Isis takes over cannabis farms
According to news reports coming out of England, ISIS has taken control of cannabis farms in Albania that are responsible for a huge proportion of the weed illegally sold in Britain.
Back in 2014, ISIS insurgents fought their way into the village of Lazarat, Albania, which turned out to be the headquarters for the Albanian Mafia and an important site in the gang’s lucrative narcotics trade.
“But far from stifling an industry at odds with the values of Islamist doctrine,” Edmund Kirby writes, “the terror group instead saw a chance to exploit a potentially profitable situation.”
Now, it seems that ISIS has taken control of the Albanian Mafia’s international drug ring, which is purportedly valued at around £4 billion.
And the centerpiece of it all is a series of cannabis farms that Kirby says produces “a staggering 900 tons a year.”
This is, apparently, of particular concern to British officials.
“The UK is the main market for Albanian cannabis,” said international security expert Marjan Nikolovski. “ISIS is involved in production and smuggling. So anybody buying drugs in Britain is funding terrorists.”
While Nikolovski’s expertise may help follow the flow of the cannabis being produced on these ex-Mafia, now ISIS-owned cannabis fields, his claim that buying pot in Britain is somehow implicated in global terrorism is more than a little bit off base.
Most immediately, such a claim assumes that cannabis should be illegal. But the real problem isn’t the people smoking herb—especially since studies have found that most people actively support or participate in using cannabis—it’s the outdated, ineffective marijuana prohibition laws that force drugs onto the underground black market where all sorts of shady characters can have free reign.
Maybe Nikolovski needs to take some lessons from David Michal, who’s comment at the end of Kirby’s article seems spot on: “The sooner we legalize cannabis, the sooner we take away £4 billion from them.”
“With a legal structure in place protecting our children needed boost to our economy.”
The key to taking away the funding structures of groups like the Mafia or ISIS is to take away the black markets in which they operate.
And the only way to do that is to legalize cannabis, especially since of all things to outlaw, this one is actually hugely beneficial in all sorts of ways.
