The Lebanese parliament on Tuesday passed legislation to legalize cannabis cultivation for medical and industrial purposes, a move that was recommended by economic advisers even before the coronavirus pandemic dealt a devastating blow to the Mediterranean nation's struggling economy.

Under the new law, the cultivation of cannabis by farmers would be regulated within the country, according to The Daily Star, a Lebanese English-language newspaper. Although the plant has long been widely and openly cultivated in Lebanon, particularly in the country's eastern Bekaa Valley, growing cannabis was strictly illegal.