Kathmandu, July 9 -- Nearly 50 years after American government pressure forced Nepal tooutlaw the cultivation and consumption of cannabis, the Himalayan country is trying to bring back an important cash crop that also may have medicinal applications to fight COVID-19.

The pandemic was already spreading in March when former law minister Sher Bahadur Tamang of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) registered a private bill in Parliament to overturn a 1976 law that criminalised the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis.

"The bill is designed for the economic upliftment of poor farmers that depend on the cannabis crop," says an optimistic Tamang. "So far we have received very positive response from fellow MPs and I am sure there wi...