Claim Ledger — R02: The Global Cannabis Cultivation Landscape

Report: R02 · Ledger version: v1.0 (approved by Danny 2026-08-31) · Last updated: 2026-08-31 Grading reference: PROTOCOL.md §3 · Verification: PROTOCOL v1.3 two-check regime (see critique.md §2, §6a)

Claim IDs are permanent. Sources cited in full on first use; registered as S-066+ in SOURCE_LIBRARY.md at sign-off. Spine (per critique §7): global measurability → regional findings → systems & scale → home cultivation → regulated-market capacity → traditions & landraces → myth checks → explicit unknowns.

Block 1 · Global measurability & estimate provenance

R02-C001 — Cannabis cultivation is documented in at least 155 countries covering ~96% of the world’s population; this measures geographic reach, not hectares or tonnes.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: UNODC World Drug Report 2026 (data.unodc.org/wdr2026)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: The most geographically widespread illicitly cultivated crop. Any use of this figure must state it is presence, not production.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C002 — No scientifically defensible current estimate exists for global drug-type cannabis harvested area or dry-flower production; published global totals are un-calibrated aggregations of incompatible methods.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: UNODC WDR 2025/2026; EUDA EU Drug Market: Cannabis
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Extends R05-C031 (canopy ≠ production) to the global scale. Gemini: published 30,000–100,000+ t figures mix wet plant, manicured flower, and resin under arbitrary seizure multipliers. The keystone claim of R02.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C003 — Legacy global ranges (~200,000–641,800 ha; 13,300–66,100 t herb; 2,200–9,900 t resin, ca. 2008) are heterogeneous assemblies of member-state reports, seizures, and yield assumptions — useful as history of estimation, not as baselines.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: UNODC/EMCDDA legacy syntheses (WDR-era, ~2008–2009)
Researcher agreement: chatgpt-only
Notes: Cite only as historiography.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C004 — Global production is structurally bifurcated: herbal cannabis (ubiquitous, multi-system) and resin/hashish (hyper-clustered in North Africa and Southwest Asia), with distinct yields, processing, and trade routes.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Clarke & Merlin 2013, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany, UC Press, DOI 10.1525/9780520954571; UNODC WDR series; EUDA
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: “Largest producer” claims that ignore this bifurcation are meaningless (see R02-C035).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C005 — The four families of cannabis production estimation (seizure multipliers, eradication extrapolation, satellite survey, regulated track-and-trace) carry known, distinct directional biases; numbers from different families are not comparable.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: UNODC crop-monitoring methodology; CA DCC dashboard correction notes; Gemini/ChatGPT methodological audits (raw-inputs)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Seizure changes reflect enforcement as much as supply (Western Balkan herb seizures fell >84 t (2017) → 14 t (2021) — detection change, not proven production change; EUDA). Track-and-trace is accurate for legal canopy only and has documented data-entry corrections (CA 2021 per-plant harvest errors).
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 2 · Regional cultivation findings

R02-C006 — The joint UNODC/Morocco 2003 survey established the Rif baseline: 134,000 ha under cannabis, ~3,070–3,080 t potential resin, ~96,600 growing households — a historical anchor, not a current figure.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (for 2003; low for any projection forward)
Sources: UNODC & Kingdom of Morocco, Morocco Cannabis Survey 2003 (remote sensing + ground truth)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Resin figure reported as 3,080 t (ChatGPT) / 3,070 t (Gemini) — rounding variants of one survey. Follow-up surveys: 120,500 ha (2004), 72,500 ha (2005); later official estimates ~47,000 ha through much of 2010–2018, 21,000 ha (2019).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C007 — Since ~2010 the Rif has undergone documented varietal displacement: imported European hybrids replacing the traditional Beldia landrace, raising dry-sieve resin yields from ~1.5–2.5% to ~4.0–7.5% while imposing severe water and input costs.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Chouvy & Afsahi 2014, “Hashish revival in Morocco,” Int. J. Drug Policy 25(3):416–423, DOI 10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.01.001; Afsahi & Chouvy 2015, IJDP, DOI 10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.04.018; Chouvy & Macfarlane 2018, IJDP 58:85–91, DOI 10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.04.013
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Chemotype shift (Beldia ~2–8% THC with 1–4% CBD; hybrids ~15–25% THC, <0.5% CBD) graded probable/medium — field-reported ranges, not systematic assay series. Hybrid shift makes kif-era resin-yield conversion factors obsolete. Ecological strain: borehole aquifer depletion, spring drying, deforestation for terracing (Gemini; consistent with Chouvy & Afsahi).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C008 — Under Law 13-21 (2021), Morocco’s ANRAC licensed legal medical/industrial cultivation: >3,000 farmer permits, ~2,500–3,000 ha, ~4,000 t authorized biomass reported for 2024, from a 2023 pilot of ~294 ha.

