Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was to chair a meeting Monday, July 2, on the fight against the return of cannabis and opium farming, which have been banned since 1992, a source from his team said.
Hariri was to meet with the ministers of defense, the interior and justice, Khalil Hrawi, Elias Murr and Samir Jisr respectively, to discuss ways to stamp out the resurgence in cannabis cultivation, and the much less widespread farming of opium poppies.
The four men will look particularly at the files prepared by the security services, who have made a record of offending growers, and the size of their fields, the source added.
The narcotics trade has picked up this year in the impoverished Baalbek-Hermel area to the north of the eastern Bekaa valley, where the Syrian army and intelligence services are deployed in large numbers.
People living there and their elected representatives justify the revival of such activity by the failure of substitute crops and lack of international aid to poor people in the area. Drugs were a thriving business during Lebanon's civil war of 1975-1990, before being banned in 1992. ― (AFP, Riyadh)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
