Just a few weeks ago we have spoken about Dubai, and now we have to do it again. And again, it’s not a good news. Raymond Bingham, AKA Dj Grooverider was expected to do a gig in a club in Dubai last november 23. Stopped by the douane at his arrival, the cops found a little amount of cannabis and something that is consider over there like pornography. In Dubai, one of the seven emirates that makes UAE (United Arab Emirates) the possession of a small amount (or even traces) of drug lead to a 4 year sentence. If you are a smuggler, you can be sentenced to death. Pornography (the concept includes every nude image) is a big offence, too. In the meantime Dj Grooverider is waiting his process. Dj Grooverider is famous in UK for being the co-host of a drum and bass programme called ‘Fabio and Grooverider’ on BBC Radio 1.

The Emirate of Dubai is recently at the center of discussions about its drug policy. In particular, news and governments of several western countries (French, USA, Italy etc) had to speak about Dubai because several co-citizens has been sentences to several years of prison for possessions of ridiculous amount of hashish or marijuana. So, a 27 years old frenchman has bee sentenced to 4 uears for 0.9 gr of hashish. But the worst estiny is for an italian guy 24 years old, stopped at the airport with 1/100 gr of hashish yes you read good, 0.01 gr of hashish.

But what the smart people of Dubai decides if is Dallas  Austin to be catched,he’s a famous R’n'B producer, friend of rockstars and politicians? He’s been catched with a lot more than 0.01 gr of hashish, he was catched bringing into the country over one gram of cocaine and ecstasy. They sentence him to the usual 4 years (yeah people, proportion seems an unknown concept in Dubai) and they forgave him a few hour later, after the “support” arrived from Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, singer Lionel Richie, producer Quincy Jones and others.

So if you wanna go to Dubai, don’t bring with you any trace of any drug. Unless you are rich and famous, in this case you are free to do everything you want. They will forgive you.

Lebanon wasa well known hashsh producer till a few decades ago. Lebanon Red and Lebanon Gold were words associated  to something really high quality. The production reached its top, in quantity and quality, in the period 1975-1990, during the civil war. Hashish production is illegal in Lebanon, and each year since the early 1990s police backed by troops bulldoze the crops before they could be harvested. Now  things are different, and the fields occupied by marijuana plants are growing. It’s a very good bargain for the farmers, and according most of them, it’s worth the risk. The Bekaa Valley is one of the zone where the production is more concentrated. The hashish can be sold here for about 700 dollars per kilo. This is much more than what the farmers can earn with traditional products, and this explain why there are a lot people that take this risk. This news will certainly make happy a lot of cannabis lovers around the world, maybe one of these days they can taste the sweet aroma that made the lebanon hashish famous worldwide.