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, local media reported on Friday.
The hospital in the southern city of Gjirokastër said 700 people had sought treatment since June for the effects of planting, harvesting, pressing and packing the cannabis in the village of Lazarat.
“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,” Hysni Lluka, a Gjirokastër doctor, 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 €8 per 10 kilos of processed drug, The Guardian informs.
