Lebanon buying Cannabis

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Lebanon buying Cannabis

Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. In April , after decades of discussions and controversy, the Lebanese parliament voted a law legalizing the cultivation, production, and sale of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Although the law leaves several unanswered questions and awaits implementation, the symbolic nature of this step in recognizing a positive role of cannabis in the local economy is significant on a regional level. The Arab world has traditionally been conservative when it comes to all drugs-related policies. Cannabis is largely demonized with heavy sentences served to anyone suspected of using selling, let alone planting cannabis. Despite a few countries considered producers and consumers of substances, governing authorities have remained immune to the liberalization trend encountered in western countries. The social experiment taking place in Lebanon is fraught with risks, given the unstable political situation and chronic economic challenges. The reactions to the law have been mixed with several scientific bodies such as the Lebanese Psychiatric Society criticizing the absence of proper consultation of stakeholders. The absence of consistency in enforcing established drugs policies or seriously debating the decriminalization of cannabis use raises concerns over the establishment of a two-tier approach toward drugs, driven solely by economic imperatives. In addition to its recreational effect, cannabis is increasingly considered a complex plant with multiple properties. Psychiatric disorders associated with cannabis extend beyond addiction to anxiety, depression, and psychosis. To date, formal steps to legalize cannabis have primarily taken place in high income countries. However, the impact of a change in legislation on public health is still closely monitored. In addition, it is unclear how different societies may be affected by increased availability of cannabis. This is particularly the case for countries with weakened state structure, fragile health systems, and exposure to political conflict. Lebanon is an Eastern Mediterranean nation with a heterogeneous cultural background facing a serious economic crisis. The purpose behind actively raising the issue of legalizing cannabis cultivation has been recently related to the acute economical crisis the Lebanese society has been struggling through for more than a year. The political dimension of such calls was also significant, given the concentration of cultivation in parts of the country with distinct social and political influences. It released a widely disseminated public statement on March 4, ahead of the parliamentary vote:. In parallel, the Lebanese National Consultative Committee on Ethics having been officially consulted by Parliament recommended the restriction of medical cannabis product to conditions where benefit is already established, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea, appetite loss in patients with HIV, and muscle spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis. On the 26th of February the Lebanese Parliament's joint committee finalized the version of the law legalizing the local medicinal cannabis production. The new legal framework creates a commission with a regulatory authority to issue licenses for every stage of cannabis operations, including the import of seeds and saplings, planting and harvesting, manufacturing, and exports. With a clear focus on foreign markets, these licenses are intended to be awarded to selected Lebanese and foreign pharmaceutical companies as well as farmers, landowners, laboratories, and research centers that it deems qualified. The law does not specify the process by which medicinal cannabis will be made available to the public in Lebanon and does not address the legal status of recreational cannabis. The legalization of cannabis cultivation needs to be controlled with high efficacy, which means that every phase of the product's cycle from the procurement of seeds to the state of an industrialized medical product should be monitored by the Lebanese government. Concerns in this dimension are due to the repeated failures of successive governments to implement a law banning smoking law in public places it enacted in A newly formed cooperative movement has already warned against the emergence of corporations that will buy land and implement industrial scale cultivation at the expense of the local population. Moreover, public opinion has been grossly led to believe that the new law is a step toward legalization and decriminalization of recreational grade cannabis. What risks happening is for the price of recreational cannabis to rise or for local users to be presented with a lower quality product, given that the main fields will fall under state regulation targeting exportation. Criticism of the law in its current form has come from diametrically opposed factions in Lebanese drugs treatment circles. Conservative centers driven by the abstinence-based ideology issued a statement warning of the confusion such a law may cause in terms of drug prevention and also raising concerns over increasing access to the drug for the more vulnerable consumers' categories, which are adolescents, young adults, and individuals with severe mental disorders. Harm Reduction-based nongovernmental organizations were equally dissatisfied with a law that ignores the need of addicts and does not address the ongoing criminalization of a substantive section of the population. Lebanon has acquired a status of regional trailblazer on the matter of legalization of cannabis cultivation for medical purposes. With the law having been passed, there are several hurdles facing its implementation. A struggle between stakeholders is expected involving conflicting medical, legal, ethical, and economic considerations. In the mental health field psychoactive cannabis use is mostly perceived as harmful, given the negative prognostic impact in almost all psychiatric conditions. In law, it seems that legalization or decriminalization of cannabis may relieve an already overburdened legal and carceral system. However, the socioeconomic implications of mass cannabis consumption are still under investigation in societies where it is now legal. The direct economic gains for low- and middle-income countries that seek to supply industrialized nations, who are still the primary consumers of all forms of cannabis, are still unclear. Benefits need to be balanced against the indirect cost of increased use of cannabis locally, quantifiable in terms of economic productivity, loss of years of education, and rates of motor accidents. A position it can only defend with the strength of scientific evidence and effective public communication. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Cannabis Cannabinoid Res. Find articles by Joseph El-Khoury. Find articles by Rami Bou Khalil. Find articles by Anthony Nemer. Find articles by Sami Richa. Collection date Apr. Copyright , Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Similar articles. Add to Collections. Create a new collection. Add to an existing collection. Choose a collection Unable to load your collection due to an error Please try again. Add Cancel.

