Strain Library

Lebanon

Lebanese

Also called Lebanon, Lebanese Landrace, Red Lebanese, Lebanese Red, Bekaa, Beqaa Valley

Lebanese cannabis is tied to the Bekaa Valley and, above all, to its hashish. Accounts of its arrival differ: one journalist says it came from south-eastern Anatolia in Ottoman times, while a local development specialist links wider cultivation to French army camps in the 1920s. The French Mandate banned hashish production in 1926. It became an export crop in the 1960s and expanded through the civil war of 1975 to 1990; by 1985 the product was known abroad as 'Lebanese red'. From 1992 the state began annual crop destruction under international pressure, and cultivation has since risen and fallen with enforcement and aid. Lebanon introduced licensed, regulated farming in 2020. Seed collectors report gathering Bekaa seed from family farms in 2018, but the lineage of 'Lebanese' seed lines is poorly documented.

Region
Bekaa Valley, Baalbek-Hermel area, eastern Lebanon
How sure we are
Mixed. Bekaa hashish history is well reported, but the plant variety itself is thinly documented and its path into Western seed lines is mostly unsourced.
Keep in mind
Seed lines and flower sold as Lebanese today are generally modern selections or crosses, and the name comes largely from the hashish trade rather than a defined variety.

Timeline

  1. 1926 Hashish production is prohibited under the French Mandate (order of 8 October 1925, effective 1 January 1926). Source
  2. 1960s-1985 Reuters reports that cannabis has been grown in Lebanon for centuries but became an export crop only in the 1960s; by 1985 hashish is the country's main export crop, sold as 'Lebanese red'. Source
  3. 1975-1990 Government crop-substitution subsidies end as the civil war begins (1975) and farmers return to cannabis; illicit crops, including later poppies, reportedly cover around 30,000 hectares. Source
  4. 1992 The state begins annual crop destruction under international pressure, with Syrian cooperation; a UN rural-development project (1994-1999) ends and farmers return to cannabis. Source
  5. 2018-2019 The Landrace Team reports collecting seed in the northern Bekaa from the autumn 2018 harvest, from local families who say they have grown the plant for generations. Source

Sources

  1. Wikipedia, Cannabis in Lebanon (encyclopedia; cites Clarke 1998)
  2. Reuters via Christian Science Monitor (1985), Hashish, the 'petroleum' of Lebanon's Bekaa valley
  3. Brian Whitaker, Green Gold (The Guardian, 2001), on al-bab.com
  4. ARIJ (2008), Lebanon's Failed Hashish Eradication
  5. Executive Magazine (2009), Lebanon's Cannabis Commerce
  6. L'Orient Today (2022), Abby Sewell, on Bekaa hashish producers
  7. SeedFinder, Lebanese by The Landrace Team (seed-bank entry; industry lore)

All landrace strainsThe cannabis timeline

Written from the sources above. Informational only, not medical advice.