BENGALURU:While there are talks to waive off farmer’s loans worth `53,000 crores in the state, the head of the movement to legalise cannabis has given Chief Minister HD Kumuraswamy an alternative solution.
Bengalurean Viki Vaurora, head of the Great Legalisation Movement or GLM, has written a letter to the CM, highlighting how “freeing one plant” for medicinal and industrial use can help solve farmers’ financial and loan woes.
In the letter, Viki has done an analysis between Karnataka and the state of Colorado in USA that legalised Cannabis in 2014 to put his point across. The letter mentions that the total land area of Colorado – 2,69, 837 sq km – is almost the same as Karnataka – 1,91,791 sq km. Of this, the arable land used for cultivation in Colorado is about 1,29,041 sq km, while in Karnataka, it’s 1,23,100 sq km.
“Colorado as a state, which is roughly the same size as Karnataka, and has the same available arable land space managed to generate over 0.6 billion dollars of cannabis trade, just from the cannabis industry in 2017. That is roughly `4,000 crores of trade in just one year generated from just one plant. This revenue was generated from using the plant only for its recreational and medicinal purposes,” claims Viki.
He adds that the the state does not need to get involved in temporary solutions through loan waivers. “The problem will come back again and the cycle of loan waivers will repeat year after year. It is essential to remove a situation that requires farmers to take such large loans. As a result of the waivers, the financial situation of the country and the economy is also not good,” he adds.Viki submitted the letter a few days back to the CM and is hoping for the best.
Earlier, the GLM had some hope when the matter was welcomed by the health ministry.Viki had managed to meet the then-principal secretary of the state health department, Shalini Ragneesh.Following this, a meeting was also convened between officials from the health department, finance and excise departments, state departments of Ayurveda, Yoga and Aaturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoepathy (Ayush), experts and Ayurvedic doctors. This was done to come up with ways to use cannabis for medicinal purposes in the state. However, besides this meeting, nothing more has happened so far.