Evidence status: probable
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium (agency-reported; independent audit not found)
Sources: ANRAC (anrac.gov.ma) announcements; Gemini raw-input compilation
Researcher agreement: gemini-only
Notes: Legal-program figures are administrative and small relative to the historical illicit baseline (C006). Recreational use remains prohibited.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C009 — Morocco remains the principal external resin source for Europe, but its current production cannot be confidently estimated: modeled output conflicts with seizure volumes, and hybrid yields broke the old conversion factors.

Evidence status: established (for source-role) / unknown (for current tonnage)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (in the claim as graded)
Sources: EUDA EU Drug Market: Cannabis; UNODC; Chouvy & Macfarlane 2018
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Some years’ Morocco/Algeria/Spain seizures approached or exceeded modeled Moroccan output — the clearest single demonstration that the model, the seizures, or both are wrong.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C010 — UNODC Afghanistan surveys (2009–2012) documented 9,000–29,000 ha of commercial cannabis, ~40,000 growing households (2010; interval 25,000–60,000), and irrigated resin yields averaging ~145 kg/ha — 4–7× traditional Moroccan dryland yields.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (for the survey years)
Sources: UNODC Afghanistan Cannabis Surveys 2009/2010/2012
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: “World’s largest resin producer” headlines derive from this yield economics and are period- and product-specific (see R02-C035). Processing tradition: dry-sieved garda grades.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C011 — Afghanistan’s post-2022 cannabis trajectory is unknown: Taliban narcotics bans and opium contraction are documented, but no direct evidence establishes what happened to cannabis cultivation.

Evidence status: unknown
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (that it is unknown)
Sources: UNODC WDR 2023–2026; opium monitoring reports
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Do not extrapolate the opium collapse to cannabis. Gemini reports enforcement reduced visible commercial cultivation with clandestine persistence — directional, unquantified.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C012 — Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley is a documented century-old resin tradition (Red/Blonde Lebanese), but Law 178/2020 legalizing medical/industrial cultivation remains non-operational, leaving production entirely illicit and unquantified by surveys.

Evidence status: established (tradition & legal status) / unknown (output)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: Law 178/2020 (Lebanese Parliament, April 2020); UNODC/EUDA regional reporting; Clarke & Merlin 2013
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Figures for Lebanon are dominated by eradication/seizure records, not repeated crop surveys.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C013 — Most herbal cannabis consumed in the EU is likely produced inside the EU, substantially indoors; Morocco supplies the resin market.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: EUDA EU Drug Market: Cannabis — Production; Trafficking & Supply
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: “Likely” is EUDA’s own calibration — supply-side inference, not a production census.
Status: active
Used in: —

Evidence status: probable (producer role) / unknown (magnitudes)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: low–indeterminate (for the numbers)
Sources: SENAD annual reporting & joint SENAD/Brazilian Federal Police operations (Operación Nueva Alianza, ~2,000–4,000 ha eradicated/yr); UNODC WDR 2024; InSight Crime 2023
Researcher agreement: gemini-only (ChatGPT lists Paraguay qualitatively)
Notes: Correction-round trace (critique §6a): the share and area figures are constructed from eradication sums plus assumed interdiction rates — recorded here explicitly as unresolved-provenance quantities per the “plausible earns no canonical status” rule. Two–three harvests/yr; 1,000–1,500 kg/ha unmanicured biomass reported (same estimate-lore tier).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C015 — Colombia runs a dual structure: a licensed medical/export CEA sector (Law 1787/2016; Decree 811/2021; equatorial photoperiod advantages) that consolidated sharply after early over-investment, alongside persistent illicit high-THC cultivation in Cauca (“Cripy,” night-lighting photoperiod manipulation) under armed-group control.

