Smokin' the "Colombians"

Mexican soldiers say they’ve found a new hybrid marijuana plant that can grow outside year round and is immune to herbicide, reports the Associated Press.

Soliders in the mountainous western state of Michoacan, which has been ground zero for a raging Mexican drug cartel war, have been trying to clear the mountainsides of the plants – known as “Colombians” – by pulling them out by the root and burning them, the AP reports. “Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it’s taken out by the roots,” army Gen. Manuel Gracia told reporters.

Although the Colombians have been around for a couple years, they have reportedly become the plant of choice in Michoacan, where the Valencia and Gulf cartels are warring over marijuana production and control over cocaine and methamphetamine smuggling-routes to the U.S. Reportedly, the conflict has claimed more than 2,000 lives in 2006 alone. (Indeed, in a recent incident, the AP reports, armed cartel members “stormed” into a local bar and, in an apparent warning, dropped five severed human heads onto the dance floor.)

Newly installed President Felipe Calderon has undertaken a campaign to restore order in Michoacan, his home state, sending 7,000 soldiers there to stop the narco-fighting; over the last week alone, the AP reports, soliders and federal police have destroyed nearly 1,800 marijuana fields covering nearly 600 acres.