Paraguay: marijuana farmers protest burning of their pot

ASUNCION, Paraguay — About 100 marijuana farmers in Paraguay staged a protest on Wednesday against the recent burning of their pot by anti-drug agents.

Marijuana is illegal in Paraguay, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of South America that is among the top producers of pot in the region. The farmers demonstrated in the country’s northern state of San Pedro. They say the burning of some 345 acres (140 hectares) of their marijuana threatens their livelihood.

Farmer Gabriel Dos Santos says that he grows pot at the risk of prison because the government doesn’t provide his impoverished community with seeds to produce anything else. He criticized the burnings saying the government had wasted money that could have been better spent paving the roads of his community.

“It’s not that we’re traffickers. We know it’s illegal, but what should we do if we don’t get state aid to produce sesame, wheat or corn?” Dos Santos said in a telephone interview. “In the past we used to grow sesame, but the price in the market was symbolic. No one can live like that.”

Paraguay’s anti-drug chief Luis Rojas says marijuana is illegal and farmers should choose other crops as sources of income. He says pot might be more lucrative, but argues that farmers don’t depend on it for their survival and are only being used by drug lords.