Mexican soldiers find hard-to-kill marijuana plant

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Thousands of soldiers sent to seize control of one of Mexico's top drug-producing regions have found widespread cultivation of a hybrid marijuana plant that is easy to grow and difficult to kill. The plants can only be killed by having their roots pulled, a slow and tedious task, Army Gen. Manuel Garcia told The Associated Press, one of four media outlets allowed to accompany soldiers on the daylong raid Tuesday. "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," Garcia said. The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers in western Michoacan state, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.