HOLY HASH

Bakaa Valley Youth displaying recent crop of Cannabis

1982 was a defining year in the world of Hash distribution and  hidden Hookah Hideouts in the Southern territory of Lebanon as well as the Northern regions of Israel. An Israeli invasion intent on rooting out the PLO and rocket launching cells that took the country hostage until the year 2000 became an open highway for heavy hash importation facilitated by the Hezbollah and local mafia related tribes in the area.  With a hole blown in Israeli defenses and Lebanese militants occupied with IDF forces, restrictions severely dropped off in regards to limitations inflicted on the sale and movement of Lebanese hashish. Since that time the traffic has continued  and when the IDF withdrew in 2005, big business hash dealers blanketed both sides of the security zone.

Well known for its massive Hash production, the Bakaa Valley along the Syrian border is considered one of the world’s top producers of high quality marijuana and hashish cultivation providing more than 90% of the Middle East’s supply of hash.  The monetary return for those that farm the product is unequivocal to any other growth their farms have ever produced. The dawn of hashish made farmers in the Valley rich beyond their wildest dreams.  Drug Lords from all over the world have ventured to the “Land of Milk and Honey” to be wined and dined by master growers looking to implement consistent high quantity sales to their comrades abroad.  When government troops from Syrian brigades began to crack down on the production in 2006, farmers and  distributors lost everything and saw no return on the promise their hash crops would be subsidized by the government in return for ceasing production. 

Donna Rosenthal ventures into the Bakaa Valley in her book The Israelis with a similar take on the movement of the hash into Israeli territories.  Her brief interview with Yoav Ben Dov, a youthful Israeli writer, confirms how mandatory the influx is these days; “Israel’s cannabis lobby is big.” (p.382) Cannabis use and promotional marketing is now big business heavily supported by the Hezbollah who generally patrol and control the economics involved with hash products leaving Southern Lebanon.  With heavy profits at stake and the risk of losing land to alternative farming,  it is no longer a valid ideal to hash farmers in the Valley. Supply and demand  has made it much harder to follow alternate avenues. Rosenthal exposes the high profit margin along with massive logistic requirements entailing a ton of networking to get the hash to market.

In the TIME article by Nicholaus Blanford, the backlash  to the failure of the UN-Lebanese hash /poppy alternative programs turned many hash farmers into rebellious militants hell-bent on growing what they feel makes them a legitimate profit. Blanford’s focus revolves around the farmer and the risks he faces by getting out of the pot business. Getting back into it makes more sense for those farmers trying to feed their families. The result has elevated these farmers to a more militant level. Securing the Bakaa Valley’s illustrious fields of joy in order to maintain the continual flow and production allows for them to survive monetarily as well. Blanford’s analysis is spot on delivering direct reporting from the fields from farmers like Ahmad: ““We are tired of being hungry. We view the government as an enemy and from now on we are going to grow hashish and we don’t care what the government says or tries to do.”” Although Lebanese police have continually frowned on this ideal, generally, most hashish farmers don’t even consider its cultivation a crime.     

Now, in order to protect investment, farmers hire militias that patrol their crops twenty four hours a day with rotating units trolling for trespassers.  Once covered corner to corner, the Valley’s floor was nothing more than hashish and poppy plant. Harvested at staggered times of the year, farmers mastered the art of  potency. For years, pot and poppy flourished like wild flowers as far as the eye could see. Now the restrictions have made what little is left extremely valuable property. This has made fewer farmers richer but it has also made them more prestigious and protective. Profits were so high for some it afforded them the ability to give expensive offerings as gifts such as cars and huge sums of cash.  Enticing foreign drug lords is critical to moving product overseas and furthering reputation.

With the potency and value going through the roof, hash provides more than just a high for people living in the Israeli Lebanese sector. It’s more than an addiction; it’s a career that many in the city completely overlook.  Growing and harvesting hash and poppy plants is hard work. Tasks like cutting, trimming, preparation, and transportation to market involve back breaking labor that many simply refuse. For those surviving the task, a profit is expected. In their eyes, they are providing society an escape. For those not addicted, that’s exactly what it is. The trafficking king-pins battle each other for territorial distribution, which is generally the only violence the drug generates. 

The Bakaa Valley is still the number one hash producer and distributor in Lebanon, Syria and Israel to this day. There is no other region even close.  The mass production has kept the cost low and made it extremely accessible. With so little law involved to curtail the laundering of its profits the incentive far outweighs the deterrent.  More Info.

A LIGHT AT THE END OF YOUR TUNNEL

Given Imaging's "Mouth to Anal" Intestinal Navigating Capsule

Ever since the first Israelis began re-establishing their existence within the Holy Land, the need to prolong existence and produce a victorious balance for the Jewish people has never waned. Alone and backed into a corner most of the time, Israelis have leaped into the 21^st century out of necessity more than experimentation.  The desire to serve and protect in more than just a military matter has become a worldwide attachment to the global economy and overall national existence.

Donna Rosenthal’s evident recognition of the technological advances made within Israel are wide ranging and extremely critical to the story behind the ever increasing advantages Israel has over the rest of the world when it comes technology, surveillance, and countrywide security. 

