BajaNomad

Another Huge Pot Bust, 22 Tons Seized at Checkpoint

Gypsy Jan - 6-22-2012 at 08:21 PM

K. Mennem, June 21, 2012

"A monstrous marijuana load was seized Wednesday morning, June 21st, near San Luis Colorado. The drugs were found on a tractor trailer, headed for Tijuana.

22 tons of marijuana, 5 kilos of marijuana seeds, and 7 kilos of methamphetamine were found in a truck coming from Culiacan, Sinaloa. The marijuana was packaged into 2,256 separate packages. The truck was stopped at a military checkpoint, on its way to Tijuana. The driver of the truck was arrested.

This seizure follows the U.S. Navy finding 10 tons of pot floating in the Pacific, as well as the Mexican Navy finding another 2 tons of pot floating further south. 1.5 tons of pot were also seized from a home in Tijuana on Sunday.

A similar but much smaller bust of two tons of marijuana were seized from a trailer at a nearby checkpoint on June 6th. Those drugs were headed from Guadalajara to Tijuana.

San Luis Colorado is right across the state line from Baja California in Sonora state. San Luis is slightly less than a three hour drive east of Tijuana.

The Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA/ Ministry of National Defense) gave statements Thursday morning regarding the seizure."

BajaBruno - 6-22-2012 at 08:49 PM

Only by a twisted thread is my comment here related, but Uruguay has recently announced that the government is going to begin selling marijuana, which is legal to possess there, to registered marijuana users, in a misguided attempt to reduce the use of crack cocaine.

Uruguay's action, though a bit muddled, is bound to increase the discussion in Latin America about marijuana decriminalization. It will be interesting to see how the new Mexican president views the U.S. sponsored "war on drugs."

bajajazz - 6-23-2012 at 09:15 AM

Until the influence of fundamentalist religion is excised from American politics, we'll be stuck with paying for bloated prohibition policies that don't work.

It was the same with Prohibition in the 1920s and '30s, an effort inspired by and pushed by the Women's Christian Temperance Movement, and consented to by gutless politicians afraid of their own shadows.

Ateo - 6-23-2012 at 09:20 AM

Couldn't agree more.
Quote:
Originally posted by bajajazz
Until the influence of fundamentalist religion is excised from American politics, we'll be stuck with paying for bloated prohibition policies that don't work.

It was the same with Prohibition in the 1920s and '30s, an effort inspired by and pushed by the Women's Christian Temperance Movement, and consented to by gutless politicians afraid of their own shadows.

SFandH - 6-23-2012 at 09:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BajaBruno
It will be interesting to see how the new Mexican president views the U.S. sponsored "war on drugs."


That is one thing that disappointed me about the PEW survey we discussed. It said, I forget the number, but too many for me, of the people approved of the use of the military for fighting the cartels. But then again, the question could have been measuring the use of the military in lieu of the police, it wasn't clear.

Regardless, the relative peace in my neck of the Baja woods, northwest Baja, from what I've read lately is based upon a shaky agreement between the AFO and the Sinaloa cartel where the Sinaloa guys pay an import tax if you will to the AFO for use of the Tijuana plaza. It's weird, but I sort of hope that the officials are in on the deal tool, perhaps that would add stability. It was waaaaay too violent and costly before.


[Edited on 6-23-2012 by SFandH]

BajaBruno - 6-23-2012 at 10:27 AM

I was a little unclear on that, too, SFandH. But, if you go back to that Pew link page, it has a link to the raw data (Topline Questionnaire), i.e. the questions asked and the answers received. It also has a link to the complete report. It shows that
61% of Mexicans think that both the United States and Mexico are to blame for the drug violence, rather than one or the other, and that
68% think that illegal drugs are a "very big problem."

But they think every problem asked about was a very big problem:
crime (73%),
corrupt political leaders (69%),
terrorism (62%),
poor quality schools (49%),
people leaving our country for jobs in other countries (50%),
pollution (58%),
economic problems (68%),
drug cartel-related violence (75%), and
human rights violations by the military and the police (74%),

all of which makes one wonder if Mexico is experiencing a large-scale "ataques de nervios."

sancho - 6-23-2012 at 01:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bajajazz
Until the influence of fundamentalist religion is excised from American politics, we'll be stuck with paying for bloated prohibition policies that don't work.





Good line, but that influence doesn't appear to
be weakening

BajaBruno - 6-23-2012 at 07:05 PM

Ridge, in Mexico the military is performing police actions. In the U.S., the military (except the National Guard) is prohibited by law from performing police actions except in very narrow conditions of large-scale disaster. In the St. Louis example, the Army was apparently training, though the article is so devoid of details it is hard to know what was going on.