• by Vesna Peric Zimonjic (belgrade)
• Saturday, November 12, 1994
• Inter Press Service

BELGRADE, Nov 12 (IPS) - The countryside that leads from Serbia to the Bosnian Serb controlled territories in northern Bosnia and further west to Krajina has very little to please the eye.

In fact the villages and towns along the corridor that link the territories have often been badly damaged by artillery attacks during the ongoing civil wars in former Yugoslavia and do not look like a place that people would relish living in.

However, a sizeable community lives among the artillery pock- marked hillsides cultivating a lucrative crop -- cannabis. This is a new phenomenon which has mushroomed to such an extent that that the perceptive spectator can now recognise acre upon acre of the crop.

Growing cannabis and marijuana -- or being a part of drug cultivation and distribution ring -- is not a specialty of local Serbs only.

"Half of Bosnia is covered with now covered with cannabis cultivation," claimed a foreign journalist who recently travelled across the republic and told his colleagues in Belgrade recently.

Last year the weekly independent 'Vreme' publication reported the barely credible story that Croats and Muslims in Bosnia had fired shells across the Neretva River at each other stuffed not with explosives but with cannabis as a way of trading.

A young Bosnian Serb refugee living in Belgrade and dealing with domestically produced marijuana and hashish boasts that after only three months in business he bought a luxurious flat in downtown Belgrade.

Another drug dealer and part-time stolen car trader in Belgrade boasts that his net profit last year amounted to 800,000 German marks (533,000 dollars).

According to the latest police statistics drug dealing in the Serbian capital of Belgrade and in a couple of big Serbian towns has meant Serbia has become a kind of paradise for dealers and drig users.

According to specialists in the field of police corruption and money laundering say that the poor state of the economy has also contributed to the fact that Serbia has witnessed the almost free flow of drugs and comparatively low prices in the streets.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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