Dor the past year, the legalization of medical cannabis has been a serious issue in Lebanon. Following the announcement of a bill by the parliamentary spokesman, many people, politicians and researchers alike, are campaigning to develop and control the production of Lebanese cannabis oil. However, the real source of the substance, if not the plant itself, one of the five rarest varieties in the world, are the farmers of the Bekaa, a region where cannabis has been grown and rented for over a century. Often framed and defended by their own political representatives, these workers are also able to cultivate illegal weed thanks to the lawless zone demarcated by the country’s paramilitary forces.
Today, 4,500kg of Lebanese hash are worth $9 million to the commune of Yammouneh. A yield that interests a State with a struggling economy, since by regulating and expanding exports, Lebanese cannabis could become a billion-dollar industry. But under what conditions? According to the mayor of Yammouneh, Hussein Shreif, the new businesses that the government would create would form a process of dispossession that would sign the “slow death of communities that have everything they have thanks to this plant of paradise”. The farmers of the Bekaa, attached to their seeds which grow despite the most arid climate, are ready to accept legalization, according to their representatives, under certain conditions. These include keeping cultivation land at existing levels, exonerating 30,000 individuals currently charged with cannabis-related offences, and above all, a free-market economy in which farming communities manage sales and exports.
But it remains to be seen who really runs the cannabis trade in Lebanon today. Those whom the government simply calls “mafias” have little interest in exposing themselves in public debate. In this grey area, it’s hard to know whether, as some politicians say, the farmers’ own testimonies are “bought” by the mafias, or whether this is really a local economy to be protected, even if it means regulating it better.
Ariel
