TIRANA, April 7 – Albanian Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri has shut the door to any debate about the legalization of marijuana, telling advocates for the move “to forget about it.”
“Anyone who cultivates marijuana will be taken behind bars,” Tahiri said.
Koço Kokedhima, a lawmaker of the governing Socialist Party and a controversial businessman and media mogul, has been lobbying the government to legalize marijuana consumption in the country and allow cultivation for legal purposes such as for medical reasons.
He told the media there are young men in prison who were found with a single marijuana cigarette, when real criminals are set free.
He added Albania could make a lot of profit through the legal sale of the narcotic.
A few countries and regions around the world have liberalized the use of cannabis.
But Prime Minister Edi Rama had earlier said Albania will not have this debate at this time, as the country is not ready for it.
Last year, police made a much-required operation finding and destroying more than a hundred tons of cannabis in the southern Lazarat commune, and more in the northern Malesi e Madhe region.
Hundreds of thousands of cannabis plants were also cut and destroyed in what seemed to be a clear call from the government telling the world it had its country under control and wanted it to be taken away from the list of the countries of origin for cannabis.
