Global Ganja Report

2009 saw both a significant advance and retreat for a humane drug policy in Washington's two closest Drug War allies in Latin America. First in August—in a move that made few stateside headlines, and registered not a peep of protest from the Obama administration—Mexico's conservative President Felipe Calderón signed into law a bill decriminalizing "personal quantities" of all drugs.

As of March 26 sources in the Mexican military had admitted that it was probably soldiers who killed two graduate students the early morning of March 20 in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education's Monterrey campus (ITESM) in the northern state of Nuevo León.

Wachovia Corp. on March 18 agreed to pay $160 million to settle federal charges that it failed to establish an adequate anti-money laundering program. The case stems from investigations into transactions with Mexican exchange houses—or casas de cambio (CDCs)—between 2004 and 2007.

Top leaders from the US and Mexico agreed to emphasize intelligence coordination in the next $331 million phase of the Merida Initiative following discussions in Mexico City on March 23. Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Government Secretary Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont hosted the meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and National Intelligence director Dennis C. Blair.