The story
For years Lazarat was described as Albania’s cannabis capital. In June 2014 the state sent more than 800 police officers to break the village’s armed resistance and destroy its crop.
A production centre
Lazarat lies in southern Albania, near Gjirokastër. Cannabis cultivation there had reached an exceptional scale. The interior ministry estimated that gangs based in the village produced about 900 tonnes a year, although that government estimate cannot be independently checked from the sources used here.
The village was not Albania’s only cannabis-producing area, but it had become the most visible symbol of a trade that the government wanted to suppress. Police described an organised criminal group as holding the village in its grip.
The operation begins
About 500 officers moved against Lazarat on 16 June 2014. Roughly 30 armed people responded with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy mortars. A special-forces officer was wounded. Police destroyed 11,000 plants and found cannabis stored in sacks and barrels, but did not immediately enter the whole village.
By the next day about 800 officers had surrounded Lazarat. Police asked residents to remain indoors and other people to stay away. Officers told the Associated Press that entering under fire risked civilian casualties. Television carried the confrontation live while smoke rose as plants were burned.
State control
Police ultimately took control of most of the village. Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri said the operation would continue until every part of Lazarat was under state control. The government later said it had ended local production and transit.
The conflict did not end all violence. On 24 June 2015 a member of the RENEA counter-terrorism force was killed and two other officers were wounded after gunmen fired from a house in the village.
Why the index did not move
The raid was a major enforcement event, not a change in national law. Unlicensed cultivation and supply were offences before and after the operation. It therefore remains a contextual entry in the history of Albania: no segment score moves, but the event shows how forcefully the existing prohibition was imposed at its most famous production centre.[1][2]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Albania here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.