Hashish trade profits from Syrian conflict
FARMERS IN RAQQA HAVE FOUND JOBS ON HASHISH FARMS IN LEBANON’S BEKAA VALLEY, A HOTSPOT OF DRUG-PLANTING FOR DECADES
N arcotics have always been a powerful weapon of war, giving fighters a sense of invincibility. The Israelis used it to corrupt the minds of Syrian residents of the Golan after the 1967 occupation and so did various Lebanese militias during the civil war.
High on drugs, they would slaughter, slit throats, dig up graves, and mutilate corpses.
Although always present in Syrian society it was never chronic or widespread — until war broke out in 2011.
Narcotics are now widely on sale in various Syrian cities and towns, including the black market of the capital Damascus.
An A-class fifth year student of medicine at a private Syrian university was recently discharged in early June 2006 for “selling hallucination pills and marijuana” to his classmates. Depending on the origin of its cultivation, hashish is called either ‘Al Afghani’ or ‘Al Baalbaki’.
Source of income
Farmers from Raqqa, the de facto Daesh capital, have found jobs cultivating hashish in farms of the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, a decades-long venue for drug planting in the Middle East.
End-dealers are ordinary people ranging from university students and militiamen to small shopowners or kiosks. Some consume drugs for fun, at nightclubs and pubs; others use it to kill on the Syrian battlefield.
The breakdown of law and order has made the trade flourish in Syria; people are less afraid to offer hashish on the streets, still with a whisper to avoid being overheard by regime authorities, who used to deal with such an offence very seriously.
The price of 50 grams ranges anywhere between 12,000 and 13,000 Syrian pounds (around Dh205) and this is a set price, both in regime-held areas, rebel-held territory, Kurdish-controlled territory, and the cities under the control of Daesh. Consumption is high on the battlefield and front-lines, where militants use various types of drugs in order to endure hardship and kill with ease.
Consumption
The highest consumption at this stage is in Ghouta, the agricultural belt surrounding Damascus, controlled by the Army of Islam, or Jaish Al Islam, since 2012.
Once vast agricultural fields for fruits, apricots and potatoes, Ghouta has been transformed into cultivation centres for hashish, grown and sold by Syrian militants to make money.
This has generated huge income for the rebels, in addition to arms trafficking and kidnapping.
Much of the production is sold undercover to government-held territories, revealing high cooperation between dealers on all fronts of the Syrian battlefield. In the Kurdish town of Kobani (Ain Al Arab), cannabis has become a prized commodity used by Kurdish militants in their constant wars with Daesh. Five years ago, Kurdish farmers in Kobani used to plant olives and cotton to make a living.
According to the Syrian Drug Law, possession of marijuana for personal consumption is a crime, punishable by prison terms that can reach up to three years. Possession of large amounts of the drug, trafficking, and importation are punishable by anywhere between three and 15 years, or life imprisonment with hard labour.
In Raqqa, possession of marijuana — either for personal consumption or sale — is punished with immediate beheading. Since January 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration at the Syrian Ministry of Interior in Damascus has seized 350kg of hashish with two million captagon pills, the drug that has been fuelling Syria’s war since 2011.
This is a significant drop, said Ahmad Darwish at the Drug Enforcement Bureau, noting that in 2003, 267kg of hashish was seized by Syrian authorities, in addition to six million captagon pills.
The number of drug-related crimes in government-held areas officially stood at 2,433 in 2012-13, and has dropped to “around 1,500” in 2015-16. One captagon pill costs 50 US cents to produce and sells on the Syrian black market for between 2,500 and 5,000 Syrian pounds.
Consumption is high on the battlefield and front-lines, where militants use drugs to endure hardship and kill with ease. The highest consumption at this stage is in Ghouta, controlled by the Islamic Army.