Evidence status: probable
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: Law 1787/2016 & Decree 811/2021 (Colombia); UNODC/EUDA regional reporting; Gemini raw-input compilation
Researcher agreement: gemini-only (ChatGPT consistent at lower resolution)
Notes: Licensed sector administratively visible; illicit sector not measured comparably to coca monitoring.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C016 — Mexico’s traditional brick-cannabis export economy was structurally displaced by US regulated production, and despite Supreme Court unconstitutionality rulings (2018, 2021), no commercial adult-use framework was enacted through 2026.

Evidence status: established (regulatory stall) / probable (displacement)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: SCJN rulings 2018/2021; legislative record through 2026; UNODC/enforcement reporting on cartel crop shifts
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Grades the archive’s 2019 “Mexico as worldwide leader” deck: not realized (see R02-C036).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C017 — Sub-Saharan Africa combines deep traditional production (Pondoland/KZN South Africa; Malawi Chamba; Nigerian forest-reserve plantations) with a new licensed export tier (Lesotho high-altitude EU-GMP greenhouses; SAHPRA-licensed South African medical), while total continental output remains unquantified.

Evidence status: established (presence & structures) / unknown (quantities)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: Clarke & Merlin 2013; du Toit 1980 (Malawi/SA ethnography); SAHPRA licensing; Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 2024 (SA); Cannabis Regulation Act 2020 (Malawi); INCB Annual Report 2023 (12 African states filed medical/scientific estimates)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: No defensible ranking of African producers exists. Malawi cob-curing and SA traditions ledgered separately in the content layer, not as production quantities.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C018 — Thailand’s 2022 delisting produced mass registration (>1.1M citizens via the PlookGanja app) and rapid commercial expansion, followed by 2024–2025 re-restriction efforts — making any year-specific Thai cultivation figure fragile.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: Thai Ministry of Public Health Category-5 delisting (June 2022); PlookGanja registration reporting; 2024–25 policy record
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Registrations ≠ growers ≠ output (same discipline as license counts, C022). Policy dynamics → R03.
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 3 · Systems & scale structure

Evidence status: established (that the claim is unsupported)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Health Canada CTLS licensed-area series; CA DCC licensing data; EUDA
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Area still cannot be converted to output (cycles, utilization, yields) — the negation of the myth does not establish the opposite ranking by mass. Indoor dominates retail shelf presence and cycles/yr; sun-grown/greenhouse dominate physical area.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C020 — Health Canada’s licensed-area series is monthly and must be month-stamped: Dec 2024 = 1,453,902 m² indoor / 596 ha outdoor; an adjacent 2024–25 month = 1,412,077 m² / 689 ha. Licensed area ≠ harvested area ≠ production.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Health Canada CTLS licensed-area series (canada.ca)
Researcher agreement: both (figures reconciled in critique §4 as different months of one series)
Notes: The corpus’s standing example of why identical-sounding administrative figures diverge: same source, different date-stamp.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C021 — In traditional producing regions (Rif, Afghan provinces, Pondoland), cannabis operates as a smallholder livelihood strategy on family-labor plots of ~0.2–1.5 ha, financing household food security and debt service — not as industrial monoculture.

Evidence status: probable
Specificity: direct
Confidence: medium
Sources: UNODC Morocco 2003 (96,600 households); UNODC Afghanistan 2010; Afsahi 2020 (Routledge Handbook of Post-Prohibition Cannabis Research); du Toit 1980
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Coexists with regulated-market scale structures; no single global cultivation archetype.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C022 — Scale categories (“craft/smallholder/industrial”) have no global thresholds — they are jurisdictional canopy definitions — and license counts systematically overstate active producers (dormant, stacked, provisional licenses; CA’s documented track-and-trace corrections).

