Lebanon sets to legalize medical, industrial cannabis cultivation

Lebanon’s parliament has disclosed plan to vote on a law that would legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial usage.

The draft law, if approved, will constitute a measure to improve the country’s crippled economy and deter illegal harvest of the psychoactive plant.

The draft also proposes a commission with a regulatory council that would grant licences for importing seeds and saplings, founding cannabis plant nurseries, planting and harvesting the crop, manufacturing goods from it and exporting its by-products.

It was gathered that licences will be granted to Lebanese pharmaceutical companies, industries permitted to create industrial fibers, oils and extracts, foreign companies that have a licence to work in the cannabis industry from their country of origin, specialised agricultural co-operatives established in Lebanon, Lebanese citizens such as farmers or landowners, and labs and research centres qualified to work with controlled substances.

Though illegal to produce, sell or use, Lebanon has cultivated the plant for at least 100 years and yields large quantities of hashish, a derivative of cannabis that is widely available locally and is also illegally exported.

“The bill was based on a 2019 report by United States-based consultancy McKinsey & Company that recommended Lebanon legalize cannabis production for high-added-value medicinal products with export focus,” member of parliament, Yassine Jaber, said.

The then-economy minister Raed Khoury said a legal cannabis sector II Lebanon could create $1bn in revenue per year due to the fine quality of Lebanon’s hashish, which he described as “one of the best in the world”.

In recent years, countries around the world have authorized research and harvest of medical cannabis, with investigations continually confirming the medicinal outcomes of cannabinoids, a major chemical constituent of cannabis, for medication of nausea and vomiting in terminal illnesses such as cancer and AIDS.

The WHO states that it has also shown therapeutic uses for “asthma and glaucoma, as an antidepressant, appetite stimulant, anticonvulsant and anti-spasmodic”.

Countries including Uruguay, Georgia, South Africa, 10 US states and Canada have entirely legalized cannabis.

According to the Central Drug Enforcement Office, around 3,000 and 4,000 people are imprisoned for drug crimes each year in Lebanon, majority of them for the consumption of hashish.

To reduce pressure on Lebanon’s jammed court and prison network originating from organized crime pertaining to the local cannabis trade, has been one of the draft law’s stated goals.

The law calls for strengthening criminal penalties on violations against its articles and does not provide for decriminalizing consumption of the plant or reducing sentences. It also explicitly forbids anyone with a criminal record from obtaining a licence to cultivate or operate with the cannabis crop in any way.

However, Jaber predicted that the current legal cannabis market would stride ahead with or without the share of those who have been criminalized by the illegal sector. “I think big companies will come and other farmers will come and it will be a big business,” he added.

Karim Nammour, a lawyer with NGO Legal Agenda who specialises in drug policy, explained that the law would establish a two-tier system where elites profit from the harvest of cannabis, while those who have traditionally grown it in impoverished areas will be unable to participate and consume any of its products.

He also warned the draft law could make way for endemic corruption in Lebanon.

“The commission tasked with overseeing the sector is funded by the licences it issues, while it is at the same time supposed to regulate licensing and prevent a monopoly or oversupply in the market, ” he said.