Citizen Shkëlqim Basha was apprehended Wednesday by the police, after it was learned he had cultivated a considerable number of cannabis trees at the yard of his house in Lazarat.

The police officers also found military weapons during a search in his dwelling. Drug cultivation has resurfaced in the notorious Lazarat even 7 after the government cracked down the phenomenon.

In 2013, the new Socialist government declared war on the cannabis cultivators the following year, with a five-day assault on a notorious drug den near the country’s southern border with Greece.

That same year and in 2014, police seized just over 101 tonnes of marijuana, slightly more than the previous nine years put together. Just over half a million cannabis plants were destroyed, while the next year that number rose to 800,000 and in the first nine months of 2016 police said they had more than doubled the amount of destroyed plants again to 2.1 million.