YAMOUNEH, Lebanon - In a Lebanese farming village of rocky soil and stone villas, cannabis grows everywhere.

It fills the fields that surround the village and lines nearby roads where the army operates checkpoints. It sprouts in the weedy patches between homes and is mixed with other colorful blooms in flower beds.

There is a cannabis crop near the mosque, and down the road from a giant yellow flag for Hezbollah, the militant group and political party whose leaders forbid its use on religious grounds.

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BAALBEK,Lebanon: The warehouse was swirling with cannabis dust, workers with covered faces sorting the harvest that was piled in mounds.

They had their hands full at the mini-factory outside Baalbek sorting through one of the largest fall harvests in recent years, one that many farmers in the Bekaa Valley see as a lifeline amid a stagnant economy.

"We decided here that we do not want people to go hungry," Ali Nasri, a prominent cannabis farmer in the Bekaa Valley, told The Daily Star. "Instead of stealing, plant hashish and confront the state."

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In Lebanon, Where All Eyes Are on a Neighbouring Country Tearing Itself Apart, a Multi-Million-Dollar Drug Trade Is Flourishing Like Never Before

LEBANON'S drug kingpin watched his workers sink spades into the piles of marijuana that banked the walls of his factory, throwing the chopped plants on to machines that sifted out the top-quality hash bound for Britain's streets.

The secret processing plant outwardly an unremarkable cow barn stands on a hillside overlooking the fertile plains of the Bekaa Valley, where cannabis is once again a multi-million-dollar drug trade.

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The Syrian civil war has led to a surge in cannabis production in Lebanon as the country's army is forced to focus on security rather than drug eradication.

In the BekaaValley,Ali Nasri Shamas carries a revolver by his side and an automatic rifle in the back of his car, weapons he says he's ready to use if the army moves in to try to destroy his lucrative cannabis crop.

But he may not need them this year. With Syria's civil war 30 miles away, Lebanese security forces have other priorities than their annual showdown with the Bekaa hashish growers.

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Hardy Crop Brings Big Profit for Farmers As Syria Conflict Diverts Troops From Drug Eradication

BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon (Reuters) - Driving around his Bekaa Valley farmland, Ali Nasri Shamas carries a revolver by his side and an automatic rifle in the back of his car, weapons he says he's ready to use if the army moves in to try to destroy his lucrative cannabis crop.

But he may not need them this year. With Syria's civil war raging 50 km away, Lebanese security forces have other priorities than their annual showdown with the Bekaa hashish growers.

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The latest police seizure of Captagon pills, around 12 million this time, must be commended, but until the problem is addressed at the source, the story looks set to continue, and the market will continue to overflow with the drug.

Every week or so, it seems, another consignment of the amphetamine is found, whether at the airport, the border with Syria, or at the port. This latest haul was discovered at the Beirut port, and two of the four individuals arrested were port staff themselves. Allegedly headed for the United Arab Emirates, and hidden in bags of corn, this huge quantity of drugs raises many questions.

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BEKAA - Lebanese marijuana grower Abu Sami is practically rubbing his hands together with glee: the Syrian conflict has paralyzed authorities at home and left the nearby border virtually uncontrolled. "This year, the harvest was abundant, and the authorities have left us alone because they are otherwise occupied," he said in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa region.

In the past, the Lebanese army would descend annually to destroy some of the illicit crop, but this year the harvest has gone untouched. The area shares a long, porous border with Syria and is a stronghold of the Shiite Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the Syrian regime against a 32-month-old uprising.

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SIDON, Lebanon: In light of reports of rampant drug use across Lebanon, Sidon launched Sunday a civil council to fight drug addiction. The body is tasked with developing programs to raise awareness as well as establishing a specialized drug rehabilitation center.

At the ceremony to inaugurate the civil council - the first of its kind in Sidon addressing addiction - Sidon Mayor Mohammad Saudi said that the project "should be an example of breaking the barrier of silence and fear of addressing the problem of addiction."

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BEIRUT: A sit-in by residents of Yammouneh in east Lebanon thwarted attempts by authorities Saturday to carry on with their crackdown on cannabis fields in the area.

A worker involved in the eradication program was also wounded Saturday when unidentified gunmen fired at the van where he and his colleagues were on board.

With burning tires, boulders and vehicles, residents of Yammouneh blocked the three entrances to the village, preventing access to tractors tasked with felling the cannabis fields in the area.

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ZOUEITENIYE, Lebanon: Located 5 kilometers west of Hermel in northeastern Lebanon, Zoueiteniye is now almost a ghost town as for years its residents have migrated to Beirut and its suburbs.

Many of the town's stone houses are partially destroyed and just 10 remain occupied today. Most of Zoueiteniye's original 500 residents have moved to the city as a result of the government's neglect of the village and failure to ensure the most basic living standards.

One of the remaining residents, who asked to be identified by his initials M.F., works in agriculture and has five dunums (5,000 square meters) of cannabis fields.

