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Lebanon's budding hashish business brings high returns

Cannabis production in Lebanon has soared by more than 30% since 2012, when spillover from the war in Syria led security forces to focus on deadlier threats like car bombs and Islamic militants.
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Abou Ali’s business is flourishing. A hundred meters behind his two-story house in the Bekaa Valley lies a field of red-brown, crumbly earth. He has just planted the season’s crop. “You know the red soil is what gives our most famous hashish its name: Red Lebanese.”

Outside sits a black SUV with blacked-out windows and no license plates. Abou Ali, who did not want to give his full name, is 52 years old with cropped, gray hair, his T-shirt stretched over his bulging stomach. There is a handgun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

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