Albania's parliament yesterday legalized the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes in a move sharply criticized by the opposition as the government believes allowing limited cannabis production could boost tax revenues.
The license for the cultivation and processing of cannabis for medical purposes will be granted to companies for a period of 15 years, and all interested parties will be approved by the Albanian government. The maximum area that can be planted with cannabis in the territory of the entire country is 200 hectares. The law sets strict criteria for obtaining a license, the first of which is that the company has three years of experience in growing, producing, processing and transporting this plant. Practically no Albanian company meets this requirement, Albanian media write.
Such criteria raise the question of who this law was drafted for and who would benefit from it, "Euronews Albania" notes. Albanian economic experts said at the end of June that the requirement for three years of experience in growing cannabis means that foreign entrepreneurs, not Albanian citizens, will be able to benefit from the new law.
Former President of Albania and leader of the opposition Freedom Party, Ilir Meta, stated that the proposed law would mean "de facto legalization of drug trafficking" in Albania.
Since the government approved it in mid-June, the bill to legalize cannabis for medical and industrial purposes has caused mixed reactions.
Earlier this month, former Albanian president and leader of the opposition Freedom Party, Ilir Meta, said the bill would mean "de facto legalization of the drug trade" in Albania.
Marijuana cultivation flourished in Albania in the past as drug traffickers took advantage of the country's lack of stable government. After coming to power in 2013, the government of the left-wing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama set the destruction of cannabis plants as its main goal. Over the next two years, millions of cannabis plants were destroyed with an estimated market value of seven billion euros, more than two-thirds of the country's annual gross domestic product at the time.
Albania remains the main route for the trafficking of hard drugs. Police are still cracking down on isolated cases of cannabis cultivation, but much less often than a decade ago.
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