TIRANA, April 28 – Prime Minister Edi Rama said this week the country lacked the proper standards required to allow the growth of medical cannabis, shutting down persistent requests by a businessman lawmaker of the ruling coalition.
Koço Kokedhima, one of Albania’s wealthiest men and an MP of Rama’s Socialist Party, has been lobbying authorities to allow the legal cultivation of marijuana for medical reasons, arguing it can be a good legal export business toward destinations where marijuana is legal or allowed for medical use.
Last week, Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri had publicly shut down the proposal saying that anyone who dreams of planting cannabis for any purpose will face law enforcement.
Last year, police launched a wide-scale countrywide operation to eradicate the illegal marijuana plantations, including major hubs in Lazarat in the south and Malesi e Madhe in the north.
Albania’s climate makes it easy to grow marijuana that produces cannabidiol oil produced from a rare type of cannabis known as Ruderalis. Used as a medicine, proponents say, it could help patients living with autism, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, epilepsy or fighting cancer.
