Global Ganja Report

After years of relative peace, Burma's military junta is said to be preparing an offensive against the ethnic guerilla armies of the Golden Triangle. In the village of Doi Tailaeng, on Burma's border with Thailand, militants of the 10,000-strong Shan State Army (SSA) are carrying out maneuvers in preparation for the expected onslaught. "We are preparing for new battles," said SSA commander Sao Yawd Serk.

A joint force of Afghan government troops and NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stopped a vehicle and found 1,600 pounds of hashish in Helmand province's Registan district March 21. Two people in the vehicle were detained. They admitted their intent was to deliver the drugs to Taliban members in Barham Chah, the US military said. (DoD press release, March 22)

The US State Department's latest International Narcotics Control Strategy Report warns that hashish production is again on the rise in the traditional producer. "The Lebanese government reported ongoing cannabis cultivation in 2009, and increased drug use particularly among the young, due to greater availability and reduced price of most drugs sold in Lebanon," the report states.

The UN International Narcotics Control Board, in its annual report released Feb. 24 called on Peru's government to take measures to reduce the country's growing illicit coca cultivation. The 2009 report finds that the area under coca cultivation decreased in South America by 8% to 167,800 hectares in 2008, largely due to a major decline in Colombia, the world's top producer. But for a third consecutive year, cultivation increased in Peru, the second largest producer.

Colombian guerilla leader Jorge Enrique Rodríguez Mendieta AKA "Ivan Vargas" was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a District Court in New York March 19 for conspiring to import cocaine into the US. Mendieta, who was extradited in 2007, pleaded guilty in December to the charges, admitting that he was commander of the FARC's 24th Front from 1998 to 2004.

Vivian Blake, a former top leader of Jamaica's "Shower Posse," which US prosecutors say was responsible for more than 1,400 drug-related killings within the United States in the 1980s, died March 20 in Kingston. Blake, 54, was rushed to an emergency room with breathing problems before he died. His daughter, Dominique Blake, said he had been suffering from kidney failure and diabetes.

Guatemalan police forces, together with army troops and DEA agents, destroyed 319 million opium plants and 250,000 cannabis plants, together valued at an estimated $780 million, in a four-day operation last month in Ixiguan and Tajumulco municipalities of San Marcos department, near the Mexican border. The National Civil Police said San Marcos is a "sanctuary" of opium cultivation. (EFE, Feb. 5)

Top leaders from the US and Mexico agreed to emphasize intelligence coordination in the next $331 million phase of the Merida Initiative following discussions in Mexico City on March 23. Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Government Secretary Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont hosted the meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and National Intelligence director Dennis C. Blair.