By Urita Dokle
Marijuana cultivators all over Albania are expected to make some serious money after the first harvest of these lucrative plants. Cannabis production in the small Balkan country has experienced a shift in the cultivation geography and a huge increase as the former lawless village of Lazarat fell from ‘grace’ two years ago. New towns, villages and remote areas are now becoming hotbeds for marijuana growers. The areas of Tepelena, Vlora, Saranda, Mallakastra, Maliq, Kukà«s, Pà«rmet, Tropoja and Shkodra are considered the most problematic with cannabis cultivation and crackdown operations making the headlines almost every day.
The figures are alarming. In the first six months of 2016, police forces seized and destroyed about 725,000 cannabis plants ready to be planted.
In 2015, the Albanian State Police reported that the marijuana seizures totaled 6.87 metric tons and destroyed 689,815 marijuana plants, up from 551,414 in 2014. The plants were uprooted at an area of 44 hectares based on aerial identification carried out by Italian authorities.
Police expect to destroy 1 million plants
This year, police forces have identified many new cultivation plots but the more they destroy the larger the cultivated surface gets. An Italian surveillance plane operated by the neighboring country’s Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s primary agency for suppressing the drugs trade, has been patrolling Albanian skies since June 25th searching for new plantations in the mountainous areas. In addition, police officials have admitted that the total number of destroyed plants in 2016 might exceed 1 million plants due to a hike in plantations. Some 120 people have been arrested in the last six months. Hundreds of officers are regularly deployed on the ground hunting for marijuana growers. Albanian officials might consider random operations as successful, but the more plants they destroy the higher the number of new spots. Some plantations can be easier to destroy, but most are located in highlands and remote areas difficult to spot. Gangsters often use guns to protect their plants but in most cases flee before the police arrive. Police have had difficulty in finding the persons responsible for planting the drugs and have concentrated efforts on finding and destroying as many plantations as they can. On the other hand, marijuana growers allegedly have ties to police officers and even politicians, which makes the fight against narcotics more difficult.
Gov’t opposition trade blame
Members of the opposition and ruling majority have been trading blame over drug trafficking for months now. The opposition Democrats say police figures are merely the tip of an iceberg. According to the Democrats, Albania is no longer dealing with spunky villagers as marijuana plots are allegedly an investment of organized crime who have poured millions of Euros in this lucrative business. In addition, the country’s opposition believes the criminal gangs have close ties to politicians and high rank officials and have managed to transform Albania into a massive “Lazarat.”
Earlier this week, Ervin Salianji, the Democratic Party’s Secretary for Civil Action, accused Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri of ‘licensing’ drugs plantations in his home town of Tepelena, southern Albania. He argued that marijuana growers have the blessing of the ruling government and police officials are also collaborating with organized crime allowing criminals to plant and harvest cannabis. “This criminal business brings millions of Euros in profits for the bandits of [PM] Edi Rama, and for him as well, through the criminal scheme of getting a 30 percent share, a business which is built on the exploitation of local farmers who get paid only 1,000 lek (€7) or 2,000 lek (€15) a day,” Democratic Party representative told Tirana Times.
While officials from the State Police do not deny that locals in Tepelena and other areas grow cannabis, they claim that fight against cannabis plantations and trafficking is an “ongoing daily battle.” Albania’s State Police has urged the Democratic Party to join efforts in identifying and destroying these plantations.
Italy concerned over marijuana supply
Italian authorities have expressed concern about the increase in marijuana supply from Albania. They estimate that Albania produces and traffics about 1,000 metric tons of drugs per year. Last month, Italian police seized 800 kg of cannabis worth Euro 4 million that was being transported to the neighboring country via the Port of Durres. Two Albanian citizen were arrested for their involvement in international drug trafficking. Italian authorities said that the drugs was destined to northern Italian regions.
The U.S. State Department also still considers Albania a major source country for the production of marijuana and a transit point for shipments of cocaine and heroin destined to the European markets.
Shkodra emerges as the new Lazarat
Back in 2014, the volume of marijuana seizures in Albania exceeded 101.7 metric tons. Much of it came from a crackdown on Lazarat village, southern Albania, also considered as Europe’s marijuana capital. It has been more than two years since hundreds of Albanian police, backed by armored vehicles, stormed the lawless southern village of Lazarat and destroyed 30 tons of cannabis and 200.000 marijuana plants. A police officer was killed in fire exchanges with armed gangs who had kept the village out of police reach for years.
Gangs based in the Lazarat used to produce about 900 metric tons of cannabis a year, worth about 4.5 billion euros roughly half of the country’s GDP. The crackdown on Europe’s biggest illegal marijuana producer, raking in billions of Euros every year from the plants openly cultivated in fields and house gardens was the biggest ever in the past 26 years of Albania’s transition.
Although Lazarat has apparently lost its cannabis glamour, marijuana crops in 2016 have increased by four times to the average of the last 25 years.
Aleks Hajdari, a former police officer has told Top Channel TV that while Lazarat might have been wiped out of the marijuana map, marijuana is being massively grown elsewhere. “The quantity of cannabis seized compared to the quantity of cultivated plants all over Albania is almost insignificant,” he said.
Police sources told Tirana Times drug traffickers have uprooted and shifted production and trafficking networks to Shkodra under little public scrutiny. In addition, given the country’s struggling economy, these gangs have found people willing to engage in the process in order to earn a living, much like the people of Lazarat used to do. In addition, marijuana warehouses in Shkodra are difficult to spot and eradicate.
Marijuana as a source of income for the poor
Growing marijuana is a lucrative business but also a source of income for many poor households who have limited alternatives to make a living. That is the reason organized crime gangs have already established a solid labor force among poor villagers who have found in the cultivation of cannabis the only source of income. Farmers earn up to 300 Euros for every dry kilo of marijuana compared to only 200 Euros per ton in case of planting traditional crops such as wheat.
Drug smugglers in Italy can earn as much as 5,000 Euros per kilo. The illicit business is worth around 6 billion USD a year, accounting about half of the Albanian GDP. In the past decade, growing marijuana was far from being just a means for criminal organizations to gain power. The illicit business employed up to 90 percent of Lazarat’s small population, in addition to several hundreds of seasonal workers coming from other towns.
Calls for liberalizing marijuana production
Earlier this year, former Socialist Party MP Koco Kokedhima advocated the legalization of marijuana production arguing that the move would boost the economy of rural communities. He even launched a campaign – mainly through his Shekulli newspaper – supporting the legal cultivation of industrial cannabis in the country. “Albania produces cannabis of high quality, well-known in Europe. This could be done under state licenses for the pharmaceutical industry. There is actually production of an important quantity of cannabis in the country. There are billions of dollars out there. This is reality,” Kokedhima told Parliament earlier this year before he was stripped of his MP mandate on conflict of interest for benefitting from public tenders after he became an MP in 2013.
A successful businessman and media owner, Kokedhima also praised the popular brand name that Albanian cannabis has acquired abroad. The former Socialist MP argued the government must support farmers to export hemp and make a decent living once again. Industrial cannabis or hemp has been grown in Albania for years. It was mostly used in the textile and oil industries. In 2000, authorities classified hemp as narcotics and production became illegal. They destroyed large crops of hemp, originally planted with the help of a British organization. The move resulted in accusations and trials. The government was obliged to approve $120.000 in compensation to local farmers. Some 57 of them are still facing trial for narcotics cultivation.
Albania’s legislation is very harsh against drug possession and distribution. In the past, people caught with a few grams of weed for smoking purposes have been jailed for up to five years.
