Tag: cannabis

  • Senate committee approves Cannabis Authority Bill in landmark decision

    Senate committee approves Cannabis Authority Bill in landmark decision

    The Senate’s Standing Committee on Science and Technology has given a nod of approval to the country’s first-ever Cannabis Authority Bill.

    The bill will regulate the cultivation and manufacturing of cannabis to protect public health and explore the economic potential of the cannabis industry.

    Notably, cannabis can be used for industrial and medicinal purposes, with an economic potential of four to six billion dollars.

    The Cannabis Control and Regulatory Authority will be under administrative control of the cabinet division. Defence secretary will chair the 13-member board overlooking the authority. The board will have representatives from various government departments, private sector, and intelligence agencies.

    The board will be responsible for making policy decisions and advising the federal government on all matters related to cannabis licensing.

    Disagreement of the members

    The approval has come after a delay of over four years due to disagreements between different ministries over its jurisdiction.

    The dispute over the bill was even witnessed during the meeting of the committee as Chairman Senator Kamil Ali Agha stressed the need for a thorough examination of each clause before proceeding, while Senators Dr Afnan Ullah Khan, Musadik Masood Malik, and Nasir Mehmood demanded it to be passed without further review.

    However, PTI Senator Shibli Faraz commented he would submit a dissenting note if the bill was passed without due consideration because he is aware of the initial documentation and knows all the intricacies.

    Later, the committee agreed to revisit each clause, and identified and removed several shortcomings in the draft.

    Senator Afnan Ullah informed the chairman that following party’s directives, PML-N senators would vote in favour of the bill.

    Both Shibli Faraz and the committee chairman questioned why the Ministry of Defence was supervising the Cannabis Development Authority.

    However, the committee was informed that cannabis is grown in FATA, so the involvement of the defence ministry and other agencies was necessary to be involved as this measure is in accordance with the UN protocols as well.

    The Senate committee later unanimously passed “The Cannabis Control and Regulatory Authority Bill 2024” with amendments that seek inclusion of two senators — one of whom must be a woman — in the board, along with other revisions to the bill’s clauses.

  • Man arrested for growing marijuana at home in DHA

    Man arrested for growing marijuana at home in DHA

    A man has been arrested for growing and selling marijuana at a rented home in Defence Housing Authority, Karachi.

    Express Tribune reported on the snap check case.

    The suspect is a Canadian-Pakistani, identified as Sarfaraz Ahmed Khan. The man had created a controlled environment using air-conditioners to adjust temperature and moisture as required for the growth of the plant. He would then sell it.

    Credits: The Express Tribune
    Credits: The Express Tribune

    According to Excise and Taxation and Narcotics Control Department Secretary Atifur Rehman, the value of the seized cannabis plants is worth about Rs 15 million.

    He said that excise officials caught Sarfaraz during snap checking on Sunday. They recovered liquor and cannabis from his car and detained him for interrogation.

    Credits: The Express Tribune

    E&T team then raided his house where they discovered an indoor nursery of cannabis plants.

    Apart from air-conditioners, oxygen cylinders and concentrators were also used alongside LED lights for light control.

    Seed, fertilisers, and soil had been imported.

    Credits: The Express Tribune

    Excise secretary claims that the chances are that cannabis factories are functioning in other parts of the city as well.

    Sarfaraz has been produced before a magistrate to acquire a seven-day physical remand for interrogation.

  • ANF confiscates more than one tonne of drugs during an operation in Islamabad

    ANF confiscates more than one tonne of drugs during an operation in Islamabad

    During an operation on Sunday, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) was able to recover more than a tonne of drugs and take two suspects into custody.

    According to a spokesman for the ANF headquarters, the ANF carried out a raid in the Islamabad area after receiving a tip, seizing nearly one tonne of drugs, including 1,020 kg of hash and 28.8 kg of heroin, as well as two members of an inter-provincial drug smuggling ring.

    The refrigerated container contained medicines that were being transported out of Balochistan. After filing a case against the accused, ANF began a new investigation to find other gang members, he continued.

    In other news, the Airports Security Force (ASF) recovered 7 kg of heroin on Sunday as a result of two separate raids at the airports in Lahore and Karachi.

    Asif Ali, a passenger travelling from Lahore to Bangkok, had 5.12 kg of heroin hidden in his hand luggage, according to Anti Narcotic Force (ANF) officers. The accused had expertly concealed the heroin in his hand luggage.

    In the second operation, which was carried out at the Karachi Airport, 1.47 kg of heroin was found in Ahmed Sher’s suitcase, who was travelling from Karachi to Medina.

    While ASF representatives said that the accused had been given to ANF for additional legal proceedings, including drug charges.

  • Anti-Narcotics Force recovers ice-infused bed sheets, 102 kg drugs

    Anti-Narcotics Force recovers ice-infused bed sheets, 102 kg drugs

    The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) seized ice drug-infused bed sheets that were being smuggled to Australia during a raid at a courier service office in Lahore. Muhammad Asad, a Muzaffarabad resident, placed the order for the package.