Cannabis in Lebanon: a legendary hashish

Lebanon buying Cannabis

What are the implications of last night's attacks on suburban Beirut? In partnership with Sami Kassir Foundation, our recent report exposes Lebanon's media reliance on elites for funding, hence shaping the public narrative. Across TV stations, radio outlets, and print sources, we unveil how the support of political groups fuels polarization and distorts public opinion. Analyzing costs, revenues, and informal funds, our study emphasizes the media's dependence on politically motivated backing. Mounir Mahmalat and Wassim Maktabi share the findings on how political elites use public infrastructure procurement to generate rents with a focus on design and supervision consultants involved in several of The Council of Development and Reconstruction's projects. By subscribing to our mailing list you will be kept in the know of all our projects, activities and resources. Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list. Salem Darwich,. Jamal Ibrahim Haidar,. Less is known about prospective, unconventional economic policies that Lebanon could adopt to alleviate the impact of the crisis. One such policy would entail focusing on economic sectors in which Lebanon has a comparative advantage. Lebanon can capitalize on its comparative advantage by identifying foreign markets with untapped potential, an approach which presents the best opportunity to boost exports without additional public spending. Controversially, one such export product is cannabis. First, the 'Lebanon Economic Vision' report projects that legalizing cannabis would increase cultivation from zero hectares in to 1, hectares in It is unclear what data the authors used to make this projection, particularly as Lebanon has cultivated cannabis for at least years and produces sizeable amounts of hashish. It is understandable that, by definition, legal cannabis cultivation cannot exist without legalization. However, absent a methodology or access to the data set s , projections about future crop yields are questionable. Second, the report assumes that controlled areas can be established by , on which legal cannabis can be legally cultivated for export, specifically for medical purposes. The authors forecasted the near elimination of illegal cannabis cultivation, with most growers being licensed and regulated by the government by The report, however, offers no information about the assumptions undergirding these projections. It is uncertain whether cannabis growers would prefer to move to the formal sector from the informal sector, particularly given the constraints that would be imposed on them in the formal sector. Recently, efforts to provide alternative crop options to cannabis growers — including a UN campaign in the s — have failed, in part due to the low production cost and high profitability of cannabis. Moreover, eradication campaigns, led by local security forces, have also been unable to prevent cannabis production. Consequently, it is necessary to consider the interests of family and commercial farmers, specifically whether it makes financial sense for them to enter the formal sector. Many cannabis importers in European or other markets have their own standards to guarantee quality, which may require growers to use seeds provided by importers. In this case, importers would be employing the factors of production, i. In other words, enterprises would provide certified seeds, and if a conflict emerges between an entity in Lebanon and a seed enterprise, growers may not be able to produce cannabis for use in export products due to a lack of certified seeds. If importers decide to cut a certain grower off from seeds — for any reason — growers could be left worse off, as they would not have access to seeds unless they planted cannabis informally. Thus, even if importers may be willing to pay a higher price, growers may not be willing to trade their long-term independence for short-term, high export prices. While this is but one example — which potentially could be addressed by locally producing seeds and fixing the price of export cannabis to the informal market before the beginning of each cultivation season — it is illustrative of the many factors which farmers would need to consider before entering the formal sector. These subsectors include those in healthcare-related fields with a focus