MALAWI police have intensified the country’s campaign against small-scale marijuana growers, warning that both growers and smugglers would be charged. Small-scale subsistence growers have traditionally been ignored by Malawi police, who arrested 1 364 traffickers and confiscated roughly 288 tonnes of the narcotic during 2000. Malawi marijuana is reputed to be amongst the best in the world, supporting a large black-market export trade with Europe and an alternative tourist industry that caters for European and American backpackers. – African Eye News Service