Hash Makes a Comeback.(marijuana)(Brief Article)

Abu Ali is back in business. Wading through a fertile field in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, the 30-year-old farmer squeezes the bud of a seven-foot-high plant and rubs the sticky juices between his fingers. The fragrant, spiky-leafed crop extends for acres in every direction--enough cannabis to make Cheech and Chong weep in envy. From 1993 until last year, Ali (a pseudonym) struggled to make a living growing sugar beets here, abandoning the family's traditional cash crop-- marijuana--in exchange for promises of U.N. development money. "Every year they told us this would be the year [the money arrives]," says Ali. "Finally we got tired of waiting." Last April he dusted off some old seeds he'd kept in dry storage, and replanted 15 acres with cannabis--worth $60,000 on the wholesale market. Ali knows the risks: government helicopters recently dropped leaflets across the Bekaa Valley, warning the farmers that they'd be arrested if they harvested the crop. "We hear their threats, but they mean nothing," says Ali, breathing in the sweet aroma from his field of dreams. "We're going to stay and fight."

It may not be an idle threat. Long a stronghold of smugglers and Hizbullah guerrillas, this sun-baked valley in the heart of Lebanon is fast regaining its outlaw reputation. After a 10-year hiatus, ripening fields of cannabis carpet the rugged hills above the Bekaa as well as the drier flatlands, where many farmers have tried to conceal the outlaw crop behind rows of tobacco and corn. Hizbullah's influence is growing as well. Drug experts say some cultivators are in league with the guerrillas, who need funds for their military campaign against Israel. The proliferation of weed has become an embarrassment for Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who is struggling to pay off his country's $25 billion debt and attract foreign investment. With the harvest just days away, Hariri and his government face a dilemma: if they allow the farmers to bring their cannabis crop to market, they risk forfeiting tens of millions of dollars in international aid and undermining Lebanon's attempts to improve its image abroad. If they send in troops, they could face violent resistance from Ali and other armed cultivators. Either way, the conflict reveals how Lebanon's effort to rejoin the international community is being dragged down by forces from its chaotic past.

Drugs have a long tradition in the Bekaa Valley, from the days of the Roman conquerors through Lebanon's civil war, which ended in 1990. Cultivators and tribal drug lords working with militias ...