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: CA DCC dashboard glossary & correction history (incl. 2021 per-plant harvest-entry errors); Health Canada license classes (micro 200 m², nursery 50 m²); state administrative definitions
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Defensible descriptors are measurable ones: canopy, harvests, labor model, capital intensity, market channel.
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 4 · Home cultivation

R02-C023 — Home cultivation is measurable only where registries or surveys exist: Canadian consumer surveys report growing/proxy-growing as a source for 8% (2018), 9% (2019), 14% (2020) of consumers, with ~7–10% of past-year consumers growing per CCS 2023 — consumer shares, not household prevalence or mass.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Statistics Canada, Research to Insights: Cannabis in Canada (2023); Canadian Cannabis Survey 2019/2023
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Different instruments measure different things (source-share vs. grower-share); never mix them in one trend line.
Status: active
Used in: —

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: national statutes as listed; IRCCA registry data; ARUC (Malta)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Registration counts understate unregistered cultivation (Uruguay); legal capacity ≠ uptake (ACT).
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 5 · Regulated-market capacity & oversupply

R02-C025 — Every mature closed-loop regulated market has experienced structural wholesale price collapse: US West Coast outdoor flower ~$1,200–1,500/lb (2018–19) → ~$150–400/lb (2023–25); Colorado AMR $1,721/lb (Dec 2020) → $648/lb (2024–25); Canadian bulk greenhouse below CAD $0.50–1.00/g.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Colorado MED AMR series (sbg.colorado.gov/med); Cannabis Benchmarks; Health Canada market data; OLCC market data
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Confirms and extends R05-C029 (margin compression exposes high-OpEx indoor). Oversupply is jurisdiction-specific (no interstate/international outlet), not evidence of global overproduction.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C026 — Canadian licensed producers destroyed >1.68 million kg of unsold dried cannabis (Oct 2018–mid-2023; routinely 400–600 t/yr) while holding 1.2–1.5 million kg in vault inventory against ~450–550 t/yr domestic sales — the most complete administrative record of regulated agricultural overproduction.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Health Canada CTLS market data (destruction & inventory series)
Researcher agreement: gemini-only (ChatGPT reports the same system via packaged-unit series)
Notes: Package “units” (ChatGPT’s Dec 2024 series) and kilograms are different metrics from the same system — never convert.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C027 — California’s licensed cultivation base contracted by more than half (≈10,700 active cultivation licenses in 2022 → <5,200 by 2025) under compliance costs, local bans, and price collapse, while licensed production volume nonetheless increased and illicit-sector change remained officially “difficult to determine.”

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: CA DCC licensing data & 2024 Market Outlook (2025)
Researcher agreement: both (license contraction gemini; outlook chatgpt)
Notes: Consolidation: top 10% of farms ≈60% of permitted area (Dillis et al. 2021, Land Use Policy 105, 105369, DOI 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105369 — verified).
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C028 — Legal international trade is medical/scientific only (1961 Single Convention; INCB quotas are ceilings, not harvests): Canada is the largest exporter (59,986 kg dried medical flower FY2022–23, expanding to ~80–100 t/yr), Germany the largest importer (20.8 t 2021 → 31.4 t 2023 → 60–70+ t/yr after the April 2024 MedCanG reclassification).

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Health Canada export data; BfArM import statistics; INCB Narcotic Drugs estimates; MedCanG (Germany, 2024)
Researcher agreement: gemini-only (ChatGPT confirms the INCB-ceiling discipline without the trade series)
Notes: No globally complete, product-harmonized actual-exports table exists; customs codes can mix preparations and hemp.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C029 — Commonly cited producer-level allocation splits (A-grade flower 15–25%, B-grade/pre-roll 15–20%, extraction biomass 35–50%, waste 10–20%) are industry heuristics without resolvable provenance and are recorded as unresolved, not as measured findings.

