Timeline
Two thousand years of one plant, in ten dates.
The whole history on a single line, from Shaivite ritual through the 1973 ban to the 2024 federal commitment to legalize medicinal cultivation.
Sacred roots
Cannabis is woven into Shaivite devotional life: charas and bhang offered to Shiva, smoked by sadhus, blessed at festivals. The plant has four names (bhang, bhango, ganja, charas), each a different use.
UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
The treaty that first bound signatories to prohibit cannabis for non-medical use. Nepal's later ban is traced back to this obligation.
The hippie trail peaks
Overland travellers from Europe begin arriving in Kathmandu in large numbers, drawn by legal, cheap cannabis. Freak Street becomes a fixture on the Istanbul-to-Goa route.
Licenses revoked; Freak Street closes
In July 1973 the government formally revokes all licenses to cultivate, buy, and sell cannabis. The hashish shop windows on Jhochhen Tole shut within days.
Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act, 2033 BS
Parliament passes the statute that criminalises cannabis cultivation, production, sale, possession, and consumption. Still the basis of Nepali drug law today.
Production moves to the mid-hills
Charas cultivation shifts from Kathmandu to the remote mid-hills of Humla, Jumla, and Dolpa, where state presence is thin. Pressing moves indoors; trade moves across district and provincial lines.
Two truths about charas
The official line is that Nepal does not produce significant charas; the unofficial line, in Thamel teahouses and on trekking routes, is that the product is everywhere if you know the right people. Both are true.
Federal commitment to medicinal legalization
Finance Minister Barsaman Pun announces in the 2024/25 budget that legal arrangements will be made for commercial cultivation and consumption of cannabis for medicinal purposes, the first such federal commitment since 1973.
Karnali industrial-hemp pilot
Karnali Province announces a pilot framework for industrial hemp (THC below 0.3%) for fibre, seed, oil, and grain, framed deliberately away from the narcotics statute.
Gandaki drafts a cultivation bill
Gandaki Province, under Chief Minister Surendra Raj Pandey, drafts a bill to legalise cannabis cultivation for medicinal and industrial purposes, with a second province following the same path.
Gandaki passes Nepal's first cannabis-cultivation law
The Gandaki Provincial Assembly unanimously passes the Bill to Regulate and Manage Cannabis Cultivation for Medical and Industrial Purposes, 2026, with a 0.3% THC ceiling for industrial use. Gandaki becomes the first Nepali province to legislate cannabis cultivation.
Federal reform bill still pending
Draft federal legislation (the Cannabis (Regulation and Control) Act, 2025 and the Bill to Regulate and Manage Cannabis Cultivation 2076 B.S.) proposes a license-from-local-government model. Not yet enacted; the 1976 federal ban still stands.