Uttarakhand will be the first State in India to allow commercial cultivation of hemp crop, a rich source of high-quality fibre and a host of medicinal and nutritive products. The State government, earlier this month, granted licence to the Indian Industrial Hemp Association (IIHA), a non-profit organisation that promotes industrial application of hemp, to grow the fibre over 1,000 hectares, on a pilot basis. Even though the policy to allow cultivation of non-narcotic cannabis was formulated in 1985 along with opium, hemp cultivation failed to take off in India as proper procedures were not laid down for its cultivation, procurement and use, unlike that in the case of legal opium.