Budding business: how cannabis could transform Lebanon

Report proposes legalising billion-dollar cannabis industry to rescue ailing economyThe town of Brital, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, is a jarring contrast of poverty and ostentatious wealth. Busted-up old vans drive on potholed roads next to gleaming Bentleys and Range Rovers with no number plates and blacked-out windows. Unemployment is rife, and yet the landscape is dotted by large gated mansions.The town is home to some of Lebanon’s most powerful cannabis-growing families, who culti