LEBANESE FARMERS FIND DRUG CROPS TOO PROFITABLE TO MISS

Lebanon issued a tough warning to poppy growers yesterday, threatening them
with life imprisonment if they do not abandon the drug trade. Cultivation
of cannabis and opium poppies in the Bekaa valley - a stronghold of
Hizbullah - has increased dramatically this year following the failure of
efforts to find alternative crops for the farmers.

The acreage of cannabis grown in the valley this season was the highest
since the end of Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990. Despite government
threats to destroy the crops and jail farmers for life, the cannabis crop
was successfully harvested, although it has yet to reach the markets.

The government's failure to eradicate the cannabis, as happened in previous
years, has encouraged farmers to plant more profitable opium poppies.

A project to encourage crop substitution and promote agricultural
development in the valley, funded jointly by the Lebanese government and
the United Nations, was suspended earlier this month for lack of support.
Lebanese sources said the US - which had been pressing for action - was
among those countries which had declined to help, because the cannabis is
exported to Europe rather than America.

However, Lebanese officials are becoming increasingly concerned about the
rising number of young drug-users and the effect on the country's image
internationally.

"The armed forces and security bureaux have been ordered - on finding any
patch of land planted with opium - to destroy it and go after its owners,
its farmers and anyone who proves to be involved in spreading this
poisonous substance," the interior minister, Elias al-Murr, told Reuters.

He said those involved in its production would be arrested and "delivered
to justice".