HERMOSILLO, Mexico — Drug smugglers are using an ancient invention as a new way to move marijuana across the border from Mexico to Arizona. The discovery of two “drug catapults” in the Mexican state of Sonora marks the latest twist in the cat-and-mouse game traffickers play with authorities, the Associated Press reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. U.S. National Guard troops operating a remote surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the fence late last week. A Mexican army officer says the [...]
An almost 14-ton marijuana bust in Temecula on Thursday led federal authorities to discover a sophisticated drug tunnel between San Diego County and Mexico. Temecula Border Patrol agents seized the drugs after stopping a big rig on Interstate 15, John Asbury reports in the Riverside Press-Enterprise. In the ensuing investigation, four more tons of pot were seized on a ranch in northern Mexico and three tons were found inside the tunnel, while eight people in two countries were arrested, according to a report from the San Diego Tunnel Task Force. It was the second time [...]
Oct 222010
Reporting from Tijuana — Billowing clouds of marijuana smoke drifted over the hills as a pair of Mexican army soldiers pondered the consequences of the biggest dope seizure in Mexican history: About 134 tons of cannabis, or 334 million joints by military estimates, were going up in smoke. “Think of all the people who won’t be able to smoke this dope,” Noe Lenin Rubio Torres said at the military’s formal burning ceremony Wednesday. “Only the little angels in heaven are going to get stoned tonight,” said fellow soldier Lucio Rangel. Mexico’s drug wars produce setbacks [...]
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s largest-ever seizure of marijuana packaged for sale is even bigger than the original estimate of 105 tons and probably belonged to the powerful Sinaloa cartel, authorities said Tuesday. The government so far had counted 15,000 packages – 5,000 more than first announced after the seizure during early-morning raids Monday in the border city of Tijuana, said Alejandro Poire, President Felipe Calderon’s security spokesman. Authorities were still weighing the haul Tuesday to determine just how much bigger it is than originally thought, he said in an Associated Press story picked up by [...]
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — President Felipe Calderon said Thursday that a California ballot measure to legalize marijuana represents hypocrisy in U.S. drug policy for encouraging consumption while at the same time demanding that Mexico and other countries crack down on drug trafficking. “For me, it reflects a terrible inconsistency in government policies in the United States,” the Mexican leader said late Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press that was picked up by The Union of Grass Valley. California voters will decide on Nov. 2 whether to allow possession of up to 1 ounce [...]
Oct 122010
A new Rand Corporation study disputes claims by proponents of California’s Proposition 19 initiative that widely legalizing marijuana in the state will cripple Mexican drug cartels. The Rand report, released this morning, said the ballot measure will have little impact on drug trafficking from Mexico — unless Proposition 19 results in California pot growers smuggling huge quantities of home-grown Golden State weed across the United States. The report said legalizing marijuana beyond currently legal medical use in California would, at best, put a 2 to 4 percent dent in the revenues of Mexican drug cartels, [...]
Some of the most anxious observers of California’s November vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use are ineligible to vote because they are located south of the border in Mexico. Prop 19 proponents argue that the most nervous observers are the Mexican drug cartels, whose operations could be undercut by legal marijuana in the Golden State. But leading political intellectuals in Mexico are also wondering whether the California vote will open the door to seriously considering legalizing marijuana in Mexico, Peter Hecht writes in “Weed Wars.” Tim Johnson, the Mexico City Bureau Chief for McClatchy [...]
Sep 142010
I love the movie “Dazed and Confused,” which I caught the other day on TV. The flick is filled with stoner stereotypes that are funny because they ring so true. At least, they rang true when I went to high school more than 30 years ago. Then Wilford Brimley ruined the movie for me. Not because he’s a bad actor, but because he tried to sell me prescription drugs during the commercial. Despite its countercultural pedigree, “Dazed and Confused” has become an advertising vehicle for catheters, wheelchairs and other products designed for aging boomers. The [...]
MEXICO CITY – A debate about legalizing marijuana and possibly other drugs – once a taboo suggestion – is percolating in Mexico, a nation exhausted by runaway violence and a deadly drug war. The debate is only likely to grow more animated if Californians approve a ballot initiative on Nov. 2 to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the state. Mexicans are keeping a close eye on the Proposition 19 vote, seeing it as a bellwether, Tim Johnson reports for McClatchy Newspapers. “If they vote ‘yes’ to approve the full legalization of marijuana, I think [...]
CORRE COYOTE, Mexico — Times are good for the dope growers of the western Sierra Madre mountains. The army eradication squads that once hacked at the illicit marijuana fields have been diverted by the drug war that’s raging elsewhere in Mexico. The military’s retreat has delighted farmers who are sowing and reaping marijuana. Cultivation in Mexico soared 35 percent last year and is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades, the State Department says. It’s also been a boon for Mexico’s powerful organized-crime groups, Tim Johnson reports for McClatchy Newspapers in the [...]
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