Hemp in Turkey

The country is in its infancy trade in food products, cosmetics and consumer goods produced mainly in Europe.

History

The use of cannabis in Turkey has a thousand-year history, a long tradition of cultivation and use. A plant for centuries massively grown in large numbers of Turkish villages.

Evidence suggests that cannabis is cultivated in Turkey a few millennia. For example, the oldest sample of hemp fabric woven 9,000 years ago, found during excavations settlement Çatalhöyük. Among the ruins of the ancient city Gordion, near Ankara today, archaeologists have found traces of hemp fiber, which has about 1000 years.

In the Middle Ages cannabis it was an integral part of the pharmacopoeia, and the prophet Al Khidr, until now one of the popular religious movements in Turkey is associated with cannabis.

It is known that the use of cannabis in the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) was widespread. However, at the junction of the 19th and 20th centuries, the country's leadership has begun to take decisive action to restrict and criminalize the use of its psychoactive varieties. In 1890, cannabis has been recognized as an illegal substance, in 1925, Turkey, along with Egypt have offered to make the plant at the Geneva International Convention on the Control of Drugs, approved by the League of Nations. Since 1933, cannabis in the country officially outlawed, the Turkish parliament adopted a law prohibiting the cultivation, commerce, possession and use of cannabis.

Modernity

The Turks still use hemp cooking traditions. Center for cultivation of hemp is south-east of the country. It produces two-thirds of the total amount of raw hemp. This region is known for its fertile soil, ideal climate and terrain.

Pulp mill Seka started with the production of long-fiber pulp for its own production of hemp paper filters for cigarettes and cigarette paper in 1984 provides plant products such as paper for the cigarette filter, cigarette paper, paper which is used in surgery.

The country is in its infancy trade in food, nutrition, cosmetics and consumer goods produced mainly in Europe.

Some areas of religious movements in Turkey used cannabis for their sacred rites.