“Who is gonna get high?...Pahadi people are :D” “Pack our bags, v r moving to Uttarakhand right now” “Hey stoners, let’s go to Uttarakhand! :)”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.

The centre, which was inaugurated in late November by Rawat, is run by the Panchachuli Women Weavers’ Co-operative and employs around 80 women, who are paid Rs 3,500 - Rs 5,500 a month.

Muni Mehta, who oversees operations at the centre, says hemp is a lot like nettle in its tensile strength and grows widely in the region and could offer great benefits if people can cultivate it. They are both harvested around October. “One big problem for farmers here is wild animals often destroy crops. But they don’t attack hemp plants,” says Mehta, who does not know the reason. Some say it could be due to the smell the plant gives off.Cannabis is a plant which grows in different climatic conditions and consists of two main species, Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. A third kind, Cannabis ruderalis, is not so common. There are hybrids, too, with one of the species being dominant. Cannabis has been used recreationally, industrially and medicinally for centuries in different cultures, including in India.The cannabis plant has over 80 unique compounds called cannabinoids, including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is the compound with psychoactive properties that gives a person a high when they consume it, and cannabidiol (CBD), which is known to counteract some effects of THC and has medicinal properties.Cannabis sativa is tall and thin and used both for its hemp fibre and also for marijuana. Usually, the stalk of a tall cane-like male variety can be used for its hemp, though the stalk of the female plant is also put to use. The buds of the shorter female plant are used as marijuana or hashish, which is the resin derived by rubbing the buds, and the seeds have traditionally been used to make oil and other foods.Hemp usually contains very low THC in its leaves and flowering parts, regulated by some countries at less than 1%, while recreational marijuana has about 3-20% THC, though it can be higher in some plants. Short and wide, indica has less industrial applications and more recreational and medicinal uses. It is said to have more THC than CBD and hence preferred to sativa by recreational users.Uttarakhand is said to have more sativa or sativadominant cannabis plants than indica, and Himachal Pradesh, popular for its hashish, has more indica or indica-dominant plants. Uttarakhand has tasked three state research institutions to develop cannabis plants with a THC concentration at 0.3-1.5% for industrial use. State government officials could not be reached for comment.Presently, most of the hemp used in textiles or for food is collected from the wild. Deepa Manola, who works at the Nanda Devi centre, says people in the region are quite willing to grow hemp. “I don’t think it (the licence) will be misused to grow cannabis that can be smoked. That is not a concern at all.” Mukti Datta, cofounder of Panchachuli Women Weavers’ Co-operative, says whether or not the government allowed it, people in the region have been growing hemp.“The indigenous knowledge (of the uses of hemp) has stayed. The government’s plan is something that can give employment to a lot of unskilled people.” She says the co-operative is at the moment making some samples of hemp products and working out the costs.The stalk of the hemp plant is used to make rope, apparel, shoes, upholstery, geotextiles and packaging and hemp seed can be used to make oil, flour and animal feed. One of the most common uses of the seed in Uttarakhand is a flavourful chutney.Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), a three-year-old startup which provides the Nanda Devi centre a link to the market for its products, has joined hands with an institute under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to carry out research on the 150-odd different seeds it has collected, with an aim to standardise seeds which are low in THC.Avnish Pandya, cofounder and director, research & development at BOHECO, says the research project will cost $7,00,000, or Rs 4.65 crore, which will come from an unnamed trust through one of BOHECO’s entities. “We are the funding agency to the project and this is the first of its kind in the country.”Jahan Peston Jamas, another cofounder and director of strategy, says while none of the research institutes in India has worked extensively with cannabis, there are scientists who have worked on opium. “The genetic structure of opium is more complicated than that of cannabis.” Pandya adds that it will take two to four years before they have standardised seeds. “We will set up a not-for-profit which will either give the seeds free to farmers’ collectives or for a price, and then buy back 100% of the hemp which will in turn be bought by BOHECO.”



The company will sell hemp to textile manufacturers and hempbased foods directly to consumers. BOHECO will enjoy plant breeders’ rights on the seeds, which gives it some exclusive rights over them. The company is in the middle of raising funds for the first time. Amrita Chengappa, who runs SOS Organics, an organic food and cosmetics maker based about 10 km from the Nanda Devi centre, says by standardising seeds we run the risk of creating a monopoly. “We will have another Monsanto, ” she notes.

Standardising seeds aside, the biggest issue is implementing this plan. Uttarakhand has not ‘legalised’ hemp cultivation as many reports say. Growing cannabis has always been legal under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.Sections 10 and 14 allow for the cultivation of cannabis for industrial, medicinal and scientific purposes, under the government’s watch. “When you grow opium under regulation, why can’t you grow cannabis?” asks RS Tolia, former chief secretary of Uttarakhand. Besides authorising opium poppy cultivation, the government also sells bhang, an intoxicant made from cannabis leaves and buds and consumed widely on Holi, in some states.A ministry of textiles report puts the annual potential for hemp-based textiles in the state at Rs 240 crore. The size of the global hemp market is estimated at $800 million - $1 billion (Rs 5,320 crore - Rs 6,650 crore). China is the biggest producer of hemp products. Other countries where hemp cultivation is legal include Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, France and the US (some states).Tripti Tandon, deputy director, Lawyers Collective, says the government does not have to report details about the authorised area under cannabis cultivation and production to the International Narcotics Control Board as it has to for opium. Asked why no state has encouraged cultivation of cannabis though the NDPS Act allows for it, she adds, “There has been no formal acknowledgement of cannabis’ medicinal and other uses.”Given how complicated the cultivation of opium is, with several approvals and multiple levels of reporting, the cultivation of hemp in Uttarakhand is not going to be without hassles. But the silver lining is the state government will have a lot more control with cannabis than with opium, for which the final authority rests with the central government.While the medicinal potential of cannabis is still being researched in the US and its applications in India have been in alternative systems of medicine, the first step for states would be to encourage its industrial use, which has the potential to both create jobs and add to the states’ exchequers. At the same time, states should explore the medicinal properties of cannabis. The success of Uttarakhand’s experiment is crucial to that.