Global Ganja Report

Vermont farmer Roger Pion, 34, jumped into his giant eight-wheel Case MX255 diesel tractor, headed to the police station in Newport town, and crushed more than seven squad cars Aug. 2, exacting vengeance for his arrest for cannabis possession last month. Pion then led cops on a low-speed chase through town before being apprehended a mile away. His act of retribution took out more than half of the district's squad car fleet. "We're going to have to get the jaws of life up here to pry the trunks open and see about the rifles and shotguns," Sheriff Kirk Martin told the Associated Press."The radios are ruined."

On Aug. 2, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and seven initial co-sponsors introduced HR 6335, the States' Medical Marijuana Property Rights Protection Act, in an attempt to stop the seizure of property from landlords of state law-compliant medical marijuana businesses. The introduction of HR 6335 comes less than a month after US Attorney Melinda Haag served an asset forfeiture suit against the landlord of Harborside, a dispensary in Rep. Lee's district, in Oakland. The Justice Department action was opposed by Rep. Lee, and also sparked an outcry from local and state officials, including City Council members, the Oakland city attorney, and the Board of Equalization.

Tajikistan sealed its border with Afghanistan this week, after clashes with armed rebels left 48 dead. Security forces are now searching for Tolib Ayombekov, a former rebel who became a commander of the border guard after a 1997 peace deal and is now believed to have taken up arms again. Ayombekov has been a fugitive since he refused to show up for questioning about the July 21 murder of a local security official in southern Badakhshan province, or to turn over men under his command suspected in the slaying. A conflict over control of the cross-border traffic in Afghan opium is said to be behind the conflict. (IWPR, July 31; DPA, July 30; Registan, July 27; AP, July 25)

There is growing support in Lebanon's cannabis-producing eastern region (the Bekaa Valley, for centuries a major hashish production zone) for a proposal from Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt for the government to legalize and purchase the crop from the area's struggling farmers, establishing a program of controlled distribution for medicinal purposes. Advocates of the proposal say the yearly eradication of the cannabis crop by the Central Drug Control Office has led to corruption, and is breeding resentment.

The New York Times reported July 21 that the US has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana, and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya—part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to traffic cocaine to Europe. The decision comes despite controversy over a similar program in Central America. "We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues," said Jeffrey P. Breeden, chief of the DEA's Europe, Asia and Africa section. "It's a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up."

The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international agencies "don't fight drug traffickers," a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico was quoted by Al Jazeera TV, saying that instead "they try to manage the drug trade." Charges from activists and academics about official complicity in the drug traffic are nothing new—but this was the first time a sitting official from a Mexican state government made such accusations. "It's like pest control companies, they only control," spokesman Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva reportedly told Al Jazeera last month at his office in Ciudad Juárez. "If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs."

On July 25, the Los Angeles, the City Counted voted 14-0 to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. Each of the 762 dispensaries that have registered with the city are to be sent a letter ordering them to shut down immediately under threat of legal action. Cannabis advocates packed the council chambers and met the vote with jeers; more than a dozen LAPD officers were called in to quell them. Under the ban, medical patients and their caregivers will be able to grow and share cannabis in small groups of three or less. In a seemingly contradictory move, the council also voted to instruct city staff to draw up an ordinance that would allow a group of about 170 dispensaries that registered with the city several years ago to remain open. (LAT, July 24)

As Barack Obama pressed the flesh at a fundraiser in Oakland's historic Fox Theater July 23, hundreds of medical marijuana supporters rallied nearby to oppose the Justice Department crackdown on California's dispensaries—and particularly to support the city's Harborside Health Center, now facing federal forfeiture proceedings. Speakers at the rally included many patients who said cannabis had helped them—and Stephen DeAngelo, Harborside's executive director, who called for a halt to actions against dispensaries and said the Justice Department should instead focus on the violent crime that plagues Oakland. "We are here for every medical cannabis patient around the world," DeAngelo said. Later, the cannabis advocates joined Occupy Oakland and assorted anti-war activists to block the intersection of 19th Street and Broadway. Police reported two arrests. (San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, July 23)