Global Ganja Report

Venezuela and the US are both seeking the extradition of Walid Makled, a notorious drug lord known as "The Arab" or "The Turk," who was arrested in a joint operation by Colombian police and the DEA in the city of Cúcuta near the Venezuelan border Aug. 19. A federal court in Manhattan has indicted Makled on charges of drug trafficking—allegedly in cooperation with Colombia's FARC guerillas. Venezuela is meanwhile seeking him on multiple murder counts.

Officials in Georgia's Bartow County said one person was arrested after they seized $250,000 worth of what local news accounts called a "rare drug" during a traffic stop on Interstate 75. Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force officials identified the substance as khat, a leaf chewed as a mild stimulant in the Horn of Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Children are being trafficked into the UK to work in so-called "cannabis factories," according to a new police report. The "factories" are typically located in private houses, but sometimes in agricultural and commercial properties. A study for the Association of Chief Police Officers has found children are being used to tend crops, to illegally divert electricity for the factories, and to break into rival sites.

Despite being acquitted by a jury late last year of charges stemming from a 2008 arrest on marijuana possession and distribution, medicinal cannabis patient and provider Jovan Jackson is being tried by San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis for a second time in less than a year. However, for the second trial Dumanis is trying to deny Jackson, the former operator of Answerdam Alternative Care Collective (AACC), a medical marijuana defense—based on the claim that "sales" are illegal under state law. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country's leading medical marijuana patient advocacy group, filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief in support of Jackson's defense, refuting the District Attorney's allegations.

More than 50 Israeli citizens have contacted State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss with a request that he look into "waste of tax money" on police searches and investigations of them for cannabis violations. "Investigate the disproportionate investment of resources in going after marijuana consumers," demands the letter.

Morocco's royal navy intercepted two dinghies loaded with 2.725 tons of cannabis resin (locally known as chira) off the coast of Nador on Aug. 13. The four occupants of the boat, equipped with two 200-horsepower engines, managed to escape.

Authorities have uncovered a marijuana "megafarm" hidden in northern Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Oconto County Sheriff Mike Jansen estimated officers seized some 50,000 plants, but state Attorney General JB Van Hollen cautioned that authorities are still counting and the number currently stood closer to 10,000. Authorities are said to believe that a Mexican cartel, wanting to grow the product to closer to US markets, is responsible. Eight Latino men were reportedly arrested. (AP, Aug. 12)

On Aug. 12, the California Chamber of Commerce held a press conference bashing Prop 19, claiming employers would have to permit employees to smoke marijuana at work. But First Amendment lawyer and Prop 19 author James Wheaton says the Chamber is lying. Employees don't have to let workers come to work drunk, and they wouldn't have to let them come to work high. Furthermore, employers can already fire employees at will, as well as if they fail a drug test, and that will not change if Prop 19 passes.