Albania Drafts Law to Legalise Cannabis for Medical, Industrial Use

Albania's Council of Ministers on Friday backed a draft law potentially legalising the use of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes.

Minister of Health Ogerta Manastirliu said that an agency that would control the process was about to be established.

The idea has been floated for some time but has also been opposed, given the country's bad history with illegal cannabis production and trafficking.

Prime Minister Edi Rama had asked citizens about the issue through a "National Survey" that has been criticized as not being independent. It said that 61 per cent of polled citizens were in favour for legalizing cannabis for medical and industrial reasons.

"The purpose of this draft law is to regulate and guarantee the process of control and supervision of cultivation, production, processing and export of the cannabis, its by-products and final products," Manastirliu said on Friday.

Albania has a long history of cannabis growing and trafficking since the collapse of Communism three decades ago.

For some 15 years, up till 2014, Lazarat village in southern Albania became "the European capital of cannabis growing", an area where police didn't dare enter and which was only suppressed by a military-style operation.

However, cannabis cultivation remains an acute issue in the country, and Edi Rama's governments have been accused of collaborating with traffickers.