Word: lebanons
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...Lebanon's anti-drug squad and the handful of soldiers protecting them had an unpleasant surprise last month when they launched an annual raid on fields of ripe hashish in the northern Bekaa Valley. Rather than standing aside meekly while their hashish was ploughed up as in the past, the farmers this year were determined to protect their lucrative crops. "They shot at us with automatic weapons from nearby woods and houses," Colonel Adel Machmouchi, head of Lebanon's Drug Enforcement Bureau, told TIME. "RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] were exploding above our heads and we had to leave...
Long grown in the fertile Bekaa, cultivation of the cannabis sativa plant peaked during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war when the northern half of the valley was carpeted in hashish and opium poppies, turning simple farmers into multi-millionaire drug barons. In the early 1990s, the Lebanese government and the United Nations Development Program launched an initiative to replace drug crops with legitimate alternatives. The UNDP estimated some $300 million was required for rural development of the Bekaa. Lebanon was removed from the U.S. government's list of major drug producing countries...
...being hungry. We view the government as an enemy and from now on we are going to grow hashish and we don't care what the government says or tries to do," said Ahmad, a hashish farmer. It is an argument that fails to win the sympathy of Lebanon's drug police. "Does poverty in Lebanon only exist in the Bekaa?" asks Colonel Machmouchi. "No, but it's the only area growing hashish." The problem, he added, is that the farmers of the Bekaa are so accustomed to growing hashish that they no longer consider the practice a crime...
...Lebanon's maritime and land borders are also under close observation since last year's war between Israel and the militant Shi'ite Hizballah organization, mainly to prevent arms being smuggled into the country. That makes it harder for drugs to be whisked out of Lebanon - which creates a looming local problem. With cannabis having a shelf life of about two years, most dealers plan to sell their products in the domestic market. Recreational drug use is on the rise in Lebanon. "The problem is that drugs are readily available and relatively cheap," says Brigitte Khoury, a clinical psychologist...
...while expeditious review and expanded quotas are urgently needed, they will not affect the welfare of the several million Iraqis who have lost their homes and their livelihoods. If the Administration is to ease the toll on Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Syria and persuade them to welcome Iraqis in need, it must extend massive assistance to those governments to help fund shelter, food, sanitation, health care and transportation for arriving Iraqis. Among the 200,000 Iraqi children who have fled to Jordan, only 20,000 started school in the past year, and 6,000 of them dropped...