Police continue fight to control marijuana growers

TIRANA, Aug. 8 – Police reported Wednesday that a checkpoint in Lazarat commune in the south was shot from people nearby and consequently responded to the shots. The exchange of shots between a team of nine policemen and allegedly 10 persons from the village continued for about a quarter of an hour. No injuries were reported from both sides.
But that did not end like that. Police continued to say that the assailants then turned their fire towards the hill nearby which was put on fire damaging its area.
A new, more potent marijuana breed from the Netherlands is being grown in Lazarat, a village in southern Albania known as the country’s cannabis capital.
Albanian special police units entered the village amid gunfire from residents on July 11th and destroyed over 6,000 plants and arrested two people.
Last month police reported they had cut thousands of cannabis sativa plants in Lazarat and also arrested a few persons for them.
Lazarat is a well-known place where cannabis is planted and then sold all around to people trying to take it to neighboring Greece or nearby Italy. Police have failed to stop that illegal business. Moreover police forces have not managed to enter the village inside but only in the outskirts.
Cannabis has turned to be a major problem not only for Albania, for which some reports say it has turned into a primary source for that to western Europe, but also for the Balkan region.
Growing cannabis plants to produce marijuana, hashish and cannabis oil is a growing practice throughout the Balkans, but experts said that the region’s governments should do more to eradicate the plant.
Albania and the Netherlands are the biggest producers of cannabis in Europe. Profits from the illegal sale of cannabis products in the Netherlands are estimated to be some 10 billion euros annually.
The International Board for Narcotics Control said that Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia are sources of cannabis which is used elsewhere in Europe.
Smuggling the drugs from Albania into neighboring countries has exploited every possible route starting with horse or mules, boats or in cargo vehicles hidden among other legal merchandise.
This year, the Italian Navy seized five tons of marijuana from Albania. The Italian police’s latest operation netted 250kg of cannabis — with a market value of 2million euros — which individuals tried to smuggle by boat through the OtrantoChannel in the Adriatic sea.
That is another reason why the Albanian police and authorities in general should pay close attention to stopping such an illegal business operating in this country that hopes to join the European Union one day.