TIRANA, Aug. 5 – Marijuana growers are shifting tactics to avoid prosecution by planting small areas that have no property owners, a high police official told an Albanian television station.
Albanian police have ongoing operations against the cultivation of the narcotic plant, destroying 325,000 plants in 2015 alone.
Police say they are having a hard time prosecuting those behind the marijuana growing trend because they set up operations in plots of lands that are hard to access and do not belong to anyone.
National Deputy Police Chief Altin Qato told the Top Channel television station that 57 people were arrested in 2014 and 183 in 2015 for growing marijuana.
Qato said Albania’s territory is being monitored daily from the air with the help of Italian police, identifying more than 1,000 cannabis growing areas.
