Global Ganja Report

An investigation by the US Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration, launched under pressure of litigation brought by the libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice, maddeningly finds that the Internal Revenue Service has been using asset forfeiture to confiscate millions of dollars from businesses that committed no crimes. The libertarian-oriented website Reason breaks it down in detail, stating that "between 2012 and 2014, IRS investigators seized hundreds of bank accounts from business owners based on nothing but a suspicious pattern of deposits. In more than 90 percent of those cases, the money was completely legal."

The US Supreme Court on April 4 handed down a unanimous decision in Dean v. United States, giving federal judges greater flexibility in mandatory minimum cases—an aim activists have long been demanding. Advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums filed a brief in support of the petitioner in the case.

The medical marjuana advocacy organization Mamá Cultiva, which has been campaigning on the issue across South America, is criticizing the new measure just passed by Argentina's Senate for failing to legalize personal cultivation. The Senate voted unanimously on March 29 to legalize cannabis oil and other derivatives for medical purposes. Talking Drugs blog reports that the bill is set to become law immediately upon receiving President Mauricio Macri's signature, as it was already passed by the lower-house Chamber of Deputies in November. Under the law, patients must register with a planned national program to be overseen by the Ministry of Health.

Edgar Veytia, attorney general of Mexico's western state of Nayarit, was once himself targeted for death by the narco-gangs. But on April 8 he was ordered jailed by a US federal judge in Brooklyn, facing charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine into the United States. Veytia, who has now won the epithet in Nayarit of "Diablo," allegedly netted at least $250 million in protection payments from a smuggling ring since his election in 2013, according to the Daily News.

New York's most famous street musician, David Peel, passed away April 6 at the age of 73. Peel suffered a massive heart attack and went into cardiac arrest on March 31. He was being treated in the ICU unit at the VA Hospital in Manhattan. Friends gathered to pay respects to the singer, who lit up the Lower East Side with his humorous protest tunes since the late '60s.

At least three guards were killed when riot police were sent in to storm the Etapa 2 juvenile detention center outside Guatemala City, where members of the notorious Barrio 18 narco-gang had seized cell-blocks and taken hostages March 20. Riot troops were ordered to take the facility despite desperate pleas from guards being held hostage. Latin American Herald Tribune reports that before the bloody climax, hostages had shouted from windows, urging authorities to negotiate with their captors. "We are begging and the government doesn't want to do anything," one reportedly cried. "They give no attention to our lives."

More than 250 human skulls were unearthed from a mass grave outside Mexico's port city of Veracruz, state prosecutor Jorge Winckler announced March 14. Winckler said the remains are of cartel victims, slain some years earlier. While details on how this latest find came to light were not forthcoming, the survivors' group Colectivo Solecito has been carrying out its own search for "narco-graves" in Veracruz state, hoping to discover the remains of disappeared loved ones. Last year, the collective discovered some 30 clandestine graves, but this would be the biggest such gruesome discovery yet.

Police carried out raids on several Cannabis Culture outlets across Canada March 9, one day after the dispensary chain's founders, Marc and Jodie Emery, were arrested. As of press time, five Cannabis Culture locations have been raided in Toronto, and one in Hamilton, Ont., as well as the flagship location in Vancouver, BC. Canada's self-described "Prince of Pot" and his wife were taken into custody at Toronto's Pearson International Airport as they were about to depart for the cannabis expo Spannabis in Barcelona, the Vancouver Sun reports.