Global Ganja Report

US authorities report a record flood of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border, a wave that has been escalating since 2011. About 52,000 have arrived since October, about 112% more than the entire prior year, Alejandro Mayorkas, deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said June 20 in a conference call with reporters. Up to 90,000 are expected to come in 2014, according to the White House—more than twice as many as last year, and three times as many as in 2012. President Barack Obama this month directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address the "urgent humanitarian situation," and asked Congress for funding. Courts and social-service agencies have been overwhelmed, and guidelines on processing and detention thrown into disarray, Bloomberg reports. "It's been a humanitarian crisis since long before Obama called it that," said Kimi Jackson, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, which aids children in immigration court.  

Mexico's El Universal reports June 18 that a protected witness testified to the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) that members of the US Border Patrol collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel in arms trafficking to the powerful criminal organization. The sworn testimony is being used as evidence in the case against the cartel's recently apprehended kingpin, Joaquin Guzmán Loera AKA "El Chapo"—who is accused, along with numerous other charges, of supervising the Gente Nueva gang, the cartel's armed wing. 

Four kayakers attempting to smuggle nearly 300 pounds of cannabis into the US were arrested at sea on the morning of Nov. 22, federal authorities announced. US Customs and Border Patrol agents saw four men in separate kayaks "navigating the ocean" at about 4 AM, agency spokesman Ralph DeSio told the press. The men, all Mexican nationals, had entered US waters off Imperial Beach when authorities dispatched a helicopter and boat to intercept them, DeSio said. The men jumped out and tried to swim for it, but the helicopter used a spotlight to track them so the boat could find them in the dark waters. All the men were taken into custody and turned over to the San Diego Maritime Task Force. Agents found 99 bundles of cannabis in the kayaks, estimated to be worth $178,200.  

A new riot between rival gangs in the dangerously overcrowded prison at  Altamira, in the Mexican border state Tamaulipas, left seven inmates dead Oct. 26.  State authorities said the prisoners were killed with makeshift knives in a fight in one cellblock at the facility, officially known as the Execution and Sanction Center (CEDES). Thirty-one inmates died in a riot in the same prison early last year, pointing to a crisis rooted in the confluence of teeming lock-ups and the bloody narco wars being waged in Tamaulipas both inside and outside the prisons. The state is currently Mexico's most violent. The CEDES was designed to hold 2,000 inmates, but now has a population of more than 3,000. (AP, Notimex, Oct. 26)

Yanira Maldonado's Mexican nightmare began May 22 when she was arrested for possession of 12.5 pounds of cannabis, and ended nine days later when the mother of seven was released from a Nogales jail. Returning to Arizona from Mexico with her husband Gary after attending a family funeral, the Turfesa bus they were on was stopped at a military checkpoint in Sonora. Federales supposedly spotted packages of marijuana under their seats. First Gary was arrested, then the troops changed their minds and booked Yanira instead. The Maldonados, who are Mormons from the Phoenix area, maintained their innocence throughout. A Facebook page created to support them won more than 12,500 members. (CelebStoner, CNN, May 31; CNN, May 28)

The number of cannabis plants eradicated by law enforcement has dropped over the past years from a record high of over 10 million plants in 2009 and 2010 to under 4 million in 2012, according to newly released statistics. DEA figures put the 2012 total at 3,933,950. DEA officials attribute the decline in part to the budget cutbacks in California, which resulted in "the decreased availability of local law enforcement personnel to assist in eradication efforts."

Police in the border city of Mexicali on Feb. 27 announced the discovery of a powerful improvised cannon used to hurl packets of marijuana across the border fence into California. Police told Mexico's Televisa network the device consisted of a plastic pipe and a metal tank that used compressed air from the engine of an old car. The apparatus fired cannabis-packed cylinders weighing up to 13 kilos, police said. It was confiscated after US officers informed Mexican police that they had found a large number of drug packages that appeared to have been fired over the border. (AP, Feb. 27)

Parents in the small West Texas town of Van Horn are concerned that narco-traffickers are using school buses after nearly 500 pounds of compacted cannabis was found on a bus carrying junior varsity basketball players back home from an out-of-town game. The bus driver found the drugs when the  bus emblazoned with the Van Horn Eagles name on the side stopped at a convenience store in Marfa so the players could get snacks. He found the marijuana stuffed in four large, black duffel bags stashed in the bottom storage area. The bus had already passed through a road checkpoint. (KHOU, Houston, Nov. 21)