Evidence status: unknown
Specificity: anecdotal
Confidence: low
Sources: none resolvable (industry-practice ranges; Gemini raw-input)
Researcher agreement: gemini-only
Notes: Ledgered explicitly as unresolved per the correction-round rule (“plausible earns no canonical status”). Administrative systems track retail categories, not farm-gate allocation; flower/extraction fungibility defeats clean splits. Candidate for future track-and-trace batch-level research.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C030 — Legalization has nowhere eliminated illicit cultivation: in California, high compliance costs and municipal bans kept legacy smallholders out of (or drove them from) the licensed market, and trespass grows on public lands persist with documented wildlife toxicosis from banned carbamates and anticoagulant rodenticides.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Polson, Bodwitch, Biber, Butsic & Grantham 2023, “After legalization: Cannabis, environmental compliance, and agricultural futures,” Land Use Policy 126, 106531, DOI 10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106531 (verified); Bodwitch et al. 2019, “Growers say cannabis legalization excludes small growers…,” California Agriculture 73(3):177–184 (verified); Gabriel et al. 2012, PLoS ONE 7(7):e40163; Gabriel et al. 2018, Avian Conservation and Ecology 13(1): art. 2, DOI 10.5751/ACE-01134-130102 (verified: 70% NSO / 40% barred-owl AR exposure); Gabriel et al. 2015, PLoS ONE 10(11):e0140640 (toxicants = 10% of fisher mortality)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: All tuples here passed the v1.3 correction-round audit (critique §6a). Persistence magnitude is uncertain everywhere (CA DCC: illicit change “difficult to determine”); Canadian legal capture of domestic spending ≈70–80% measures consumption, not farms. Policy causation → R03.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C031 — No globally comparable cultivation-employment figure exists; the best-measured slice is US regulated industry employment (~412,500 total FTEs in 2025–26, of which ~100,000–125,000 cultivation), which cannot be aggregated with survey-era household counts (Morocco ~96,600; Afghanistan ~40,000) into one number.

Evidence status: established (that no global figure exists) / probable (US slice)
Specificity: adjacent (industry report for the US split)
Confidence: medium
Sources: Vangst/Whitney Economics Jobs Report 2026; UNODC Morocco 2003; UNODC Afghanistan 2010
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Repeated “X million cannabis jobs” figures include retail/ancillary/induced employment — outside the cultivation boundary. The US cultivation-FTE split is single-source industry data; graded accordingly.
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 6 · Traditions & landrace provenance

R02-C032 — Whole-genome resequencing (110 accessions) places cannabis domestication in East Asia in the early Holocene (~12,000 BP), with hemp and drug lineages diverging ~4,000 BP, all within one interfertile polymorphic species; archaeobotanical evidence supports fiber/seed use by ~10,000–8,000 BCE.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Ren et al. 2021, Science Advances 7(29):eabg2286, DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abg2286; Long et al. 2017, Veget. Hist. Archaeobot., DOI 10.1007/s00334-016-0579-6; Small 2015, Botanical Review 81(3):189–294, DOI 10.1007/s12229-015-9157-3
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Sampling gaps limit finer reconstruction; genomics cannot authenticate commercial products sold under geographic names (see C033). Grades the archive’s “8000 BC” line: supported as early-fiber inference with the timeline stated carefully.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C033 — Commercial strain names are not stable genetic identities: genotyping shows only moderate correspondence between reported ancestry and genetic structure, and a geographic name on a product is marketing provenance (tier 5), not verification.

Evidence status: established
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Sawler et al. 2015, PLOS ONE 10(8):e0133292, DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0133292; Ren et al. 2021; Chouvy 2024, IJDP 129:104479, DOI 10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104479 (landraces/terroir)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Anchors the brief’s 5-tier landrace-provenance hierarchy. Defensible landrace claims need farmer populations, accessions, or population-genetic evidence.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C034 — Landrace genetic erosion is directly documented in the Rif (wind-pollination introgression from imported hybrids making unhybridized Beldia seed increasingly scarce) and reported in the Bekaa and Himalayas, but no quantified global erosion rate exists.

