For some Israelis, the government’s newly completed, $400 million border fence with Egypt looks like a way to stop terrorism. For others, it represents a visible effort to halt illegal immigration from Africa. But for one sector of the population, the fortified 150-mile barrier stands for something else entirely: drugs—or, rather, the lack thereof.
“When the border was open, there was cheap hash,” said Amos Silver, who is 29 and lives in Tel Aviv. “Now it costs three, four, five times as much.” Silver is used to smoking marijuana daily, preferably from a bong, but the recent police crackdown on smuggling tunnels that run underneath the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, as well as the new fence, have made Silver’s habit increasingly difficult to maintain. “What I don’t have is security,” he told me. “I don’t know whether I’ll have something to smoke tomorrow.”
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