Are Terrorists Taking Advantage of Cannabis?

2009.05.03

Do the ends justify the means? I sit all right to break the law I order to uphold it? Where do you draw the ethical line in the sand that cannot be crossed over? These are questions that are very applicable today when it comes to terrorism and its link to cannabis.

According to a joint investigation by the Spanish and French secret services, cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding the Islamist extremists linked to terror attacks in Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. The finding will fuel both sides of the cannabis war – those who want it legalized, and those who advocate a harsher punishment system.

The argument for the harsher punishment theory says that cannabis is dragging a growing number of teenagers into crime, and that crime is the petty dealing of weed and all of the nefarious activities associated with it. On the other hand, there are the ones who say that legalization is the beat way to go, because if you don’t have an illegal substance, then you won’t have illegal activities surrounding it - two different sides on a sensitive issue.
 
If you look at the real issues that are at hand here, the matter of a lone drug being to blame is ludicrous. Booze was merely the tool for crime flourishing during prohibition, as pot is now. But there is also a burgeoning cocaine trade, along with other hard-core substances.

If you take a look at the madness that funds the extremist movements then you have a better focus on the real key issue, and that is madness. Whether it’s cannabis, opium, or cocaine, these are just the tools at hand for people who are so far gone that they can’t see straight anymore and that is called brainwashing.

The investigation by the Centro Nacional de Inteligancia and the Renseignements Generaux was launched after Spanish police found that the Islamists behind the March 2004 bombings bought their explosives from former miners in return for blocks of hashish. Those bombings claimed 191 lives.

But there is al-Qaeda and there are Muslims who are true Muslims who don’t practice violence to get what they want. They see violence as away that will destroy everything, because these people see that it is absolute madness.

A joint secret service investigation found that hashish is part of a complex financing network serving the Algeria –based Salafist group for Preaching and Combat, also affiliated with al-Qaeda. They claimed responsibility for 2 bombings that killed 30 people and injured 200.

Morocco is the world’s leading cannabis exporter with an estimated annual crop value of almost 2 billion pounds. A terrorism expert said that “The issue stands at the core of divisions within al-Qaeda between those who believe that the end justifies the means and others who argue that drugs are incompatible with Islam”.