers for the same. Little do those who tweeted the aforementioned know that if they smoked the bud of the cannabis variety the government plans to licence they would end up with a splitting headache rather than a high. That is because these plants will have negligible tetrahydrocannabinol, but more on that later.
These tweets, and the ones saying that Uttarakhand is the first state to legalise cannabis cultivation in India, are symptomatic of the misinformation there exists on cannabis and its regulation in the country. Bridging the communication gap among the public and convincing them of its good intentions will be among the state government’s biggest challenges, if not the biggest, in this initiative.
A glimpse of what allowing people to grow hemp could achieve is at the ready at Kasar Devi, a beautiful village near Almora, Uttarakhand, about 400 km north-east of Delhi. It’s 10 am on a weekday, the air is clean and crisp and the cold just the right kind, not warranting more than a cardigan buttoned-up.
At the Nanda Devi Handloom and Heritage Centre of Excellence, women from villages in the vicinity are already hard at work in different stages of turning pashmina and alpaca wool, nettle and cotton into shawls, carpets and scarves. While some are putting the final intricate artwork on the fabric, there are a few seeking comfort in the warmth of the sun as they make balls out of dried strings of nettle, or bichhu ghas.
ALMORA, UTTARAKHAND: These were among the tweets in response to Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat’s recent comments that the state would encourage hemp cultivation and hand out licences to farmers for the same. Little do those who tweeted the aforementioned know that if they smoked the bud of the cannabis variety the government plans to licence they would end up with a splitting headache rather than a high. That is because these plants will have negligible tetrahydrocannabinol, but more on that later.
These tweets, and the ones saying that Uttarakhand is the first state to legalise cannabis cultivation in India, are symptomatic of the misinformation there exists on cannabis and its regulation in the country. Bridging the communication gap among the public and convincing them of its good intentions will be among the state government’s biggest challenges, if not the biggest, in this initiative.
A glimpse of what allowing people to grow hemp could achieve is at the ready at Kasar Devi, a beautiful village near Almora, Uttarakhand, about 400 km north-east of Delhi. It’s 10 am on a weekday, the air is clean and crisp and the cold just the right kind, not warranting more than a cardigan buttoned-up.
At the Nanda Devi Handloom and Heritage Centre of Excellence, women from villages in the vicinity are already hard at work in different stages of turning pashmina and alpaca wool, nettle and cotton into shawls, carpets and scarves. While some are putting the final intricate artwork on the fabric, there are a few seeking comfort in the warmth of the sun as they make balls out of dried strings of nettle, or bichhu ghas.
