MORELIA, Mexico - Alma Martinez got a call last year that made her whole body go cold. Her mom's voice sounded shaky and harsh: "They have him," she said, referring to Martinez's uncle. "But who has him?" Martinez asked. "Los narcos," her mother said. The narco traffickers. Martinez, 17, traveled miles Tuesday to see and hear Pope Francis, hoping his message would bring comfort to the thousands of victims of drug-gang violence like her and her family. "Something like that really hits you, you know?" she said, speaking of her uncle's kidnapping and eventual freedom, after the family paid a ransom. "And it's not just us - it happens to a lot of families here in Michoacan." [continues 1036 words]
MEXICO CITY - Armando Santacruz is a clean-cut father of five and successful business owner. Nothing at all about him screams "pothead." Yet, Santacruz, 54, is at the forefront of a growing movement to legalize marijuana in Mexico - a move that could have seismic repercussions both in Mexico and the USA. He talks about legalizing pot with the same impassioned fervor many here use to describe soccer clubs or favorite restaurants. Santacruz was one of four plaintiffs who won a pivotal Supreme Court case here in November, which allowed him and his co-plaintiffs their private consumption of cannabis and galvanized a national debate. [continues 639 words]
The Loosening of Marijuana Laws in Much of the U.S. Increases Competition. BADIRAGUATO, Mexico - He started growing marijuana as a teenager and for four decades earned a modest living from his tiny plot tucked at the base of these rugged mountains of western Mexico. He proudly shows off his illegal plants, waist-high and fragrant, strategically hidden from view by rows of corn and nearly ready to be harvested. "I've always liked this business, producing marijuana," the 50-year-old farmer said wistfully. He had decided that this season's crop would be his last. [continues 1338 words]
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government on Friday granted the first permits allowing the cultivation and possession of marijuana for personal use. The federal medical protection agency said the permits apply only to the four plaintiffs who won a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court last month. The court said growing and consuming marijuana is covered under the right of "free development of personality." The permits don't allow the sale or distribution of the drug. [end]
MEXICO CITY - President Enrique Pena Nieto came out against legalizing marijuana Wednesday, the same day his government announced a national public debate on the issue. He suggested the recent, informal debate on the issue has created confusion. Mexico's Supreme Court ruled in November that growing, possessing and smoking marijuana for recreation is legal under the right to freedom, but that ruling applied only to the four people involved in the case. [end]
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto came out strongly against legalizing marijuana, the same day his government announced a national public debate on the issue. He suggested the recent, informal debate has already created confusion. Mexico's Supreme Court ruled in November that growing, possessing and smoking marijuana for recreation is legal under the right to freedom, but that ruling applied only to the four people involved in the case. "I am not in favor of consuming or legalizing marijuana," Pena Nieto said in a speech announcing a child welfare program. "However, I am in favor of debate so that specialists can give us some indication of where we should be going." [continues 54 words]
Mexico's drug violence casts a long shadow over the city of Ocotlan, and the Southern Californians who love it. The children paid no heed to the priest from Jalisco as he celebrated a fiesta Mass in the backyard of a La Puente ranch, or to their parents urging them to sit still for the misa, or even to the rooster crowing nearby. They were too busy studying the animals they didn't see in Los Angeles every day: a small herd of goats, a single black pig - and a troupe of dancing horses. [continues 1106 words]
TIJUANA - A Mexican Supreme Court ruling permitting marijuana use for recreational purposes has sparked a sensitive debate in Mexico about the country's drug laws, involving health advocates, scholars, law enforcement officials, and business and political leaders. Wednesday's 4-1 decision applies only to four members of an advocacy group seeking to decriminalize marijuana, granting them the right to consume and produce for their own personal use. Still, the issue has touched a nerve for many in Mexico, opening a wide-ranging discussion about the country's drug policies. [continues 940 words]
The Mexican Supreme Court opened the door to legalizing marijuana on Wednesday, delivering a pointed challenge to the nation's strict substance abuse laws and adding its weight to the growing debate in Latin America over the costs and consequences of the war against drugs. The vote by the court's criminal chamber declared that individuals should have the right to grow and distribute marijuana for their personal use. While the ruling does not strike down current drug laws, it lays the groundwork for a wave of legal actions that could ultimately rewrite them, proponents of legalization say. [continues 1185 words]
Poppy Production Booms As American Appetite for Opioids Grows With her nimble hands, tiny feet and low center of gravity, Angelica Guerrero Ortega makes an excellent opium harvester. Deployed along the Sierra Madre del Sur, where a record poppy crop covers the mountainsides in strokes of green, pink and purple, she navigates the inclines with the deftness of a ballerina. Though shy, she perks up when describing her craft: the delicate slits to the bulb, the patient scraping of the gum, earning in one day more than her parents do in a week. [continues 1616 words]
