Drug Use, Smuggling Increasing in Libya

[Comrade Grumpy]

Source: Voice of America

TRIPOLI, LIBYA — Drug use is on the rise in Libya, as a host of post-revolutionary challenges after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi prevent the government from stemming the tide. The evidence of drug use isn’t hard to find in Libya’s capital, from discarded syringes littering small parks in residential side streets to the smell of pungent hashish being smoked in the rubble-strewn remains of toppled strongman Gadhafi's former residential compound.

According to the chairman of the national security committee of the country’s parliament, Abd Al-Wahhab Muhammad Qaid, drug trafficking is a serious challenge for the Libyan government, with narcotics flowing in from its southern neighbors, Chad and Niger.

“I live in the south and I know we have big borders, and in fact we suffer from many things - from illegal immigration and drugs. We don’t control our borders,” said Qaid.

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Libya isn’t just a trans-shipment point, though. It is a market itself. There are increasing reports of Libyans using drugs, presenting both a public health crisis, as well as a law-and-order problem. Police claim that 80 percent of Libyan crime is drug-related, with traffickers and dealers fighting nightly turf battles in Tripoli and Benghazi, and addicts resorting to carjacking and robbery.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.voanews.com/content/drug_use_smuggling_are_increasing_in_libya/1616257.html

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More at the link.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Part and parcel for post coup dealings.

Now they have to focus on this instead of the foriegn oil corporations stealling their oil with the help of their new lackeys.