Mexico, Paraguay Named Top Pot Growers

(AP) - Mexico has enacted a controversial law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday. More»

Marijuana smugglers get creative, or turn to growing dope inside US

(NEWSER) - The Mexican marijuana trade is flourishing, and border-protection efforts do little to deter powerful cartels from working in the US, the New York Times reports. Smugglers drop ramps over border fences and drive across, or use a new tactic: planting the pot in the US. Cartels now function in 195 US cities, compared to some 50 in 2006, the Justice Department says. More»

Plants worth hundreds of millions thriving amid Sequoias

(NEWSER) - Mexican drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of marijuana in the thick of California’s Sequoia National Forest, CNN reports. Hours on foot from the nearest road, pot gardens flourish with as many as 10,000 plants, irrigation systems created by daming mountain creeks, and their own armed guards. Pot production has intensified in the area as border control has made it harder to smuggle marijuana into the country from Mexico, says a drug enforcement agent. More»

Study is first to probe link between marijuana and collisions: researchers

(NEWSER) - Smoking marijuana three hours or less before getting behind the wheel nearly doubles your chance of a major car crash, a study suggests. It's the first study to look at the link between cannabis and crash risk, the Canadian researchers believe. They examined study data for more than 49,000 collision victims, limiting their research to crashes that didn't involve alcohol, CBC reports. "The level of impairment might not be as severe as alcohol intoxication, but it's there and it does require a public health response," says an expert. More»

Transferred cash, drugs across international borders

(NEWSER) - The New York Times last month revealed that undercover US agents have laundered and smuggled millions of dollars for Mexico's drug cartels—and today the paper shines a light on one such operation, in which federal agents helped one drug trafficker and his Colombian supplier move cash and cocaine across international borders. Over a period of months in 2007, US and Mexican agents worked with that supplier—Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, aka "The Rabbit"—who fed cocaine to cartel leader Arturo Beltran Levya, the New York Times reports. More»