Paraguay is South America’s largest producer of cannabis. Despite drug law reform in other parts of the Western Hemisphere, from Canada to Chile, the conservative administration of President Horacio Cartes continues to wage an old-school “war on weed,” sending out elite counter-narcotics special forces to destroy vast quantities of the soft drug. The policy of prohibition and repression has been blamed for fueling corruption and human rights abuses while failing to stem the flow of cannabis to Brazil and other markets around the region.

One company has made it their mission over the past year to expand access to cannabinoid-based products to people across Latin America. Since summer of 2014, Medical Marijuana, Inc. has been the first company to have cannabis products approved for import and use in three separate countries, Brazil, Mexico, and Paraguay, and has shown that is eager to develop additional untapped markets for future development.

Paraguay and Brazil authorities say they destroyed nearly 67 metric tons of marijuana in a joint operation, but the figure pales in comparison to Paraguay's estimated pot production.

Authorities of the neighboring countries found and destroyed 57.8 metric tons of loose marijuana and a further 9.1 metric tons of pressed marijuana over 12 days of aerial and ground operations, Paraguay's Anti-Narcotics Secretariat (Secretaría Nacional Antidrogas - SENAD) reported.

On Monday, Paraguay’s top anti-drug official stepped down, two days after a botched anti-cannabis operation left a three-year-old girl dead at the hands of his troops.

Luis Rojas resigned as head of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD), under apparent pressure from President Horacio Cartes. The deadly operation took place in the Nueva Italia municipality, where SENAD troops searching for cannabis plantations apparently fired on a van—which proved to be carrying members of the Zanotti Cavazzoni family, owners of a local sugar plantation and mill. The girl’s uncle was also wounded in the attack. The girl was the grand-daughter of Ulrico Zanotti Cavazzoni, local sugar oligarch and land-owner.

Real Scientific Hemp Oil(TM) (RSHO(TM)) Cannabidiol (CBD) Hemp Oil Demand Grows as Countries Including Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Paraguay Authorize Its Import From the U.S. 

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - May 31, 2016) - Medical Marijuana, Inc. (otc pink:MJNA) is pleased to announce that its flagship product Real Scientific Hemp Oil™ (RSHO™) has been authorized by Paraguay's government for import into the country as a prescription medication for refractory epilepsy. 

Paraguay's first-ever import permit for RSHO™ marks the fourth country in Latin America, after Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, to approve MJNA's cannabidiol (CBD) hemp oil for indications including epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, and cancer. 

Justin Trudeau, newly-minted Prime Minister of Canada and self-professed dabbler in pot, announced earlier this month that his Liberal Party would move ahead with plans to legalize marijuana as early as 2016. Ending prohibition was part of the party platform going into the October election and is a clear break from ex-PM Stephen Harper, who claimed (with a straight face) that marijuana was "infinitely worse" than tobacco.

Authorities in Paraguay say people in a northern town seized a truck loaded with marijuana that had been confiscated by drug enforcement agents.
Paraguay’s anti-drug office said the agents found the pot hidden under logs Wednesday in the town of Jose Felix Lopez, some 370 miles (600 kilometers) north of the capital.
It said that on Thursday a crowd surrounded the agents and disarmed them, then drove away the truck with the pot.
The weapons were returned after the truck was out of sight. Officials said the agents hadn’t had time to weigh the load.
No one has been arrested.

According to Paraguay’s attorney general the country’s Indigenous population is being coerced into illegal drug trafficking.
​Illegal narcotics organizations operating in East Paraguay are using the local Indigenous population as “drug slaves”, Paraguayan Attorney General Christian Roig said on Thursday.

“The Indigenous peoples are used as drug slaves. With very little money they are forced to cultivate marijuana because they lack institutional support from the state. The local criminal organizations take advantage of this,” Attorney General Roig told EFE on Thursday.

Paraguay is the primary producer of marijuana in South America and one of the largest suppliers in the world after Mexico.

The drug was transported hidden in a tanker. The driver was arrested.

LaPaz - 

Bolivia police seized 2.7 tons of marijuana in the Chaco (southeast) near the Paraguay, and was transported in a tanker, today as per the Special Force against Drug Trafficking.

The officers stopped the truck near the town of Palos Blancos, in the southern department of Tarija, but it had previously been on the border with Paraguay.

Police arrested the driver and found in the vehicle's tank several bags with a total of 2,714 kilos of marijuana.

So far this year, the anti-narcotics force has seized 36.8 tons of marijuana and 13.4 cocaine, and arrested more than 1,650 people for alleged drug trafficking.

Néstor was 14 when a local drug trafficker first hired him to help bring in the harvest. “They need 20 to 30 people, because you have to harvest an entire hectare in two or three days while there’s a gap in the rains,” he says. “When the marijuana’s ready, you can’t leave it for long.”

Growing up on the outskirts of Pedro Juan Caballero, a lawless town on Paraguay’s north-eastern border with Brazil, wasn’t easy. His father, a ranch manager, was away from home for three months at a time. His mother washed clothes to put food on the table.