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HERMEL, Lebanon: The Internal Security Forces Tuesday postponed its plan to destroy cannabis fields in Hermel after failing to secure the required number of bulldozers needed to carry out the operation.

The plan was put on hold after bulldozer owners in the region refused to rent their machinery to the police out of fear they would be targeted by the drug cultivators.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning a large number of ISF units headed to Hermel, accompanied by the Central Office of Drug Control, and waited for the bulldozers to arrive so they could commence the operation.

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BEIRUT: Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil called for an urgent national policy Friday to combat drug abuse throughout the country, revealing that nearly 4 percent of addicts are students.

Speaking on the occasion of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking at the Lebanese University, Khalil said that the reason laws on drugs have not been implemented is because the government lacks the proper infrastructure.

"If implemented, the anti-drug law passed in 1998 could have organized the relationship between the addict and the ministries in finding proper treatments in agreement with international standards," said Khalil.

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Quite right - the Obama administration is gearing up to pressure the Europeans to put more men in boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Quite right - the Europeans don't want to engage in a war of attrition - a la USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980s, or the United States in Vietnam a decade and a half earlier. There is nothing worse than having to pull out with your tail between your legs and confront the electorate with thousands of needless deaths of their brave young.

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With the Army Busy With Security and Its Battle in Nahr AL-Bared, None of the Annual Cannabis-Eradication Projects Have Been Carried Out

BAALBEK: Sporting a grey and green suit and a watch with golden trimmings, Abu Abbas takes a long drag from his cigarette, smiles, exhales into a room already filled with smoke, and declares that "business is good." His freshly cut fields of cannabis are being prepared for consumption.

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Farmers in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley Are Growing More Marijuana Now That Government Forces Are Once Again Too Busy With Conflicts to Stop Them.

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon - Ali plucks a sprig of the cannabis sativa plant and sniffs its distinctive leaves with appreciation. This Lebanese farmer's field of marijuana, a splash of bright green on the sun-baked plains of eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, will yield around 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of cannabis resin, or hashish, which he will sell for about $10,000, many times more than he could hope to earn from legitimate crops and for almost no work at all.

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Barry Cooper's new DVD, Never Get Busted Again, which went on sale over the Internet recently, may not be selling very well outside the United States, because in most other countries the possession of marijuana for personal use is treated as a misdemeanor or simply ignored by the police. But it will sell very well in the US, where many thousands of casual marijuana users are hit with savage jail terms every year in a nationwide game of Russian roulette in which most people indulge their habit unharmed while a few unfortunates have their lives ruined.

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Last month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Afghanistan that could pave the way for a new and more open-minded approach to counternarcotics strategies worldwide.

In fact, the resolution called on the participants at a conference of donors, which took place in London at the end of January, "to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries."

This proposal was originally made by the Senlis Council, an independent organization based in Paris, during a workshop in Kabul last September. The text introduced by the European Liberal Democrats, with the support of virtually all political groups in the European Parliament, is revolutionary, not only because it goes against conventional thinking, but also because it raises the issue above the stagnant reality of the "war on drugs." In Afghanistan, that so-called war has essentially been based on eradication campaigns and alternative livelihood projects, which have achieved only scant results.

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BEKAA: Internal Security Forces director general Major General Ashraf Rifi supervised the destruction of hashish crops in several areas of the Bekaa, reiterating the authorities' determination to prohibit the cultivation of drugs in Lebanon. Rifi, who was accompanied by a number of high-ranking security officials, said the campaign would continue for 10 days, after which all hashish crops would be eliminated.

He explained that there are six axes for investigation and eradication, each of which is supervised by an officer.

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7.5 Milion Meters Of Crop Destroyed

BEKAA: An estimated total of 7,540,000 square meters of cannabis fields have been destroyed in Baalbek and eastern Bekaa over the past two weeks in an attempt to stop drug trafficking and drug addiction in the country.

According to security reports, the effort was undertaken by the Anti-Drug Bureau in cooperation with Internal Security Forces in the Bekaa and forces of the Lebanese and Syrian Armies.

Six dunums of cannabis plants were uprooted beginning on July 28, and later 665 dunums on Aug.2, 469 dunums on Aug.3, 4,000 dunums between Aug.4 and Aug. 6., and 1,400 dunums between Aug.9 and Aug.10 were destroyed.

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Group Targets Intersections, Summer Festivals

Some Are Inspired To Work On The Issue After Having Seen Friends And Acquaintances Succumb To Chemical Dependency

BEIRUT: Most people remember their high school and college years as a period consumed with studying, partying and fretting over zits. Summertime would also include days of lounging on the beach or playing sports. Come winter, and one might hit the ski slopes.

But this is not the case for a group of volunteers, aged 17 to 24, who have been filling many of the country's cross-sections to raise awareness - from Beirut to Beiteddine - about the dangers of drug use.

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