EL CALVARIO, Mexico - With her nimble hands, tiny feet and low center of gravity, Angelica Guerrero Ortega makes an excellent opium harvester. Deployed along the Sierra Madre del Sur, where a record poppy crop covers the mountainsides in strokes of green, pink and purple, she navigates the inclines with the deftness of a ballerina. Though shy, she perks up when describing her craft: the delicate slits to the bulb, the patient scraping of the gum, earning in one day more than her parents do in a week. [continues 1630 words]
CALVARIO, MEXICO - With her nimble hands, tiny feet and low center of gravity, Angelica Guerrero Ortega makes an excellent opium harvester. Deployed along the Sierra Madre del Sur, where a record poppy crop covers the mountainsides in strokes of green, pink and purple, she navigates the inclines with the deftness of a ballerina. Though shy, she perks up when describing her craft: the delicate slits to the bulb, the patient scraping of the gum, earning in one day more than her parents do in a week. [continues 582 words]
An 8-Year-Old's Debilitating Illness Tests Mexico's Ban on Marijuana Use Monterrey, Mexico - They can tell the next one's coming when she begins rubbing her hands together, as if washing them. Her head slumps, and she looks left. She starts to flick her fingers and knead her skinny thigh. About once an hour, Grace Elizalde's brain electrifies in epileptic seizures intense enough that her brown eyes dance wildly back and forth and she spreads her arms out like a cartoon ghost. These are the big brain quakes, but there are hundreds of flash tremors each day that leave the 8-year-old Mexican girl exhausted and limp. [continues 1629 words]
A US Ultimatum Demanding That Mexico Ban Previously Legal Narcotics 'Forced Addicts and Producers to Take Up Arms' Mexico's drug trade is synonymous with violence, corruption and cartel bosses battling for territory. But it could have been so different, it's claimed in a new book, had the US not issued an ultimatum 75years ago which ignited the war on drugs - leading to death and destruction on both sides of the border. Documents in the book reveal that Mexico legalised drugs in 1940, after doctors convinced the then president, Lazaro Cardenas, that prohibition was damaging public health. Doctors believed that the best way to tackle drug-related ills was to treat addicts rather than lock-up smugglers and producers. [continues 620 words]
CHILAPA, Mexico - For nearly a week, gun-toting masked men loyal to a local drug gang overran this small city along a key smuggling route. Police officers and soldiers stood by as the gunmen patrolled the streets, searching for rivals and hauling off at least 14 men who have not been seen since. "They're fighting over the route through Chilapa," said Virgilio Nava, whose 21-year-old son, a truck driver for the family construction supply business, was one of the men seized in May, though he had no apparent links to either gang. "But we're the ones who are affected." [continues 1477 words]
Mexicans See Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman As a Robin Hood, and He Has Certainly Given the Economy a Boost. CULIACAN, Mexico - A new shipment of caps arrived at Isaias Rodriguez's Culiacan store, black canvas with the image of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman - once again the world's mostwanted drug lord - embossed in gold on the front. The hats came in just a week or so after El Chapo escaped from a high-security prison in July, via a ventilated, well-lighted tunnel just under a mile long. [continues 1000 words]
CULIACAN, Mexico - When Jose Antonio Sevilla and his three brothers learned that the notorious drug trafficker known as El Chapo had escaped from prison, they jumped out of their chairs and shouted with glee. "El Chapo got out! He's the greatest of them all," said Mr. Sevilla, 19, a self-professed fan of the drug kingpin, whose full name is Joaquin Guzman Loera. "He was famous before, but now he's even more famous." Mr. Sevilla, an auto mechanic, was so excited that he attended a march through the streets of Culiacan, the capital of Mr. Guzman's home state, this week to celebrate. He carried a sign that a woman gave him, which read, "El Chapo is more of a president than Pena Nieto," a reference to Mexico's president, Enrique Pena Nieto. [continues 1359 words]
Shortly before 9 p.m. on Saturday, Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin whose capture last year had been trumpeted by his country's government as a crucial victory in its bloody campaign against the narcotics trade, stepped into the shower in his cell in the most secure wing of the most secure prison in Mexico. He never came out. When guards later entered the cell, they discovered a 2-by-2-foot hole, through which Mr. Guzman, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, had disappeared. [continues 1295 words]
Drug Lord Breaks Out of Prison Again, This Time Through a Nearly Mile- Long Tunnel That Began in a Shower. MEXICO CITY - The tunnel stretched a mile long, from the jailhouse shower to an empty building in a cornfield, and was deep enough for drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to stand upright as he made his escape. A minor engineering masterpiece, some might say, equipped with ventilation, lighting, oxygen tanks, scaffolding and a motorcycle contraption for removing the tons of dirt being excavated. [continues 1114 words]
Opium Poppies Offer Small Growers in Mexico a Living - and Cartels Cash CHILPANCINGO, Mexico - Mario moves quickly and easily down the steep forested hill. After a 30minute descent the tree cover clears, and the sun shines down onto the hidden red and purple flowers dotting the hillsides in the Filo Mayor mountains. Producers in Mexico's Guerrero state call their clandestine poppy plots "gardens." What they raise there is highly marketable - and illicit. Many of the flowers have no petals; they are simply plump, graying bulbs full of opium, ready for slicing. [continues 990 words]
Inside Mexico
