Talk:Guatemala

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Discussion for: Guatemala • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Guatemala is about cannabis in Guatemala. It covers the departments and municipalities where cannabis has been grown and destroyed since the 1980s; the people who grow it and rent land for it; the spraying campaign of 1987 and the trade through Belize; eradication and seizure figures; the use of cannabis in the country; the drug law of 1992; and the herbarium sheets of cannabis collected in Guatemala. The tables of growing regions, growing areas, accessions and news fill from pages that name Guatemala as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

United States government reports. The International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports of the State Department are cited from the scans of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (editions of 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1995), from the End of Term Web Archive's copies of the State Department's pages (1996 to 2008), and from copies of the 2016 and 2023 editions held by GlobalSecurity.org and the United Nations Digital Library. The reports of the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee for 1985–86 and 1989 are cited from the same scans. Guatemala has no chapter in the edition of February 1986; the edition of March 1988 gives it one paragraph.
International bodies. The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission's evaluations of Guatemala for 2005–2006 and 2007–2009 give the government's own figures for cultivation, eradication and seizures. The International Narcotics Control Board is cited from the Americas chapters of its reports for 2009, 2018 and 2020. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is cited from its study of crime in Central America (2007) and from the cannabis table of the statistical annex to the World Drug Report 2026, which combines government questionnaires, government reports and the State Department's reports.
The law. Decreto 48-92 is cited from the consolidated text published by the judiciary's documentation centre (CENADOJ), which carries notes on the later amending decrees. That copy does not give the number or date of the issue of the Diario de Centro América in which the law was published. The words marihuana, cannabis and cáñamo do not occur in it: the law covers cannabis through its definition of drugs, which includes seeds, flowers and plants.
News. Reports in Prensa Libre, La Hora and on Emisoras Unidas (2014 to 2026) are cited for named eradication operations, for statements by police, prosecutors and officials, and for the conditions of growers in Totonicapán, San Marcos and Las Cruces. United Press International is cited for the start of the spraying in 1987 and for a statement by the Belizean police in 1991.
Herbarium sheets are known from their occurrence data in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Seven sheets of the National Herbarium of Mexico (MEXU), collected in Guatemala between 1983 and 2001, are listed there with Guatemala in the higher geography and no country code; the article names three.

Where the sources differ

When the spraying began. United Press International reported on 21 April 1987 that the operation over the Petén had begun that Tuesday. The State Department's report of 1988 dates the first campaign to May and June. The article gives both.
The herbicide. United Press International prints the Treasury Police chief's name for the chemical as "24-d glyco-phosphate". The State Department's report says only that the marijuana was destroyed by chemical spraying. The article quotes the press report's wording.
Where the crop was grown. The sources place it differently in different years: the Petén alone (United Press International, 1987; the State Department, 1995 to 2001 and 2016), western Guatemala (United Press International, 1987), the borders with Mexico and Belize with small plantings in Chimaltenango and Jutiapa (State Department, 1990), San Marcos and the Petén (the government, 2005–2006; the International Narcotics Control Board, 2009), Totonicapán and the Petén (the board, 2018), and Huehuetenango, Totonicapán and San Marcos (the head of the police antinarcotics division, 2023). The map of 1989 by the Central Intelligence Agency marks one growing area, in eastern Guatemala. The article gives each statement with its date.
Local market or export. In 1987 United Press International wrote that the marijuana of western Guatemala was generally destined for the United States, and in 1990 the State Department wrote that marijuana from the Belizean border was generally shipped there through Belize. From 2003 to 2008 the State Department reports describe the crop as consumed locally, and the United Nations study of 2007 found little if any cannabis reaching the United States from Central America. The statements belong to different periods.
Seizures in 2008. The government's figure to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission is 10,817,497 cannabis plants; the International Narcotics Control Board rounds it to some 11 million.

Open questions

The sheet from San Marcos. MEXU 910615, collected on 21 August 1992 and labelled as cultivated, gives "Guardia de Hacienda" as its locality. The Guardia de Hacienda was the Treasury Police. The label does not say whether the plant came from a planting the police had seized.
Seed lines. ACE Seeds has sold a line called "Guatemala", which its retailers describe as coming from the indigenous peoples of Guatemala. The seller's account of its origin is a claim and is not used in the article.

Images reserved in the article

One image has a place in the article but is not yet uploaded:

File:Cannabis-guatemala-places-named-map.jpg (Geography), a map to be drawn: an outline map of Guatemala with its 22 department boundaries and the borders with Mexico, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The departments of Petén, San Marcos, Totonicapán, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango and Jutiapa are shaded, and dots mark the municipalities of Las Cruces, Melchor de Mencos and Sayaxché (Petén), Sipacapa (San Marcos), Momostenango (Totonicapán) and San Andrés Itzapa (Chimaltenango). Labels name each department and municipality; no other places, no routes and no figures.