Evidence status: established (Rif) / unknown (global rate)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (in the claim as graded)
Sources: Chouvy & Afsahi 2014; Afsahi & Chouvy 2015; Clarke & Merlin 2013/2016 (Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 35:293–327, DOI 10.1080/07352689.2016.1267498)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: A conservation concern with one well-documented case — not a measured worldwide percentage. Morocco’s ANRAC Beldia seed-certification program (C008) is a live counter-pressure worth tracking.
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 7 · Myth checks & claim lineage

R02-C035 — “Morocco/Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer” is stable only when restricted to illicit resin in specific survey periods; it was never established for herbal flower or total biomass, and no current all-product ranking is defensible.

Evidence status: established (as calibrated)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: UNODC Morocco 2003; UNODC Afghanistan 2009–2012; EUDA
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Gemini verdict “partially supported” and ChatGPT “unknown as stated” agree once product/period are pinned: resin-specific, historical — yes; general — no.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C036 — “Cannabis is the world’s most valuable cash crop” is unsupported: it originates in Herer-era advocacy and was quantified by Gettman (2006) as $35.8B by multiplying eradication plant counts × 1 lb/plant × $1,600/lb retail — a retail-priced construct compared against farm-gate crop values (FAOSTAT maize ~$190–220B); at wholesale prices, global legal cannabis farm-gate value is an order of magnitude below major staples.

Evidence status: established (that the claim is unsupported)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: Gettman 2006, Marijuana Production in the United States (NORML) — provenance trace verified exactly; Herer 1985, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (lineage); FAOSTAT Value of Agricultural Production
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: The corpus’s flagship “denominator laundering” teaching case (per ChatGPT): estimated plants × assumed yield × retail price vs. crops measured at the farm gate. Grades the archive’s Herer-inheritance claims (the author and researcher’s previous writing Ch. 9). The opposite claim (“cannabis is economically minor”) is not established either. Companion archive grades: 2019 Mexico deck → C016; Shennong → C032 notes (Han-era text ~200 CE, not 2700 BCE); Jack Herer strain → C037.
Status: active
Used in: —

R02-C037 — The ‘Jack Herer’ cultivar is a mid-1990s Dutch indoor polyhybrid (Sensi Seeds; reported pedigree Haze × [Northern Lights #5 × Shiva Skunk]), not a traditional landrace — the corpus’s teaching example for tier-5 landrace marketing.

Evidence status: established (not a landrace) / traditional-practice (exact pedigree, breeder-reported)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high (for the negative) / medium (for the pedigree)
Sources: Sensi Seeds breeder records (breeder lore tier); Sawler et al. 2015 (names ≠ genetics); Clarke & Merlin 2013
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: Named for the activist ca. 1994. Breeder pedigrees are recorded as claims, never verification — the same discipline the strain teaches.
Status: active
Used in: —

Block 8 · Explicit unknowns & data requirements

R02-C038 — A defensible global cultivation picture would require: harmonized drug-type/hemp separation, active harvested area with crop cycles, saleable dry mass with stated uncertainty, supply-source surveys for the unlicensed denominator, comparable home-grow instruments, batch-level product allocation, georeferenced repeated landrace sampling, and facility-level active-producer status — none of which currently exist at global scale.

Evidence status: established (as the documented gap map)
Specificity: direct
Confidence: high
Sources: synthesis of C002, C005, C019–C022, C029, C031, C034 (both raw inputs’ data-gap maps)
Researcher agreement: both
Notes: This is R02’s forward-looking research agenda; seeds R03 (enforcement data), R09–R12 (genetics), R21–R24 (systems measurement standards).
Status: active
Used in: —

Ledger summary

38 claims. Evidence status: established 30 (several dual-graded with unknown components) · probable 5 · unknown 3 (C011, C029, and the magnitude halves of C009/C012/C014/C017/C034). Researcher agreement: both 30 · gemini-only 6 · chatgpt-only 2. Explicitly unresolved-provenance entries (ledgered as such, never canonical): C014 magnitudes, C029 allocation splits. All Berkeley CRC / wildlife-toxicology citations use the tuples verified in critique §6a. Discrepancy resolutions: Health Canada month-stamping (C020); Morocco resin rounding (C006).

Source file in the research repository: research/reports/R02-global-cultivation-landscape/ledger.md. Private links, some names and practitioner-record passages are removed from the public copy, and broken character encoding from file conversion is repaired; nothing else is changed.