Global Ganja Report

Mexico's imprisoned top drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán came another step closer to extradition Oct. 20 when a Mexican federal judge in Ciudad Juárez found that the process has been legally sound and turned down five requests for an amparo (or injunction) to halt it. Extradition to face criminal charges in the United States had been approved in May, but suspended later that month by a higher court in Mexico City. The suspension was inteneded to allow the lower court to hear arguments by Guzmán's lawyers that extradition would be unconstitutional. These arguments have now been rejected. Chapo's lawyers were given 10 days to file an appeal.

The former police chief of Iguala, the Mexican city where 43 college students disappeared in 2014, was finally apprehended after two years as a fugitive, officials announced Oct. 21. Felipe Flores was arrested while visiting his wife in Iguala, National Security Commissioner Renato Sales told a press conference. Mexico's Prosecutor General Arely Gómez hailed Flores' capture, stating on Twitter that it would allow investigators to get "a fundamental statement to clear up the events."

Cochabamba region, long the heartland of Bolivian coca-leaf production, now appears to be emerging as a cannabis cultivation zone. October saw raids by the government's Special Force for the Struggle Against Narco-Trafficking (FELCN) in which eight metric tons of marijuana were seized across the region. Several campesinos were arrested, and crops burned in the fileds at various locations. La Razón newspaper names the municipalities of Omereque and Mizque as the site of major raids. Both lie on th edge of the rainforest—just where the Cochabamba plateau drops down into the Amazon. This transition zone is the country's key coca production area—but now more and more cocaleros are apparentrly turning to cannabis.

Businessman Zhenli Ye Gon, accused of producing and trafficking methamphetamine, was extradited to Mexico Oct. 18. Placed by US Marshals on a flight from Virginia to Mexico City, he was upon his arrival immediately taken to the country's top-security lock-up, the notorious Altiplano Prison. The turn-over comes after he lost a nine-year legal battle against extradition from the US, BBC reports. Zhenli Ye Gon fled to the United States in 2007 after Mexican police seized $205 million in cash from his Mexico City villa. As South China Morning Post notes, this was hailed as the biggest cash haul in the history of global drug enforcement. Authorities say he was importing vast quantities of precursor chemicals for meth production. Ye Gon, who has dual Chinese and Mexican citizenship, denies the charges, maintaining that his company, Unimed Pharm Chem Mexico, was producing legal prescription drugs.

The Philippines' ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte arrived in China Oct. 18 for a high-profile visit that western media accounts are portraying as a tilt away from the United States. Washington has historically been the Philippines' imperial patron, providing investment and military aid—but relations are now strained over Duterte's murderous anti-drug crackdown, which is believed to have claimed 3,000 lives. Arriving in Beijing, Duterte blasted Washington and the European Union for their criticisms of his lawless crackdown, and praised his hosts for giving him free rein. "China is the only country to come out freely and [make] a firm statement that they are supporting the fight against drugs in my country," Duterte told Chinese state news agency Xinhua in a comment picked up by the Philippine Star. "The other countries, United States, EU, instead of helping us, they know that we are short of money... all they had to do was to criticize. China never criticized."

Archaeologists working in China's far western Xinjiang region report the discovery of an "extraordinary cache" of cannabis, found in an ancient burial site. National Geographic says the unprecedented find "adds considerably to our understanding of how ancient Eurasian cultures used the plant for ritual and medicinal purposes."  Writing in the journal Economic Botany, archaeologist Hongen Jiang and his colleagues describe the burial of a 35-year-old adult man with Caucasian features in Xinjiang's Turpan Basin. The body was laid out on a wooden bed with 13 cannabis plants—each nearly three feet long—placed across the chest.

As Californians prepare to vote on a cannabis legalization initiative, bullish predictions mount of an imminent windfall. The state capital region alone could reap 20,000 jobs and generate $4.2 billion in business if it becomes a hub for a legal cannabis industry, according to a new study by the University of the Pacific in Stockton. Reuters reports Oct. 17 that the study was commissioned by cannabis investment firm Truth Enterprises. "The Sacramento region should be to cannabis what Detroit is to automobiles in terms of both a center of innovation as well as production," said Truth Enterprises partner Daniel Conway. "This region has the ability to be to cannabis what Sonoma and Napa are to wine." Conway is certainly confident. He just left his job as chief of staff to Sacramento mayor (and former NBA star) Kevin Johnson to pursue his future in the cannabis sector.

Many rural California communities have high expectations over the prospect of commercial cannabis cultivation, officially licensed by local authorities under provisions of the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MMRCA), which was passed by Sacramento last year. Humbold County issued its first commercial cultivation licenses this summer. Now a less likely entry, Kern County in the conservative southern end of the Central Valley, has seen its first licenses. These were issued by the municipality of California City, where officials expressed some surprise at their own actions. "It's a new industry for us. It kind of came and dropped in our laps," city manager Tom Weil told Bakersfield's KBAK. "It's not something we were looking for."