“Atom Bomb” Hashish All the Rage

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 9

“Atom Bomb” Hashish All the Rage

(From Reuter’s Correspondent) CAIRO (By Airmail). The Middle East’s thriving drug trade now has a new brand of Hashish called “Atom Bomb.” It is so named to distinguish it from the cheaper variety known as “Cannon.” The vigilance of a Port Said policeman, Ahmed Hamdy, led recently to the arrest of two men and the seizure of over 301bs. of “Atom Bomb” Hashish, the hemp-type drug extensively grown in the Levant. Hamdy was on patrol when he saw a man carrying a sack accompanied by another man whom he recognised as a well-known trafficker. The constable demanded to see the contents of the sack. The traffiicker pinioned Hamdy to a wall while the man with the sack made off. As he ran, he fell. Hamdy’s cries for help brought two other policemen to the scene, and both men were arrested. Each day in Egypt peddlars and users of drugs are arrested, but the big hauls are made by frontiersmen and coastguards when she wares are being transported over the desert or ferried across the Suez Canal. Only recently three prisoners in the gaol at Alexandria were found to he in possession of Hashish. When they were discovered, they stated that they had bought the drug from a fellow-prisoner who had obtained it during a court sitting to which he had been called to give evidence. About, the same time, a woman was shot dead in a fight at Bilbeis. about 30 miles north-east of Cairo, following attempts by the police to arrest a man in possession of a few pounds of Hashish. Relatives of the man peuted the policemen with stones and other missiles and the situation developed so seriously that warning shots had to be fired into the air. This started a shooting battle between the man’s family and the police, and the woman was . killed. A. man was arrested while openly weighing out opium to his customers at Eeni Suef in Upper Egypt. Search of his house revealed stocks of both onium and Hashish.