    Along with detaining one accused person, ANF was able to recover over 102 kg of drugs in two other operations.

    ANF Intelligence carried out a raid on GT Road in Akora Khattak, according to a spokesman for the ANF Headquarters, and confiscated 102 kg of drugs, including 84 kg of hashish and 18 kg of opium, from a truck’s hidden compartments.

    A suspect named Zaib Gul, resident of Mansehra, was also detained by the ANF. The accused’s accomplices would also face imprisonment, according to ANF official.

    The suspects have been charged in separate cases, and additional inquiries are being conducted.

    in the wake of rising drug cases, the ANF has been quite active in recent months, carrying out several operations around the nation and making it nearly impossible to smuggle drugs.

  • Bhang will bring in more dollars in Pakistan, says Shibli Faraz during the crop’s inauguration

    Federal Minister for Science and Technology Shibli Faraz said that the experiment to plant bhang (edible mixture made from the buds, leaves, and flowers of the female cannabis, or marijuana, plant) has remained successful as it helps in producing medicines to deal with cancer, body pain, and other illnesses, reports ARY News.

    He shared that other than the medicine industry, the bhang plant is also used extensively in the textile and paper industries. “Medicines produced from CBD [cannabis] oil could also be exported,” he said.

    “A seed of bhang is worth US$12 in the international market and encouraging its lawful export will help in curbing its illicit trade,” Shibli Faraz said and added that bhang plantation is 10 times more fruitful than profits from the sale of drugs.

    He shared that the CBD or cannabis oil is being sold at Rs10,000 per litre in the international market. The minister said that bhang could prove to be an alternate crop for cotton and would help the country in earning foreign exchange.

    Shibli also informed that plans to establish an authority to improve bhang plantation were in process, adding that foreign investors have also shown their interest in its plantation.

    The minister further announced to improve ginger plantation in order to shun its imports.

  • Pakistan to export pants made of ‘bhang’

    Pakistan to export pants made of ‘bhang’

    A group of scientists working at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, has successfully extracted hemp thread from indigenous cannabis and processed it with cotton to make ‘hemp jeans’.

    Department of Fibre and Textile Technology Chairperson Dr Asad Farooq told a private media outlet that hemp fabric is a sustainable material. It is made of fibres of a very high-yielding crop in the cannabis sativa plant family, he added.

    “We have signed an MoU with a US-based company and will soon begin mass production,” said Dr Farooq in conversation with Samaa. According to the chairperson, the cannabis pants will be exported to the US and Europe because these markets are replacing cotton with sustainable fibre.

    The fibres are extracted from the plant by a process called retting. In the next stage, impurities are removed and then it is converted into yarn through chemical treatment.

    The treated soft fabric is then blended with cotton. We used a ratio of 20:80 of hemp and cotton, said Dr Farooq, adding that at present, hemp costs more than cotton but the price will gradually decrease with an increase in production.

  • Federal cabinet approves first-ever licence for cannabis use; seized drugs to no longer be destroyed

    Federal cabinet approves first-ever licence for cannabis use; seized drugs to no longer be destroyed

    In what has been termed a “landmark decision” by Federal Minister for Science & Technology Fawad Chaudhry, the federal cabinet has approved the first-ever licence for the Science & Tech Ministry and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) to use hemp — cannabis plant — for industrial and medical purposes.

    After the approval, confiscated drugs will no longer be destroyed and instead be used to make medicines, reports said.

    The development was confirmed by Fawad, who took to Twitter and wrote:

    The federal cabinet’s decision comes months after it was reported that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan wanted the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) to stop burning charas [hashish form of cannabis] and other seized drugs, and instead set up a factory where they can be utilised to make medicines.

    In a video doing rounds over the internet in February, Narcotics Control Minister Shehryar Afridi could be heard as saying that his department was working to set up a factory on the premier’s orders. This factory would manufacture medicines solely from seized drugs, thousands of kilogrammes of which are set ablaze every year at a drug-burning ceremony held by the ANF.

    “We are setting up a factory… we burn a huge cache of heroin, charas and afeem [opium] every year, but other countries use them to make medicines. Now, on PM Imran Khan’s instructions, a factory will be established in Tirah [Valley] so that lives of locals can be improved,” he had said.

    According to research conducted by many reliable sources over the years, cannabis, marijuana or hashish has long been known to provide pain relief from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, nausea, and can also minimise some symptoms of glaucoma and Crohn’s disease.

    Similarly, a study at Hannover Medical School found that opiate addicts — usually people addicted to painkillers like Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin, or Demerol — were able to better kick their opiate addiction after taking small dosages of heroin.

  • VIDEO: ‘Charas expo in KP’ leaves internet stunned

    VIDEO: ‘Charas expo in KP’ leaves internet stunned

    A charas [hashish form of cannabis] expo has allegedly been held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), a video of which has gone viral over the internet.

    The video is widely being shared on Facebook and Twitter with the claim that “Charas Expo 2019” was held in Terah Valley of the province that is rather infamous for high cannabis consumption as well as production.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    It shows locals showcasing different kinds of charas as a crowd wanders around buying the drug.