Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian cannabis landraces. The most renowned traditional cannabis cultivars originate from Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand and Laos. The finest ‘Thai Stick’ of the ’60s and ’70s came from northern Isan, an ethnically Lao region of Thailand, and neighbouring Central Laos. Either side of the Mekong River on its course from the Golden Triangle to the frontier of Cambodia are ethnic Tai (above all Lao) regions that are heartlands of Southeast Asian ganja culture.

Cannabis landraces are product-specific. In the context of ‘drug-type’ cannabis, all tropical landraces are domesticated specifically for production of sinsemilla. The traditional name for this product is ‘ganja’ – aka, ‘cha’ or ‘sa’ – meaning seedless or lightly seeded high-THC female inflorescences. The Bay of Bengal and its peripheries probably comprise the original centre of domestication of ganja landraces.

Ganja landraces are known in popular jargon as ‘Sativas’. Authentic Sativas are the most potent type of cannabis landrace, with Lao / Isan landraces of the early ’70s showing as high as 17% THC. Landrace Sativas have undergone centuries of regular individual plant selection, which accounts for their often high potency.

The so-called ‘sinsemilla technique’ for producing seedless bud was already employed in the East Indies in the 17th Century and perhaps as early as the 12th Century. The estimated antiquity of the product sinsemilla / ganja depends on how early scholars date the Ānandakanda, a text which provides a detailed description of roguing out males and methods for optimising resin output.

In addition, the high level of trade around the Bay of Bengal has likely caused extensive hybridization between landraces. Most good landraces are hybrids of two or more landraces.

Mainland Southeast Asia is probably a zone of hybridization between Tai ganja landraces and imported landrace germplasm that arrived with traded ganja from Indonesia and eastern India, as well as with consumers such as lascars, labourers, and military.

In counterpoint, accounts by English merchant adventurers such as Thomas Bowrey indicate Southeast Asian ganja was a prized commodity among Indians on the Coromandel Coast by as early as the 1670s – specifically, ganja imported from Aceh in Sumatra.

Authentic Southeast Asian ganja landraces are at high risk of extinction due to the introduction of modern Indica–Sativa seed by affluent Asians and Westerners, particularly in Cambodia and Thailand.

Mainland Southeast Asia is also a centre of biodiversity for hemp, the crop being cultivated in the northern highlands bordering China by groups such as the Hmong. Some Thai and Lao ganja landraces may be hybrids with East Asian hemp landraces, perhaps including our ‘Highland Thai’ accession from the Shan / Tai Yai border region of Burma.

For some interesting ongoing breeding projects using Thai germplasm check out this strain, Thai THCV.

For the importance of applying correct techniques to raise a crop of ganja, see this post: Traditional Ganja Cultivation Techniques – Bengal, 1894.