The Lebanese Parliament legalised medicinal use of cannabis. Lebanon has become the first Arab country to legalise marijuana growing, offers economic incentives for the debt-ridden state. It makes the state the sole proprietor for trading cannabis, which has been grown illicitly for decades in Bekaa, in the east of the country.

Although marijuana is illegal in Lebanon, cannabis has long been farmed openly in the fertile Bekaa Valley.

Parliament’s decision was “really driven by economic motives, nothing else”, said Alain Aoun, a senior MP in the Free Patriotic Movement founded by President Michel Aoun. “We have moral and social reservations, but today there is the need to help the economy by any means,” he told Reuters.

Lebanon’s Parliament approved the bill in its session on Tuesday, despite opposition from Hezbollah representatives.

Hezbollah’s allies in the government, including representatives of President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri, supported the decision.

The idea of legalizing cannabis cultivation with the aim of producing high value-added medicinal products for export was explored in a report by consultancy firm McKinsey commissioned by Lebanon in 2018.

Last month, Lebanese police carried out the country’s biggest drug bust when they seized about 25 tonnes of hashish that were set to be smuggled to an African state, as per the Reuters report.