on pharmaceuticals and cannabis-based medical products. According to the report, by prioritizing these subsectors, exports of prioritized subgroups could increase from USD million in to USD 1. However, it is unclear how these numbers were calculated, especially as the value of Lebanon's cannabis production is difficult to estimate. Exports of cannabis-based medical products depend on production capacity, trade agreements, and patents. It is therefore necessary to consider whether necessary productive capacity exists in Lebanon, which foreign countries may be willing to import cannabis products from Lebanon, and if so, under which terms. Notably, the law legalizing the medical and industrial use of cannabis is silent on intellectual property rights. Fourth, the international market for medical cannabis is rapidly growing, with several countries already claiming a first-mover export advantage. In , Uruguay announced plans to begin exporting medical cannabis oil to Canada and Mexico while in , Australia approved the export of medical cannabis products. Put more succinctly, other countries are quickly capturing export potential. Thus, the extent to which Lebanon may be able to reserve a market share deserves further scrutiny, in addition to whether Lebanon would significantly benefit from legalizing cannabis versus maintaining the status quo. Nevertheless, before drawing conclusions about the economic potential of cannabis cultivation in Lebanon, more analysis is needed on how to incentivize producers to move to the formal sector, as well as regulate production and consumption of cannabis. Moreover, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework for cannabis covering the licensing and controls of production, processing, export infrastructure for inspection and processing of cannabis-based products, local sales, consumption, and governance and institutional mechanisms. In , following the publishing of the McKinsey report, Lebanon was the first Arab country to legalize the cultivation of cannabis plants for medical and industrial use. As per Article 3 of the Law No. This includes seeds or seedlings to develop products including fibers for industrial use, cosmetic products, oils, extracts, and compounds used for medical, pharmaceutical, and industrial purposes. From the same author view all. TPI fellows Jamal Ibrahim Haidar and Adeel Malik explore how tax incentives could be used to create job opportunities, produce high quality products, increase economic output, and efficiently utilize savings in the absence of a functioning banking sector. Read more. More periodicals view all. Can the Rio G20 Summit address climate change and human rights while ignoring the wars waged on Gaza and Lebanon? Our latest article by Mona Khechen and Sami Atallah discusses the need for the G20 to address both issues with urgency and commitment. Sami Atallah was interviewed by the Financial Times. The EU's stance on Lebanon has become increasingly hypocritical, where on one hand, it provides aid to Lebanon, but on the other, enables Israel's current rampage in the country. This puts the EU's self proclaimed partnership with Lebanon in doubt. Interview with Sami Zoughaib. The massive attack on Hezbollah's communication equipment spread death and terror in Beirut. 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Hussein Cheaito comments on the recent series of bank heists as depositors ask for their money back Read more. Hussein Cheaito comments on recent events in Lebanon, including illegal capital control on citizen's money and the lack of accountability Read more. Sami Atallah comments on recent events in Lebanon amidst the economic crisis as people still do not have access to their life savings. Sami Zoughaib discusses the banking sector and the rightful acts of depositors to forcibly get their money back Read more. Mounir Mahmalat and Wassim Maktabi study cartels in public infrastructure procurement and analyze the conditions under which they succeed in generating rents Read more. Mounir Mahmalat and Wassim Maktabi share the findings on how political elites use public infrastructure procurement to generate rents with a focus on design and supervision consultants involved in several of The Council of Development and Reconstruction's projects Read more. 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Lebanon buying Cannabis