Rosenthal's analysis of new technical developments within Israel encapsulates the masterminds within the establishment. Direct, relative interviews of computer whiz kids with names such as "Shwed" and "Gil Bates" display her in depth reporting on the matters of technical advancements that usually begin with heavy training within the IDF. The skills and protocol of computer design are honed and eventually turned into gold mines on the stock market. The interesting fact Rosenthal reveals to the reader as far as technology is concerned is the enormous contribution these brilliant minds have donated to the medical world. 

Recently, the introduction of remote-control devices has armed doctors with a third eye into bodily caverns stethoscopes and hand guided machinery are unable to access.  One specific masterful use of this latest advance is the pill-sized camera device patients literally swallow whole.
 

If you’ve ever experienced the joy and elation of a colonoscopy, then you can surely relate to the overwhelming need of this device. The M2A remote video capsule developed by the Israeli Development group Given Imaging was designed to painlessly tumble its way down the dark mysterious tunnels of the human beings large and small intestines.  These desolate regions of the human bowels have never been seen in such a vivid manner. Snapping shots every two seconds as it slowly slides down intestinal lining, the capsule transmits hundreds of images to a small iPod-like device that stores the information for a doctor to peruse eight hours later. With its ability to find its way into the colon’s most inaccessible crimps and creases,  along with frequent data transmissions, the success rate of locating serious pathogens has increased significantly. 

Likened to “swallowing a missile that doesn’t explode” (p. 85) the M2A is a great example of Israeli determination and will to succeed.  Former missile scientist Gavriel Iddan explains some of the difficulties he faced in bringing the capsule to life. Batteries were a huge hurdle. “Batteries lasted ten minutes and we needed one that last ten hours.”  Refocusing his attack, Iddan watched as advances on the other side of the globe allowed for his vision to materialize. With the help of a NASA employee, Iddan was able to extract a special video chip small enough to fit inside the device’s shell. Shortly after, donations flooded in and soon Given Imaging ballooned into a million dollar business heavily traded on the NASDAQ.

In the article written and researched by Marcia Yu, a game changing advancement in both colon and intestinal treatments is unveiled. Once again, with the help of former Israeli IDF training, treatments for what many of us consider embarrassing, such as the beloved colonoscopy, are now 100% pain free. Yu, an RN herself, and obviously extremely experienced in the breakthrough, leaves no page unturned.  She reveals to the reader just how much satisfaction both the patient and the physician receive in the use of the new M2A mouth to anal endoscope.  Yu's article displays immediate reliability with her comparison to the previous enteroscopy method which left the patient sore, bleeding and overall completely uncomfortable. Now, with only eight hours of fasting, the patient's experience is not only painless, but the process provides hundreds of graphic images of colonic and intestinal linings.

Advancements like these are becoming more and more common in Israel and  Rosenthal notes how Iddan makes it clear what he thinks is the reason for Israel’s obvious edge on superior intelligence, communication and computer science. With many people fleeing Europe and Germany during the war, Israel became the landing pad for many of Europe’s highly educated professors and elites. ‘”And thanks to Hitler, we got a lot of world-class scientists. Professors the Nazis kicked out of German and other universities taught here.’”(p.87) This phenomenon, which much of the world has forgotten about, gave the following generation a head start on a difficult subject the rest of the world has yet to catch up to.

With almost no drawbacks, and nothing more than positive results, the recent upgrades within the capsule technology have eliminated the previous physician worry of the capsule’s inability to identify the exact location of the ailment.

Over the years Given Imaging has been the leader in medical advance throughout most of Europe, and more so in the United States where health levels have fallen off significantly.

Here’s a look at some of Given Imaging’s pain free options for gastrointestinal and throat navigation. It is extremely critical to note the discomfort that goes into this sort of diagnosis. Patients are consistently stressed and many have to repeat the procedure to find the source of the discomfort.  The introduction of the PillCam allows for pain-free pathogen analysis and discovery, which has made its inventors rich beyond their wildest dreams. 

                                                                                                                            PillCam SB and SB2  is a patient-friendly tool for visualization of the entire small bowel and detection of small bowel abnormalities. Ingested orally, no bowel preparation or sedation is needed.  

PillCam ESO provides a clinically proven, time-efficient and patient-friendly method for visualization of the esophagus. Also ingested orally.

PillCam COLON 2 is complementary to traditional colonoscopy and is used for patients who have received incomplete colonoscopy, are contraindicated for colonoscopy or are unwilling to undergo traditional colonoscopy.

The Colon 2 illuminates colon cavern

PillCam Express In May 2010, Given Imaging released a new manually guided GI scope based on PillCam swallowable devices. In cases where patient anatomy does not allow for natural passage of large tablets the size of traditional PillCams, the PillCam Express can be delivered through the stomach and into the small intestine with the help of an endoscope and a proprietary balloon deployment mechanism.

Express is a smaller cam inserted manually

The Bravo pH Monitoring System is a catheter-free ambulatory pH test.  Ambulatory pH testing is considered the gold standard for pH measurement and monitoring of gastric reflux, helping clinicians manage gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Featuring data collection for up to 96 hours, Bravo allows patients to maintain their regular diets and activities, accurately reflecting normal physiologic conditions.

Receives data from pencil sized data chip

 The continual advancement of technology within the medical field is sometimes a good sign of other advancements with the IDF and software companies throughout the region. In this case trained military experts aid physicians with loans of brilliance and the payoff is exponential. The Israeli synapse fires faster than the rest of the world and implies the reliance on its research by most up and coming nations. Every month new discoveries in technology flow from this hot spot of computer genius reflecting just how much of the world remains one step behind.