Global Ganja Report

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office released its 12th annual human rights report March 17, just as Foreign Secretary David Miliband returned from an official visit to China. The report singles out China for harsh criticism. Miliband said at the report's launch, "In China, 2009 ended with the execution of a mentally ill British citizen Akmal Shaikh, and the imprisonment of prominent human rights activists, whose cases I raised in China yesterday and the day before."

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.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) hailed the Hindu spring festival Holi in a statement before the House of Representatives March 25. "It is a visually stunning event with thousands of people tossing colored powders in the air and using dyed water in an atmosphere where culture, camaraderie and oneness are celebrated," Israel said. "In the evening, community bonfires are lit to signify triumph over divisiveness and negativity."

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.

Brazil's Santo Daime church, which uses ayahuasca as a sacrament, is under fire following the March 12 slaying of Glauco Villa Boas, a prominent cartoonist for the influential Folha de São Paulo newspaper. Villa Boas was killed along with his son, Raoni, outside his outside São Paulo home. Glauco, as he's known in Brazil, was a leader at a Santo Daime church, and his alleged killer had frequented the church, police say. Media speculation links the suspect's motives and state of mind to the church and its psychoactive sacrament.

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.