Global Ganja Report

Seattle's Mayor Mike McGinn on Feb. 7 ordered his police department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested. McGinn said the two small drones obtained through a federal grant will be returned to the vendor. "Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz, and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program, so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department's priority," he said in a brief statement.

A true American freedom fighter has her day in court—and loses. This is a blow against freedom, but at least Andrea Hernandez stood up for her rights—and those of all of us. Win or lose—always worthwhile. From the BBC News, Jan. 9:

Two Air Force fighters on Feb. 16 intercepted a private Cessna that entered the same Los Angeles airspace as Marine One—the official presidential helicopter, with Barack Obama onboard. Police discovered about 40 pounds of cannabis in the plane after instructing it to land at Long Beach Airport, a law enforcement official anonymously told the Associated Press.

Numerous "friends" have posted to my Facebook page a Dec. 19 story from a website with the tellingly stupid name Just Paste It entitled "Sweden legalizes and regulates cannabis." There's even a quote from an apparently non-existent Swedish official, "Jonas Grönhög," who says "We don't want to make the same mistakes which the USA has done, we do not want to be prohibitionists because the war on drugs has been lost long ago." Alas, Sweden has done no such thing. Tip of the hat to the good folks at the Toke of the Town blog for calling out the hoax.

Mexican Governance Secretary Francisco Blake Mora was killed when his helicopter crashed Nov. 11 near Chalco, México state. Four other Governance Secretariat and three Air Force personnel were also killed in the crash. President Felipe Calderón said it was probably an accident caused by bad weather, but public speculation points to to a hit by one of Mexico's warring drug cartels. Skeptics noted that the government's most notorious Drug War hardliner is Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, and a more likely cartel target. However, the crash eerily comes one week after Blake Mora attended a memorial ceremony for Juan Camilo Mouriño, his predecessor who had been killed in a plane crash three years earlier. (NYT, El Economista, Nov. 11)

The clandestine online activist network Anonymous has released an Internet video demanding that Los Zetas, Mexico's bloodiest drug cartel, release one of its members who was kidnapped from a street protest in Veracruz. The Anonymous spokesman—in tie, jacket and Guy Fawkes mask—says if the Zetas don't release their comrade, it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates. Speaking in Spanish with fluent use of Mexican slang, the masked spokesman says: "You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release him." Otherwise it threatens to reveal the Zetas' "cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession. It won't be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located."

The US Justice Department on Oct. 11 announced charges aganst two men allegedly working for "factions of the Iranian government" with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, and to attack Saudi embassies.

This is pretty funny, given that the Taliban stone people to death for getting stoned. But it really appears that Osama bin Laden liked to get bombed as well as to bomb others. Hopefully, this will expose the jihadi fundamentalists as a bunch of hypocrites—like most puritans. From New York magazine's Daily Intel blog: