A bespectacled, well-dressed Islamist recently expelled from the Turkish Journalists’ Association for comparing campaigners against domestic violence to prostitutes is perhaps not the most likely candidate for ardent cannabis advocate.
But Abdurrahman Dilipak, 72, is one of Turkey’s loudest voices in favour of legalisation as attitudes change and the country begins to experiment with reintroducing the once widespread crop.
“Cannabis has a thousand benefits … This plant is generally a blessing of Allah. It cleans the air, water and soil,” he wrote in his column for Yeni Akit, a conservative newspaper. “Alcohol is more dangerous.”
Industrial hemp was cultivated in Turkey’s humid Black Sea region until strict anti-narcotics laws were introduced in the 1970s: many people today attribute the change in policy to pressure from the US. Even now, cannabis remains a taboo topic, and penalties for recreational use can be as high as two years in prison.
While hemp paper and textiles production survived, the last of these factories closed down in 2000, unable to compete with cheaper petroleum-based materials imported from places such as India.
Grappling with an economic crisis, and searching for ways to diversify, in 2019 Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made a surprise announcement that the country would take steps to increase cannabis production in the hope of restoring the once booming hemp export industry.
Now, the first crop of plants bred and studied by…
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A bespectacled, well-dressed Islamist recently expelled from the Turkish Journalists’ Association for comparing campaigners against domestic violence to prostitutes is perhaps not the most likely candidate for ardent cannabis advocate.
But Abdurrahman Dilipak, 72, is one of Turkey’s loudest voices in favour of legalisation as attitudes change and the country begins to experiment with reintroducing the once widespread crop.
“Cannabis has a thousand benefits … This plant is generally a blessing of Allah. It cleans the air, water and soil,” he wrote in his column for Yeni Akit, a conservative newspaper. “Alcohol is more dangerous.”
Industrial hemp was cultivated in Turkey’s humid Black Sea region until strict anti-narcotics laws were introduced in the 1970s: many people today attribute the change in policy to pressure from the US. Even now, cannabis remains a taboo topic, and penalties for recreational use can be as high as two years in prison.
While hemp paper and textiles production survived, the last of these factories closed down in 2000, unable to compete with cheaper petroleum-based materials imported from places such as India.
Grappling with an economic crisis, and searching for ways to diversify, in 2019 Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made a surprise announcement that the country would take steps to increase cannabis production in the hope of restoring the once booming hemp export industry.
Now, the first crop of plants bred and studied by…
