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Blanford on drugs (again): Abu Rida gestured proudly through the tinted windows of his battered and dusty, silver Hummer SUV at a field of shoulder-high cannabis plants. “This is the famous Red Lebanese,” he said, pausing briefly to lean out of the window and pick the soft fluffy head of one plant. The pungent odour filled the car. 

Abu Rida - not his real name - is one of the leading drug barons in the Bekaa Valley, earning millions of dollars each year from hashish cultivation and from refining and selling cocaine.More