Global Ganja Report

A new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy finds that the "global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," and calls upon governments to explore the legalization of cannabis and other controlled substances. "Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately, that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem and that the war on drugs has not and cannot be won," the report states.

A combined unit of the Guatemalan army and national police arrested a presumed leader of the Zetas narco-paramilitary network May 18, who authorities believe to be commander of the assassination squad that carried out this week's grisly massacre of 27 farmworkers at a ranch in the northern jungle department of Petén. The detained man is named as Hugo Álvaro Gómez Vásquez, who also goes by "Comandante Bruja" or simply "La Bruja" (The Witch).

Tens of thousands of people participated in a silent "March for Peace With Justice and Dignity" in Mexico City on May 8 to call for an end to the US-backed militarization of Mexico's fight against drug trafficking. Protesters, most of them dressed in white, carried signs reading: "No more blood," "Justice," "Peace," "Let's stop the bullets," "Life isn't trash" and, above all, "We've had it up to here" (estamos hasta la madre). More than 35,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa sent troops into the streets soon after taking office in December 2006.

Mexican federal police on Feb. 28 announced the capture of Victor Torres Garcáa AKA Édgar Mauricia Barrera Corrales AKA "El Papirrin"—alleged leader of a drug network that calls itself "The Resistance." "El Papirrin" was detained in Uruapan, Michoacán, along with two associates, several guns and bags of drugs. La Resistencia is so-named because it was formed as an alliance of various cartels to resist the drive by Los Zetas to dominate Mexico's narco networks. "El Papirrin" was said to be a veteran of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Speaking at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics on Feb. 7, US Army Undersecretary Joseph Westphal—the army's second highest ranking civilian official—invoked an "insurgency" mounting in Mexico. His talk focused on the Middle East and South Asia, but in response to a student's question about strategic blind spots in US foreign policy, Westphal said: "One of them in particular for me is Latin America and in particular Mexico. As all of you know, there is a form of insurgency in Mexico with the drug cartels that’s right on our border."

The security chief at Topo Chico prison in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey was assassinated Feb. 5, his mutilated body found in a plastic box in an abandoned car near the facility. Francisco Martínez Ramírez, who had worked there for three decades and was nearing retirement, had been abducted from his home the previous day. He is the third employee to be murdered in recent months at the prison, which has also been the target of a series of grenade attacks. (Diario de Coahuila, Feb. 6; BBC News, Feb. 5)

Campesino leaders report a wave of abuses against local indigenous peasants in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz since a "state of siege" was declared there in response to the alleged presence of Los Zetas narco-network. Officially, authorities have arrested 22 "traffickers," and confiscated five small planes, 28 vehicles and 239 assault weapons. But the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinator (CONIC) says army troops have invaded and occupied peasant villages where there has been no sign of drug trafficking.

US authorities discovered a 1,800-foot tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana that led to the seizure of more than 25 tons of cannabis Nov. 2—one of the largest-ever drug seizures in San Diego. Mexican soldiers raided the warehouse at the other end of the tunnel the following day, and found about four tons of cannabis. "I can promise you there are some very unhappy people in the cartel," said John Morton, director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which leads the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force. About 75 tunnels under the US-Mexico border have been unearthed in the last four years, most in various states of construction. (LAT, Nov. 4)