When municipal and regional officials from throughout Turkey gathered at the presidential palace in the capital Ankara for a speech on the role of local governments, they were in for a surprise. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would be returning to widespread cannabis cultivation and called upon regional leaders to promote the crop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ministry of Agriculture will begin a study and we will take these steps,\u201d Erdogan\u00a0pledged<\/a>\u00a0at the Jan. 9 meeting.\u00a0\u201cWe will produce it again.\u201d<\/p>\n He even invoked childhood memories of his family\u2019s cannabis-based cottage industry,\u00a0Middle East Eye<\/a>\u00a0notes. \u201cI remember my mother used to knit shopping bags that we could use when shopping. You don\u2019t throw them away immediately\u2026 It is earth friendly\u2026 These are made of cannabis,\u201d Erdogan said.<\/p>\n Four days later, speaking on his economic program during a visit to an armored vehicles factory in the northwestern province of Sakarya, he\u00a0again stressed<\/a>\u00a0his vision for a new agricultural sector in the country: \u201cI am calling out to my nation; let\u2019s start the process to cultivate industrial hemp<\/a>. We will see that industrial hemp has many different benefits in many different areas.\u201d<\/p>\n It should be noted that Erdogan\u00a0used the word\u00a0kenevir<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in both comments, which English translations have variously rendered as either \u201ccannabis\u201d or \u201chemp.\u201d The word can mean both or either in Turkish \u2014 it\u00a0derives from the same Greek root\u00a0as the English word \u201ccannabis,\u201d and there is no separate word for \u201chemp.\u201d In a Spanish-language write-up, Turkey\u2019s own official news agency\u00a0TRT<\/a>\u00a0used the word \u201ccannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n The ambiguity may have been intentional, especially as more and more hemp is grown around the world today for CBD production<\/a> as opposed to traditional industrial purposes. Some of Erdogan\u2019s supporters have seized on his announcement to more explicitly call for medical marijuana production in Turkey.<\/p>\n Playing to his conservative Islamist base, Erdogan used barely veiled terms to blame Western pressure for the decline of cannabis in Turkey over the past generations. \u201cWe destroyed cannabis in this country because of some enemies who were disguised as friends,\u201d Erdogan said at the Ankara speech.<\/p>\n Indeed, Erdogan\u2019s announcement comes amid heightened tensions with the West. A\u00a0state of emergency<\/a>\u00a0has been in place in Turkey since a 2016 coup attempt, and Erdogan grabbed\u00a0sweeping executive powers<\/a>\u00a0in a constitutional referendum last year. Thousands have\u00a0been arrested<\/a>,\u00a0press freedom is under attack<\/a> and the European Union has\u00a0iced plans for Turkish membership<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tensions are\u00a0particularly high<\/a>\u00a0with Washington, D.C. at the moment over U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish forces that Erdogan considers \u201cterrorists.\u201d Tying a cannabis economy to anti-Western sentiment may be a bid to win support from a culturally conservative establishment otherwise ill-disposed to the idea.<\/p>\n Hemp cultivation is currently permitted in only 19 of Turkey\u2019s 81 provinces,\u00a0Daily Sabah<\/a>\u00a0reports. The day after Erdogan\u2019s announcement, Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said that the government will begin issuing new permits to expand this area. Successive governments have restricted the sector, so that the area under hemp cultivation in Turkey plunged from 42,000 acres in 1989 just 200 acres last year. The Erdogan government\u2019s plan is to rapidly reverse this trend.<\/p>\n Pakdemirli said the\u00a0Black Sea Agricultural Institute<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ondokuz Mayis University<\/a>, both in the northern city of Samsun, are carrying out a joint research project on commercial cannabis. \u201cWe will approve new locations that will produce organic cannabis,\u201d he said, according to\u00a0Middle East Eye<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some regional leaders are embracing the idea enthusiastically. Gov. Osman Bilgin of Kirklareli province, on the Bulgarian border, stated: \u201cThere are 2.5 million cannabis plants naturally grown in our city. We won\u2019t burn them anymore. We will contribute the economy with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Also jumping on Erdogan\u2019s proposal was the pro-government Istanbul daily newspaper\u00a0Dirilis Postasi, which on Sunday published a full front-page spread under the headline \u201cCannabis production is a national matter.\u201d As\u00a0Middle East Eye\u00a0notes, the story included a\u00a0large graph shaped like a stylized cannabis leaf<\/a>, with each blade representing an application of the plant, from the energy sector to the textile industry. The article also accused \u201cWestern imperialists\u201d of seeking to undermine Turkish agriculture through cannabis prohibition.<\/p>\n On the same day, Abdurrahman Dilipak, one of Turkey\u2019s most prominent Islamist writers, ran an opinion piece in the fiercely conservative Istanbul newspaper\u00a0Yeni Akit<\/a> in which he explicitly called for the legalization of medical marijuana in the country. \u201c[The] Turkish Social Security Administration<\/a> should produce medication based on cannabis and distribute without a charge under the supervision of medical doctors,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n With the Islamist right actually embracing the idea, Turkey may be poised for very rapid ascendance in the world cannabis industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think Turkey could become a power player in global cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Turkey\u2019s Authoritarian President Comes Out in Favor of Cannabis Cultivation<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
When municipal and regional officials from throughout Turkey gathered at the presidential palace in the capital Ankara for a speech on the role of local governments, they were in for a surprise. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would be returning to widespread cannabis cultivation and called upon regionalContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2121,216,1521,296,81,7151,7152],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32185,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184\/revisions\/32185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Hemp for Victory Over Western Imperialism?<\/h4>\n
Not Just for Fuel and Fiber?<\/h4>\n
\n
\nRead More: Turkey\u2019s Authoritarian President Comes Out in Favor of Cannabis Cultivation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"