Hundreds of cannabis workers fall ill in Albanian village

By Benet Koleka TIRANA (Reuters) – Doctors in Albania say hundreds of people have fallen ill from harvesting cannabis in a lawless region that for years has been out of bounds to police, Albanian media reported on Friday. “In the last two months about seven to eight people arrive in the emergency ward each day and many more have come earlier with disorders from hashish,” Gjirokaster doctor Hysni Lluka told Top Channel television. Some 2,000 people, including poor Roma who have set up a camp near Lazarat, have been working for months in the cannabis fields, where producers pay eight euros per 10 kilos of processed drug. The illegal practice has flourished in Lazarat over two decades of turbulent transition in Albania since the end of hardline communist rule.