What Ali Hamiyeh, mayor of Northern Bekaa town Trayah, calls the good old days, for most Lebanese are the dark ages of death and terror. Hamiyeh and a whole host of farmers and agriculturers in Lebanon's rural northeast however look at the heinous Lebanese cicil war of the 80s and 90s from a quite different angle than the average citizen.
"The financial situation was very good. People could do everything, there were no economic restrictions." Hamiyeh points out, emphasizing that today, with state, authorities and economy supposedly reconstructed, the situation is quite different. With scarse crop yields and no other job possibilities available the economic setting in the structurally underdeveloped region is more than dire. Rather disastrous.
That this was not always the case is evidenced by data collected by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC). Amid the chaos of the civil war Lebanon emerged as the Middle East's main source of narcotics, producing up to 1,000 tonnes of cannabis resin annually and 30 to 50 tonnes of opium, the lion's share of which in the economically traditionally weak Beqaa Valley.
Following armed clashes in 2012 government authorities have ceased to condut eradication effort. One of the primary reasons for the government's demonstrative softness toward drugs is believed to be Hezbollah's deep involvement in drug traffacking. The Amsterdam based NGO Sensiseeds estimates the income of Hezbollah's drug trafficking network to be around 4.4 million $ per annum, being thus acrtical to the orgnization's finances. While Hezbollah officially denies involvement in drug trafficking it is wide consensus that this claim is rather a self-serving declaration than a serious dementi.
Hezbollah being a senior membor of the government coaltion the path to drug legalization should be clearly marked. Yet, although Hezbollah has repeatedly prevented crackdowns and eradication programs, it never has voiced support for drug legalization. That may be because it is not in their interest. Legalization would most probably lead to an increase in supply and taxation and render obsolete Hezbollah's illicit trafficking network.
Yet there is an entire host of people who would profit from more liberal drug policies. Cannabis thrives in the rugged, arid Bekaa Valley with no need for irrigation or fertilisers, unlike many other plants, and is far more profitable. A hectare of cannabis may produce anything from 40-100 kg of hashish, worth €16,000-€40,000. Legalization efforts would therefore jump-start the Beqaa Valley economy and alleviate the poverty of thousands of farmers in Eastern Lebanon.
The outlook of Ahmed (name changed), a Beqaa valley farmer, is somehow ambigous: "With the war in Syria and the influx of refugees the government has other things to worry about than us growing cannabis, so in the near future, to my mind, it won't make any problems." Throughout much of Lebanon hashish is now widely available, cheap and easy to source. Furthermore there are signs that the prevalent attitude towards drugs is becoming more liberal. Still Ahmed does not think that the prospects of legalization are good: "It is not up to Lebanon to decide that. Most parties are supported and also finance by foreign powers such as Iran and Saudi-Arabia. And I do not think that they will look favourably on liberal experiments, however economically beneficient they may be."
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