Mexican Pot Production Diminished By Drought

Killing crops, killing cattle, and also killing cannabis. That’s the effect of northern Mexico’s worst drought in the country’s recorded meteorological history. Take the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, which hugs the coastline of the Gulf of California, and is regarded as a major pot-producing region. An army general stationed in Sinaloa told the AP that the planting of cannabis had “declined considerably” because of the drought, a report confirmed by airborne army reconnaissance.

General Pedro Gurrola told the AP: “We can see a lot less than in other years … It depends a lot on conditions. As you can see, everything is dry … They [cannabis cultivators] try to adapt. Where there is a stream, a pit [of water], they put pumps and hoses in there and try to produce as much as they can.”

Unfortunately, with the drop-off in pot plantations, there has been a resultant rise in the production of deadly drugs in Mexico such as methamphetamine, which is manufactured in chemical labs and thus isn't subject to the whims of the weather. 

This drought has devastated northern Mexico on many levels, including 1.7 million cattle that died of painful starvation and thirst. Farms that once produced ten tons of beans now produce but one – part of the 2.2 million acres of crops that have been wiped out in the drought. 

Mexico is in the midst of its worst dry spell since records began to be kept in 1941, with the northern states that usually receive 21 inches of rain annually receiving an average of only 12. But there is at least some marijuana still being grown south of the border, as it was announced on Monday that U.S. Border Patrol agents had seized over 21,000 pounds of pot during the previous seven days in the Rio Grande Valley Sector where Texas meets Mexico.

More @ globalpost.com