Lebanon\u2019s parliament is currently writing new legislation that would legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical use in the country, which is already one of the world\u2019s leading contraband producers.<\/p>\n
The news broke in comments made by parliament speaker Nabih Berri to the U.S. ambassador in Beirut, Elizabeth Richard,\u00a0as\u00a0reported by the state-run National News Agency<\/a>\u00a0on July 18.<\/p>\n Parliamentarian Antoine Habchi is leading the effort and\u00a0introduced legislation<\/a>\u00a0days after Berri\u2019s statement. He is explicitly portraying the proposal as a means to help farmers in the hashish-producing Bekaa Valley, who currently grow cannabis illegally.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to find a solution for what\u2019s going on,\u201d Habchi\u00a0told reporters<\/a>. The aim is to \u201callow farmers to live with dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n The move comes after an economic recovery plan for Lebanon\u2019s insolvent national government, drawn up by consulting firm\u00a0McKinsey & Company<\/a>,\u00a0recommended legalizing cannabis cultivation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite Habchi\u2019s assurances, some growers in the Bekka Valley are suspicious of the proposal, fearing that a legal market could slash their profits. Contraband hashish has been the economic mainstay of the Bekka Valley for generations, and the trade especially boomed during Lebanon\u2019s civil war from 1975 to 1990, when militias depended on a circular dope-for-guns economy.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these red-shingled houses around us have been built with marijuana money,\u201d one anonymous local grower in the Bekka Valley town of Yammouneh told a reporter from\u00a0AFP<\/a>\u00a0newswire.<\/p>\n AFP also spoke to the deputy mayor of Yammouneh, Hussein Shreif, who said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have a problem with legalization, but the primary beneficiary must be the grower.\u201d<\/p>\n Shreif said growers prefer the current \u201cfree market\u201d system because they can sell to \u201cbig traffickers to make 10 times more money\u2026 If the state gets involved, the profit won\u2019t be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Authorities have tried fruitlessly to suppress the Bekka hashish industry ever since the end of the civil war. Security forces have destroyed thousands of acres of cannabis fields in the Bekka Valley over the years, but the trade always comes back. UN-backed programs have sought to convince growers to convert their cannabis fields into vineyards \u2014 to scant success. Growers maintain that no crop other than their hearty sativas can thrive on the arid land of the Bekaa.<\/p>\n One fear is clearly that corporate greenhouse operations in Lebanon\u2019s urbanized coastal zone could squeeze out the marginalized farmers in the inland Bekaa Valley.<\/p>\n \u201cIf cannabis production must become legal, it should at least be limited to areas it\u2019s currently growing in,\u201d Jamal Shreif, another local official in Yammouneh, told AFP.<\/p>\n Deputy mayor Shreif also said the Bekaa\u2019s farmers are demanding that any legalization measure must include an \u201camnesty\u201d for the more than 30,000 people wanted on hashish-related charges.<\/p>\n Militarization of the Bekka in the name of drug enforcement continues to be an urgently pressing issue. Just four days after Speaker Berri made his announcement that the parliament was moving forward to legalize medical marijuana, the Lebanese army raided the home of a suspected hashish producer in the Bekaa town of Brital \u2014 and\u00a0left eight residents dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n The most cynical view of the new proposal was voiced by Louis Hobeika, an economist at Lebanon\u2019s\u00a0Notre-Dame University<\/a>. Speaking to pan-Arab news service\u00a0Asharq Al Awsat<\/a>, he darkly predicted that cannabis profits won\u2019t go either to struggling farmers or government coffers but will disappear into the entrenched corruption networks that pervade Lebanon\u2019s bureaucracy and ruling elite.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a move that aims to finance the political mafia in Lebanon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Clearly, it will be critical to watch as the legislative process unfolds over the coming months to see if legal cannabis cultivation will come to Lebanon with a sense of equity.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, where do you think the profits from legal cannabis would go in Lebanon?<\/p>\n The post Lebanon\u2019s Parliament Moves to Legalize Medical Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s parliament is currently writing new legislation that would legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical use in the country, which is already one of the world\u2019s leading contraband producers. The news broke in comments made by parliament speaker Nabih Berri to the U.S. ambassador in Beirut, Elizabeth Richard,\u00a0as\u00a0reported byContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5256,5257,5258,50,2121,5259,5260,918,1831,5261,4945,5262,5263,5264,81,768],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28344,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343\/revisions\/28344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Trepidation in the Bekaa Valley<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Lebanon\u2019s Parliament Moves to Legalize Medical Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"