With synthetic drugs like pink cocaine on the rise, Colombia should not mimic its fight against the drugs like marijuana or cocaine in the 1990s; anti-drug policies must turn their focus from users to dealers.
Tag: drug
Known in the past decade as a horse tranquilizer and surgical anesthetic, ketamine is now gaining popularity as a party drug and even a life-coping aid. But while it shows promise in treating depression, its misuse brings real risks and a growing blind spot.
A bracelet from Spain is one of the products helping detect if your drink was ‘spiked’ at a nightclub to cause torpor and impede self-defense. But while such tools may prevent incidents like rape, activists say they’d prefer solutions to the plague of sexist violence, Luisa Lara reports in El Espectador.
Former One Direction member Liam Payne, who died last after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, reportedly had “pink cocaine” in his system. Also known as “Tuci,” this “designer drug” has been spreading in Latin America and globally over the past decade.
Updated July 23, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. On this day in 2011, Amy Winehouse was found dead in her home in the Camden neighborhood of London. The cause of her death was determined to be accidental alcohol poisoning. How old was Amy Winehouse when she died? Amy Winehouse was 27 years old at the time […]
New Zealand has reversed its decision to implement the world’s toughest anti-smoking law, to the disappointment of many inside and outside the island nation. But how are other laws aimed at tobacco use faring around the world?
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A Child Is Not An Alibi
Our Naples-based Dottoré reflects on the small-time criminals who come to her for therapy, and the family excuse for their lives of crime.
Teas, colon cleansing, and even ear candles… the market for alternative detox solutions has never been more lucrative. But as one expert explains, not only are their reported benefits unproven, the treatments can also be dangerous.
Trained practitioners warn that unregulated yoga can be detrimental to people’s health. The government in India, where the ancient practice was invented, knows this very well — yet continues to postpone regulation.
In loudly rejecting President’s Trump threat to label Mexican drug gangs terrorists, Mexico’s government is covering its failure, if not reluctance, to tackle systemic corruption and its offspring, crime.
Back in 2017, the Philadelphia Inquirer spoke with Chera Kowalski of the city’s McPherson Square Park library, which had become something of a refuge for drug addicts with nowhere else to turn. In the previous two months alone, the then 33-year-old librarian had performed CPR and administered opioid-overdose spray Narcan on eight different overdose victims. […]
Its long-time leader awaits sentencing in the U.S, but the international drug empire Mexico’s Joaquin Guzman helped build is going strong. Who will be the next kingpin?
PUERTO CHIAPAS — In the small Mexican fishing harbor of Puerto Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, drug trafficking boats aren’t that uncommon a sight. At first glance, they look like like regular fishing boats. What sets them apart are the state-of-the-art motors. Chiapas state is one of the most peaceful in Mexico, and Puerto […]
Colorado was among the first states in the U.S. to decriminalize marijuana. Our European correspondent has a closer look.
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — Barbarism has actually become popular in the Philippines. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 78% of Filipinos support the “license to kill” President Rodrigo Duterte has given the police against those accused, or even just suspected, of dealing or consuming drugs. The government proudly announced the death […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — After more than half-a-century of fighting, Colombia’s FARC guerillas have surrendered their weapons and officially transformed themselves into a formal political party. But still, the U.S. government apparently isn’t satisfied. “The FARC hasn’t followed through on the issue of drugs,” the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker, said matter-of-factly in a recent […]
Murderous paramilitary organizations that formed in the 1980s were supposedly dismantled. Elements, however, continue to live on through what the government now calls Organized Armed Groups, or GAO.
The northern state of Punjab is known as India’s bread basket. But in recent years, it has become a fertile ground not just for crops, but also drug abuse.
Among the world’s many gloomy corners, it is hard to get any gloomier than Brazil. After a drug war broke out among several criminal groups, leading to huge prison riots and the death of close to 100 inmates, what looks like a worrying yellow fever outbreak and the death of the Supreme Court judge leading […]
All signs say the 56 prisoners killed inside the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex are part of an ongoing drug gang feud on the outside.
Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 30th The Philippine Daily Inquirer issue Thursday features an epic montage of Rodrigo “Rudy” Duterte with the headline “Have no fear, Rudy is here.” The controversial 71 year-old former prosecutor and Davao City mayor was sworn in Thursday as the 16th President of the Philippines, succeeding Benigno Aquino III. Taking the […]
Doctors in Germany have noted an alarming rise in psychotic episodes linked to excessive marijuana use among young people, which follows other studies around the world raising alarms.
Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua offer vivid proof of the ravages that narco-trafficking inflicts on the environment, from clandestine landing strips to roads built to transport illegal drugs.
BRASILIA — The Brazilian government doesn’t like to talk about it publicly, but top officials are worried about the impact that Uruguay’s decision to legalize the production and sale of marijuana — the first nation to do so — will have on its larger neighbor to the north. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff talked about it […]
BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch MONTEVIDEO – Members of Uruguay’s House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize marijuana on Wednesday night. If it goes on to be approved by the Senate, Uruguay will become the first country to regulate the production, distribution and sale of marijuana. The measure is backed by the government of President […]
BOGOTA – Negotiators for rebel group FARC — engaged now in historic peace talks with the Colombian government — received an interesting visit in Havana last month. During a pause in negotiations with Bogota officials in the Cuban capital, FARC loyalists met with a group of former members of the IRA. Indeed, the veterans of […]
O GLOBO, FOLHA DE S. PAULO (Brazil) Worldcrunch CAMPINAS – A Brazilian transvestite has been arrested at Viracopos International Airport for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs he’d packed into an extra-large prosthetic posterior, reports Folha de S. Paulo. According to police in this southeastern Brazilian city, the suspect was due to embark on a Lisbon-bound […]
HERALD SUN (Australia), SKY NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SYDNEY –Australian police have seized 585 kilograms of pure methamphetamine in Sydney bound to flush the major Australian cities. The haul was estimated at $438 million in street value, in what is largest seizure ever of methamphetamine down under. Police had been tipped off in September about “suspicious […]
PICHARI – Miguel doesn’t make a sound on his way to the plantation. “Best to keep a low profile, put away your microphone,” he advises. The path leads all the way over the Apurímac River, whose brown waters wind through the middle of the forest, to a clearing where shrubs of coca grow across 12 […]
EL NORTE (Mexico), CNN (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – At least 17 people were killed in a Northern Mexico prison on Tuesday, reports El Norte. Eleven inmates and six guards died in a shootout as the prisoners attempted to escape the prison through tunnels, reports CNN. “The inmates started to shoot with […]
In December 1984, this Indian city suffered what is considered the world’s worst industrial accident ever.
FOLHA DE S.PAULO (Brazil) Worldcrunch DE TERESINA – Federal Police in the northeastern state of Piauí are investigating allegations of a drugs-for-votes ring. Candidates for the city council in the capital Teresina used crack to lure dealers and addicts to vote for them, accuses a prominent lawyer in the region Lúcio Ribeiro, who heads the […]
HAMBURG – Jan Heusinger’s day was always the same: wake up, shower, have breakfast – and then spend the rest of his hours playing computer games. Four years ago, when he was 14, he’d bought World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game. By 2011, he’d stopped attending school to spend his days as an Orc […]