Pubdate: Sun, 02 Feb 2014
Source: Post, The (Zambia)
Copyright: Post Newspapers 2014
Contact:  http://www.postzambia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3160
Note: by Reuters

EGYPT BORDER FENCE CHOKES ISRAELI WEED SMOKERS

Israel's newly fortified Egyptian border has delivered a severe blow
to drug smugglers, forcing its hashish and marijuana smokers to deal
with a new kind of high - soaring prices. The ravines that snake past
rocky red mountains once provided a popular, low-risk route for
traffickers to run drugs, women and African migrants into Israel over
the southern frontier along Egypt's Sinai desert.

But with a rise in Islamist militant violence in Sinai, Israel in 2011
accelerated the fortification of the border with a five-metre
(16-foot)-high fence, state-of-the art surveillance and special
military forces - with a crippling side effect for smugglers.

And as workers weld the few remaining patches of the metal barrier,
drug supply in Israel is down and prices are up.

"We've hit smuggling hard. Just last week we caught almost 100 kilos
of hashish. That's millions of shekels," said a senior Israeli
military officer in the area.

As far as the army is concerned, any breach of the border could be a
potential militant attack by one of the jihadi groups that inhabit the
Sinai. That is why soldiers can find themselves dealing with criminal
activity together with police.

The Bedouin traffickers have deep knowledge of the millennia-old trade
route, the officer said.

"They (the smugglers) know the terrain as well as we do. They collect
intelligence on us and observe our movements. They do all that well,
but we wait for them at the right spots and we catch them."

Middle East turmoil has affected the northern drug route into Israel
too. Neighbouring Lebanon has become increasingly embroiled in the
Syrian civil war and violence in the area has complicated cross-border
narcotics trafficking.

Though a criminal offence, marijuana and hashish consumption is fairly
common in mainstream Israel. According to the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, almost nine percent of Israelis use cannabis.

These drug consumers today spend between double to triple what they
would have before 2011, when neighbouring Arab states descended into
political turbulence and bloodshed. "I just paid 5,200 shekels
($1,492) for a plate (100 grams) of hash. Two or three years ago it
would have cost 2,000 shekels," complained one Israeli who said he
smokes the drug daily. Palestinian hashish consumers in the West Bank
have cited the same price jump.

Briefing an Israeli parliamentary committee last week, police said the
drug "dry-spell" caused by the fence on the Egyptian border might not
last, with the eastern Jordanian frontier possibly turning into an
alternative drug route.

In the meantime, to meet market demands, suppliers have been
increasingly dealing home-grown "Hydro", which is marijuana grown on
water.

"We see more and more labs operated inside flats, basements, and
private homes equipped with automatic ventilation, watering and even
fertilisation," police said. "This cannabis yields high-quality drugs
in relation to that smuggled over the borders."

Smokers, it appears, agree.

"All I need is one slim joint of Hydro in the evening and that's cool,
I'm flying," said a second smoker.

Medicinal marijuana, which is allowed in Israel under certain Health
Ministry regulations, has also been seeping into the illegal drug
market, according to users and police.

Hydro-marijuana and medicinal marijuana both sell for the same street
rate - about 1,000 shekels for 10 grams. The same amount smuggled in
from Sinai before the border was fortified would have gone for about a
third of the price.

"The high with these drugs is much better than the regular weed that
came in from Sinai," said a third smoker. But scarcity and costliness
have dampened the fun. "It's become like cocaine. You think about each
and every gram."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D