Mexican Army Burns 134 Tons of Pot
The LA Times reports:
Billowing clouds of marijuana smoke drifted over the hills as a pair of Mexican army soldiers pondered the consequences of the biggest dope seizure in Mexican history: About 134 tons of cannabis, or 334 million joints by military estimates, were going up in smoke.
"Think of all the people who won't be able to smoke this dope," Noe Lenin Rubio Torres said at the military's formal burning ceremony Wednesday. "Only the little angels in heaven are going to get stoned tonight," said fellow soldier Lucio Rangel.
Mexico's drug wars produce setbacks at a depressingly constant pace, but Monday's seizure of the enormous marijuana load stuffed inside six cargo containers provided the government a rare occasion to celebrate the sweet, burning scent of victory against organized crime.
President Felipe Calderon congratulate Baja California security forces who discovered the load after a shootout with traffickers, and the government flew the national media out from Mexico City to a sprawling army training base for the carefully choreographed burning event.
The Mexican military's public incineration of seized drugs is a regular occurrence, and this one was accompanied by the usual pomp and circumstance. There was a solemn flag ceremony, salutes and speeches, and a drum and bugle corps played while lines of soldiers, like ants, passed along the marijuana bundles and tossed them into the giant pile.
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