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Triads in Éire?
The Garda Síochána, Ireland's national police force, say they broke up a network of drug gangs that were collaborating with Hong Kong-based Triad syndicates in a series of indoor cannabis grow...
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Hong Kong: triads crushed at last?
Authorities in Hong Kong are boasting that the city's long-reigning criminal gangs, the notorious Triads, are finally crushed following an operation coordinated with police forces in Macau and mainland...
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Golden Triangle opium boom
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its newly released annual Southeast Asia Opium Survey (PDF) finds that opium production in Burma continued to increase in 2013—up 26% to an estimated 870...
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Middle East leads global execution spike
Amnesty International's latest global report on the death penalty, "Death Sentences and Executions: 2013," finds that a number of nations in the Middle East have fueled a spike in global figures with a...
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China's cannabis contradiction
On June 26, International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, China's Supreme People's Court announced with pride that a whopping 39,762 have been sentenced for drug-related offenses in the...
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Burma burns opium, but UN sees hype
To mark International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking June 26, Burmese authorities held drug-burning ceremonies, boasting the destruction of seized opium, heroin and methamphetamine said...
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Will Burma opium war draw in China?
In another grim signal of a widening war in northern Burma's opium zones, last week saw an outbreak of intense fighting between government forces and ethnic rebels, prompting some 50,000 Kokang...
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Burma opium war spills into China
After weeks of escalating tensions along the remote mountain border, a Burmese MiG-29 fighter jet carried out an air-strike on Chinese territory March 13, killing four people working in a sugar-cane...
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Laos to lighten up on medicinal opium?
Laos was once a major opium producer—and now production is creeping up there again after eradication efforts had dramatically slashed it. But this time around authorities may take a more tolerant and...
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China: officialdom hypes drug scare
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reports May 12 that Chinese authorities are warning of a rapid rise in abuse of synthetic drugs. The number of "registered abusers" of synthetic drugs—a whopping...
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China moves to restrict death penalty —but not for drugs
United Nations human rights experts on Sept. 11 welcomed a recommendation to abolish the death penalty by India, as well as a decision to reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty in the...
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Giving new meaning to the word 'bust'
Australian police on Feb. 15 announced the seizure of 720 liters of liquid methamphetamine with an estimated street value of A$1 billion (about US$700 million)—hidden in gel bra inserts. The laundered...
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Global executions surge —yet again
For a third year running, Amnesty International's annual report on the death penalty notes an alarming surge in the number of executions worldwide—now reaching the highest total since 1989. At least...
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Archaeologists unearth ancient cannabis 'burial shroud'
Archaeologists working in China's far western Xinjiang region report the discovery of an "extraordinary cache" of cannabis, found in an ancient burial site. National Geographic says the unprecedented...
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Philippines to turn to China for drug war aid?
The Philippines' ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte arrived in China Oct. 18 for a high-profile visit that western media accounts are portraying as a tilt away from the United States. Washington...
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Obama drug war commutations surpass 1,000
Continuing with his campaign of clemency for federal drug offenders who were imprisoned under outdated sentencing laws, President Barack Obama on Nov. 22 commuted the sentences of 79 more inmates,...
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Cannabis legal in North Korea? Don't believe the hype
Here we go again. The Weed Blog was last week the latest to repeat the urban legend that cannabis is legal in North Korea. Earlier this year, the same click-bait nonsense was heard on a YouTube video...
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China launches first CBD research firm
China is to get its first company dedicated to research, development and marketing of medicinal products based on cannabidiol, or CBD. The firm, dubbed XiBiDi Biotechnology Co, is to operate out of...
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Global execution stats: good news, bad news
The latest annual Amnesty International report on global use of the death penalty actually has some heartening news. For the first time since 2006, the United States did not make the top five...
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Hong Kong cannabis interceptions soaring
Cannabis seizures are rapidly escalating in Hong Kong—whether due to greater quantities on the market or stepped-up enforcement, or both. The city's South China Morning Post reports June 19 on a haul...
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