Episode 2 of the latest series of Ross Kemp’s Extreme World aired in the UK last night. I don’t usually watch the programme (or much TV at all) but last night’s episode was about the West Bank and more specifically the problem with a drug called “Hydro” that is devastating the Palestinian youth.
Now I’d never heard of hydro before watching the programme but it turns out that it is basically, synthetic marijuana which was designed in a lab somewhere so that it has the effects of cannabis but does not contain the substances that make cannabis illegal. A legal high if you will.
The problem with Hydro is that it is addictive and causes harm in a way that naturally produced cannabis does not.
Hydro isn’t actually a new thing. It first became popular as a legal high in the United States in the early 2000s and spread to the West Bank from Israel where it used to be sold legally until 2013 when a new law was introduced banning its sale. Similar laws have been introduced in various countries worldwide to try to stop the spread of so called ‘designer drugs’ (designed to circumvent laws banning particular substances and thereby make them legal to sell until new laws are introduced).
Now, Hydro is produced illegally in Israel and smuggled into the West Bank where it is having a devastating effect on the local population and particularly the Palestinian youth population.
Ross interviewed various people during the course of the episode, with many citing the Israeli occupation as one of the reasons why so many West Bank residents were hooked on Hydro (an estimated 60,000 people out of a population of 2.8 million) including a west bank drug dealer who was very honest and said he was ashamed of what he did but used the usual excuse of, “I don’t force anyone to buy drugs” to justify it, but this wasn’t the whole story.
Policing the West Bank is a difficult business due to the way that some areas are controlled by the Palestinian Authority and some by the Israeli government with both sides having to get permission to cross into the others territory. This effectively means that if a drug dealer is found in Palestinian territory but manages to cross into Israeli territory they cannot be pursued (and vice versa of course).
Here is a map of the West Bank (sourced from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarium Affairs showing the areas under control of the PA and the Israeli government.
Can you see how difficult it must be to police this area?
Ross tried his best to present a balanced view of the problem which included a visit to the Israeli police and drug task force who assured him that despite the claims of some Palestinians that the Israeli police were turning a blind eye to the problem in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, the Israeli’s took the problem seriously.
They even showed Ross a shipping container filled with 60 tonnes of drugs that they say there were able to fill each month from drug busts alone. When asked what percentage of the total supply this was (Ross suggested 1% or 2%), the Israeli police spokesperson said she didn’t know but if even if we conservatively estimate that only 5% of the total supply is busted, we can see that there is a massive amount of drugs entering the West Bank, with the majority of it coming from Israeli controlled areas.
With the police almost powerless to stop the problem due to the difficulties I’ve outlined, vigilantism is starting to increase with some of the more powerful families in the West Bank coming together to take the law into their own hands. Ross Kemp attended a raid with one of the vigilante groups in which they found a huge haul of drugs. The drug dealers found at the location were taken to a tribal leader who would decide their punishment (the leader of the vigilantes had already stated that if he had his way he would have killed all the drug dealers without mercy). The tribal leader was reasonably lenient (considering that he could have sentenced them to death) and said that he would release the men after they had given the names of ten other dealers.
At the end of the programme Ross did his usual monologue highlighting the issues the programme had covered and said what a shame it would be if the Palestinians managed to secure the state they have so long wanted, only to find that the next generation of Palestinians to inhabit such a state were completely destroyed by drugs.
It was a good way to end the programme and I don’t think Ross Kemp or the programme makers could have done a better job of presenting the problem considering that the programme was being aired on Sky One owned by the Zionist Rupert Murdoch, but I think that Ross hit the nail on the head with his final comments.
What a shame indeed it would be if the future of any Palestinian state, the young people, who are the main victims of drugs like Hydro, were so weakened and destroyed by drugs that they were unable to maintain such a state.
This is where my conspiratorial side comes into play, although to be honest, in the case of Israel / Palestine it doesn’t require much imagination when you can quote Israeli politicians like Ayelet Skaked.
What better way to ensure the end of the Palestinian people than to let them destroy themselves with drugs manufactured in Israel, allowed to cross into the Palestinian areas of the West Bank by Israeli police, and with the drug dealers able to find safe haven in Israeli controlled areas?
There’s no need for another operation Cast Lead.
Palestinians are killing themselves and all Israel has to do is supply the drugs and watch.