Cannabis took a greater share of total drug crops eradicated in Peru in 2013, and authorities hope to expand eradication this year—bringing the program beyond the remote coca zones.
Michoacán's blood-drenched Knights Templar cartel have amassed a land empire in the Mexican state, using the avocado industry to launder narco profits.
At the Havana peace talks with the Colombian government, the FARC rebels released a proposal to decriminalize and "regulate the production of coca, poppies and marijuana."
The US-funded glyphosate spraying in Colombia has been indefinitely suspended after presumed FARC guerillas shot down two fumigation planes—killing a US pilot.
In addition to the naval face-off over a global oil outlet, the Persian Gulf has seen escalating militarization by international forces in the guise of narcotics enforcement.
A new riot between rival gangs at a dangerously overcrowded priso in Tamaulipas left seven inmates dead—as an ex-state police commander was sentenced to prison in the US.
Tamaulipas state police resuced 73 abducted migrants outside Reynosa after following their apparent captors to a house and hearing frantic calls for help.
Mexico’s most notorious kingpin, Rafael Caro Quintero, was released from Puente Grande federal prison in Jalisco where he had been incarcerated for the past 28 years.
Murders in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas jumped more than 90% and kidnapping reports more than doubled over last year to the highest rate in the country.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s pledge to reduce gangland violence is looking dubious as nearly 30 are killed in Michoacán fighting between narco-gunmen and federales.
More than 160 civil society organizations sent an open letter to the OAS summit, calling for alternatives to the “war on drugs” that guarantee respect for human rights.
The OAS summit in Guatemala opens in the wake of a ground-breaking report dissenting from the US-led “drug war” and broaching decrim and legalization strategies.
