Albania attempts to contain cannabis plantations

It’s harvest season in Albania. But the men in the fields are armed more with submachine guns than with gardening tools. These soldiers are, in fact, destroying illegal cannabis plantations by cutting them down and then setting them on fire. The war on drugs The future of Europe is at stake here, and billions of euros are on the line.

Albania is Europe's largest drug warehouse. According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the country has long served as a base for criminal gangs that traffic all kinds of goods—from cigarettes to heroin, cocaine, and cannabis resin—throughout Europe. Moreover, Albania has increasingly become a major producer of outdoor-grown cannabis, which is then distributed through a complex network of Albanian groups linked to organized crime.

One of the main destinations is Italy, where cannabis is smuggled via speedboats, trucks, private planes, and even jet skis. The Italian military, however, is helping Albania detect the plantations by flying over the Albanian mountains. The Virtually all of the plantations detected have been destroyed. By the end of August of this year, according to official figures, one million plants had been destroyed—twice as many as in all of 2014.

Yet there are still many plantations. Local residents mention, in particular, those that are more remote and difficult to reach. There are also numerous rumors that certain Albanian politicians are working hand in hand with the mafia. Those implicated, of course, deny any involvement. But suspicious elections might suggest that certain gangs have put politicians in power to ensure they can operate undisturbed, particularly in the notorious town of Lazarat, known as the «kingdom of cannabis.» Production there was so extensive that the Albanian Ministry of the Interior estimated its value at 4.5 billion euros—half the country’s GDP. Lazarat has become stiffened by the police in 2014, temporarily crippling the business and forcing the smugglers to venture ever deeper into the mountains to continue their operations.

At the European level, it is hard to tell whether this policy of destruction is actually having an impact. Other countries, such as the Morocco also supplies Europe with cannabis, particularly resin. And in Latin America, the destruction of coca bushes generally hurt small-scale producers without affecting the large ones.