Daily Drug War Digest -- September 10, 2026

Marijuana foes are outspending supporters in Massachusetts as voters prepare to vote on ending legal sales and home grows, Colombia prepares a pilot project of coca eradication via aerial spraying, and more. 

Los Tiguerones take over a Quito TV station in 2024 (Screen grab/Los Noticias)

Marijuana Policy

Massachusetts Marijuana Opponents Outspending Defenders as Ballot Measure Vote Looms. SAM Action Inc., the political arm of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), has committed more than $3 million to passing Question 8, the initiative that would recriminalize marijuana sales and ban home cultivation.

The state's marijuana industry, on the other hand, has raised only about half that amount, or $1.54 million, with Insa leading the way with a $255,000 donation, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts and Ascend Wellness Holdings kicking in $100,000 each, Verano coughing up $50,000, and Curaleaf and Cresco Labs each contributing $41,875. 

Despite the fundraising gap, both sides have roughly the same cash on hand, with the repeal campaign holding roughly $980,000 and the opposition holding $947,000.

And despite the fundraising gap, the initiative appears headed for defeat. A recent UMass/WCVB poll found only 33 percent of 800 registered voters in support of repealing adult-use cannabis sales, compared to 55 percent opposed. 

Meanwhile, Massachusetts residents have bought more than $10 million worth of legal cannabis products since the state legalized it in 2016, according to the state Cannabis Control Commission.

"An industry that isn’t even a decade old has become an integral part of our economy, counting hundreds of businesses of all sizes and employing nearly 15,000 people," Chris Harding, chairman of the CCC, said in a press release.

Foreign Policy

US Designates Ecuadorian Gang Los Tiguerones Narco-Terrorists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration had added the Ecuadorian drug gang Los Tiguerones to its ever-growing list of "narco-terrorist organizations." 

Rubio spoke in Quito, where he was meeting Ecuador's right-wing President Daniel Noboa, one of a number of right-wing Latin American leaders the administration is courting as allies in its war on drugs. 

Los Tiguerones are notorious for their attack on a Quito TV station during a live broadcast in 2024, and have allegedly been involved in drug trafficking and other criminality. 

"We are not talking about an ordinary mafia, nor are we talking about common criminals; we are talking about terrorists who, in many cases, possess weapons and equipment resembling the national armies of certain countries," he said.

Despite the Trump administration's efforts to portray criminal drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations, such groups are distinct from traditional terrorist groups. Unlike terrorist organizations that seek to impose a political position, drug traffickers' aim is not a political goal but profits. They generally seek not to attack or overthrow governments but to evade or corrupt them.

That 2024 attack on the TC Television network raised Los Tiguerones' profile and prompted Noboa to declare a state of "internal armed conflict" as he claimed foreign drug gangs were invading the country. 

Rubio's visit to Ecuador came a day after he touched down in Colombia to meet with its newly inaugurated right-wing President Abelardo De La Espriella, another leader the administration hopes to make a key ally in its anti-drug Shield of the Americas campaign. 

International

Colombia Announces Trial Aerial Spray Coca Eradication Program. Colombia announced Tuesday that it will spray coca fields as part of a one-week pilot project in eradication as part of President Abelardo De La Espriella's vow to crack down on drug cultivation and trafficking. The National Narcotics Council authorized it last month and said it will be carried out in a "controlled, limited, temporary and evaluable experimental phase."

Colombia quit aerial fumigation with the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) a decade ago amidst claims it caused environmental damage and was linked to cancer in humans. The pilot project is limited to 2,500 acres and will not use glyphosate. 

Instead, the pilot program will use glufosinate ammonium, a different herbicide already approved for land eradication efforts that the World Health Organization rates as "moderately dangerous," compared to the more severe "slightly dangerous" it gives to glyphosate. 

While the government did not say where the pilot program would take place, Colombia media speculated widely that it would take place in southern Putumayo state, on the border with Ecuador and Peru. 

During the campaign, de la Espriella said his administration would use alternatives to glyphosate. 

"From the very first day of the administration, Colombia will resume aerial spraying of illicit crops using state-of-the-art bioherbicides, with technologies that pose no risk to human health or the environment," de la Espriella’s campaign website posted in June. 

De La Espriella nevertheless repealed the glyphosate prohibition shortly after taking office in August.