For the second time in one week, Egyptian police has thwarted an attempt to smuggle dozens of tons of hashish from Syria, and there is evidence of a connection between these shipments and the Lebanese Hezbollah, according to an Arab YouTube and Twitter channel calling itself Bright Ideas.
User comments in Arabic included hundreds of praises to Allah, but also this one: “Hezbollah and the Iranians are suppressing drugs in the Sunni world until they lose their minds. The Iranians and Hezbollah are a great demon. May God protect us from the evil Satan.”
So, in a world without booze, one can expect that being cut off one’s supply of hashish could lead to some discomfort, what with the pandemic-related isolation and all.
According to the Daily Beast, Hezbollah controls the majority of cannabis plantations across Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and the government is unable to do much about it. According to the report, cannabis production has surged during the Syrian civil war, where Hezbollah is fighting alongside al-Assad’s forces and Iranian insurgents.
“Local politicians know about it, police know about it, the Lebanese army is aware of it and so are authorities in Beirut. But nobody wants to, or can, fix the problem. The majority of these plantations are controlled by Hezbollah,” the Daily Beast report said.