Global Ganja Report

The Philippines' ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte may have finally gone too far. It is all too telling that after his anti-drug crackdown has claimed perhaps 7,000 lives since he took power last June, it is the death of a prominent foreign businessman that has finally prompted him to—perhaps—rein in his murderous police. All those suspected low-level drug users and dealers who were killed? Their lives don't matter, apparently. But after rogue National Police officers abducted and put to death a South Korean shipping company executive, Duterte has finally pledged to disband the controversial anti-drug units.

The planned meeting in Washington between President Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto, was called off after Trump signed his Jan. 25 executive order decreeing construction of a wall on the border—accompanied with more bluster about how Mexico will pay for it. Since the cancelation, Trump and Peña Nieto have engaged in an unseemly Twitter war, each taking responsibility for calling off the meeting. Things got worse when the White House raised the option of making Mexico pay for the wall with a 20% tariff on all goods coming in from our southern neighbor. The threat portends a trade war with the United States' third biggest trading partner.

A candidate for the assembly in India's northwest state of Punjab is calling for the legalization of opium to address the much-hyped drug problem in the state.  Calcutta's The Telegraph reported Jan. 22 that candidate Tarsem Jodhan unveiled the proposal at a campaign rally in his native village of Dakha, saying: "Opium is not a killer like heroin and other synthetic drugs."

Lighting up joints right on the National Mall in the middle of Donald Trump's inauguration speech struck me as the perfect way to usher in the new era. As High Times reported, the Inauguration Day smoke-in did indeed get away with it. But the real testament to cannabis' power to bring people together actually came a few hours earlier, when the DC Cannabis Coalition gathered in Dupont Circle, about a mile from the mall, for their mass joint give-away.

In his latest outrage, the Philippines' ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte now threatened to actually impose martial law across the country if the drug problem became "very virulent." Reuters on Jan. 16 quoted him as saying: "If I wanted to, and it will deteriorate into something really very virulent, I will declare martial law. No one can stop me." In a comment apparently directed at the Supreme Court and Congress, he voiced open defiance of legal norms: "My country transcends everything else, even the limitations."

Yet another deadly prison riot is reported from Brazil. This time, rival gangs clashed for control of a pavilion at Alcaçuz State Penitentiary, in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. The riot began early Jan. 14; police surrounded the prison that night, but waited until noon the next day to enter due to reports that rebel inmates had armed themselves. At press time, the state’s military police and elite Special Operations Batallion are trying to negotiate the surrender of the inmates, according to Brazilian news blog Plus55. The state government has confirmed at least 10 deaths, but the number is expected to rise—Reuters already puts it as high as 30. Some of the victims are said to have been decapitated.

Guy Philippe, a former paramilitary boss and coup leader who was elected to Haiti's Senate in November, was arrested by the DEA on Jan. 5—just days before he would have been sworn into office and obtained immunity. Philippe had been wanted by the US since 2005 on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine and money laundering.

The US Justice Department on Jan. 13 issued a report charging the Chicago Police Department with a pattern of civil rights abuses. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the federal probe, covering the period from 2012 to 2016, found that the Chicago police force "engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force that violates the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution." The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.