Global Ganja Report

The New Jersey Department of Health announced this week that physicians can now register qualified patients for the state's medical marijuana program—a move that won support for Republican Gov. Chris Christie from the first dispensary to open in the Garden State. "At one point we felt that the progression of the program installation was slow," according to Julio Valentin of Greenleaf Compassion in Montclair. "But we understand that Gov. Christie and the state of New Jersey is doing the best they can to cross their T's and dot their I's to make this program as successful as possible." Valentin, who intends to hang a framed photo of Christie on the walls of the dispensary, hails the governor for giving them "the green light." (ABC News, Aug. 10)

Police in Peru said Aug. 3 they had destroyed more than 50 tons of cannabis following a five-day operation that uncovered a record 207,000 plants in two central regions of the country. Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza said the operation led to the burning of 17 times more cannabis than had been destroyed in all of 2011. National Police Director Gen. Raúl Salazar said a total of 34.5 hectares (85.25 acres) of cannabis plantations had been destroyed in the La Libertad and Huánuco regions. Gen. Salazar said police have identified the financial brains behind the plantations and were moving in on him. (BBC News,* Aug. 3)

Vermont farmer Roger Pion, 34, jumped into his giant eight-wheel Case MX255 diesel tractor, headed to the police station in Newport town, and crushed more than seven squad cars Aug. 2, exacting vengeance for his arrest for cannabis possession last month. Pion then led cops on a low-speed chase through town before being apprehended a mile away. His act of retribution took out more than half of the district's squad car fleet. "We're going to have to get the jaws of life up here to pry the trunks open and see about the rifles and shotguns," Sheriff Kirk Martin told the Associated Press."The radios are ruined."

On Aug. 2, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and seven initial co-sponsors introduced HR 6335, the States' Medical Marijuana Property Rights Protection Act, in an attempt to stop the seizure of property from landlords of state law-compliant medical marijuana businesses. The introduction of HR 6335 comes less than a month after US Attorney Melinda Haag served an asset forfeiture suit against the landlord of Harborside, a dispensary in Rep. Lee's district, in Oakland. The Justice Department action was opposed by Rep. Lee, and also sparked an outcry from local and state officials, including City Council members, the Oakland city attorney, and the Board of Equalization.

Tajikistan sealed its border with Afghanistan this week, after clashes with armed rebels left 48 dead. Security forces are now searching for Tolib Ayombekov, a former rebel who became a commander of the border guard after a 1997 peace deal and is now believed to have taken up arms again. Ayombekov has been a fugitive since he refused to show up for questioning about the July 21 murder of a local security official in southern Badakhshan province, or to turn over men under his command suspected in the slaying. A conflict over control of the cross-border traffic in Afghan opium is said to be behind the conflict. (IWPR, July 31; DPA, July 30; Registan, July 27; AP, July 25)

There is growing support in Lebanon's cannabis-producing eastern region (the Bekaa Valley, for centuries a major hashish production zone) for a proposal from Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt for the government to legalize and purchase the crop from the area's struggling farmers, establishing a program of controlled distribution for medicinal purposes. Advocates of the proposal say the yearly eradication of the cannabis crop by the Central Drug Control Office has led to corruption, and is breeding resentment.

The New York Times reported July 21 that the US has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana, and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya—part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to traffic cocaine to Europe. The decision comes despite controversy over a similar program in Central America. "We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues," said Jeffrey P. Breeden, chief of the DEA's Europe, Asia and Africa section. "It's a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up."

The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international agencies "don't fight drug traffickers," a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico was quoted by Al Jazeera TV, saying that instead "they try to manage the drug trade." Charges from activists and academics about official complicity in the drug traffic are nothing new—but this was the first time a sitting official from a Mexican state government made such accusations. "It's like pest control companies, they only control," spokesman Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva reportedly told Al Jazeera last month at his office in Ciudad Juárez. "If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs."