HARD TIMES ENCOURAGE ALBANIAN FARMERS TO GROW DRUGS TO FEED FAMILY
by Adrian Brown Copyright (c) 1997, Agence France Presse

With a modicum of trouble and a little discretion,
Albanian farmer Bashkim Ahmeti can double his annual income
and contribute to one of his country's few export
industries drugs.

On a small patch of land measuring no more than ten
meters (yards) by three, Ahmeti can grow enough marijuana
to net around 1,000 dollars, some 300 dollars more than the
average annual Albanian wage.

Tucked away behind a screen of reeds on a scrap of land
in the middle of carefully tended crops, this year's crop
of hemp plants are just beginning to come through.

Just ten centimeters tall at this time of year, the
40odd plants Ahmeti planted a fortnight ago will quickly
grow to two or three meters high. "They don't need much
care," he explains.

"When they are about half a meter high I spread chicken
droppings over them and then add water when they need it.
Some people use cow dung but I find chicken droppings the
best, it's much stronger," he says.

According to Ahmeti, which is not his real name, there
are hundreds like him. "Everyone grows it around here," he
confides, adding: "It's to provide for my family over the
winter."

When ready, Ahmeti dries and cleans the plant, then
sells it to the local dealer at 30 dollars a kilogram.
"I'll sell it to anyone who wants it. There's no shortage
of people around here willing to buy," he said. Demand for
marijuana has increased in recent years after the
ultrastrict communist regime in power in Albania until the
early 90s withered away. In addition, new smuggling routes
have opened up through the mountainous Balkan republic as
the favoured drug runs through the former Yugloslavia, just
to the north, dried up while war raged there.

The first year Ahmeti grew hashish, his seven plants
yielded 11 kilograms. Last year he got 42 kilograms from 30
plants and this year's crop of 40 plants will produce even
more of the drug.

Vlore, currently in the hands of a rebel committee after
local government was forced out at gun point in March, has
long been a popular smugglers haunt. It is one of the few
sources of revenue. Returns are good and there is little to
worry about from the police.

Fast speed boats are used by gangs to transport the crop
to Italy, a short hop across the Adriatic to the southern
coast of Albania's Mediterranean neighbour. From there the
drug continues its journey through Europe. Other
destinations include Greece, lying to the south of Albania.

Ahmeti, a thin wiry man with a thick shock of grey hair,
said it was a Greek who showed him how to grow the drug.
"He wrote everything down on a piece of paper," he
explained.

The problem has been raised by the European Union with
the Albanian authorites, and the United States has sent
drug enforcement officers to Tirana to help train the
police.

Currently, with the unrest in Albania, drug enforcement
is not at the top of the agenda. But even before, the
police were hard pushed to enforce the law which makes it
illegal to grow the drug.

Police did visit Ahmeti's small plantation once, he
recalled, but they left after he told them his family
depended on the crop for money. "After a while they left me
alone," Ahmeti recalled.

The rest of the year, Ahmeti grows aubergines and
tomatoes and other vegetables but insists this is not
enough to provide for his family of six. "My family is
dying for bread. What are they going to think? Sure they
are going to agree to my growing this stuff," he says.

Albania, Europe's poorest country, has liberalised large
parts of its economy but still huge sections of the
population remain out of work or underemployed. More
recently, general poverty has been exacerbated by the loss
of an estimated one billion dollars in bogus investment
schemes, which sparked unrest this year. Marijuana, along
with chrome and copper, are among the handful of exports
Albania produces.

awb/ccr

AFP