Federal authorities have stripped New York City of control over its notorious Rikers Island jail complex, plagued by violence and drugs. The prison, once slated for closure, still holds nearly 7,000 detainees.
Tag: drugs
Most of us can accept that animal experiments are ok before allowing new drugs on the market. But allowing such animal testing is important even when no specific application is at stake. They are also crucial for understanding complex biological processes to help treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and depression.
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.
Hunt Priest, a former Episcopal pastor from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, shares how a psychedelic experience deepened his faith and inspired him to start a Christian organization exploring the healing and spiritual potential of psychedelics.
Small doses of psychedelic drugs are said to make parents more engaged and even childlike in their enthusiasm. Is this reckless nonsense, or a parenting breakthrough?
Small doses of psychedelic drugs are said to make parents more engaged and even childlike in their enthusiasm. Is this reckless nonsense, or a parenting breakthrough?
Cheap cocaine is flooding the European drug market, escalating conflicts in open drug scenes, everywhere except the historically drug-tolerant Zurich. A visit to this Swiss city — known as an open-air hotspot for crack and heroin in the 1990s — with a different approach for taking on drug addiction.
Joe Rogan is considered America’s king of podcasters and the voice of hyper-masculinity in the United States. His support for Donald Trump is considered by some to have been decisive in the presidential election. But what’s behind this world of hyper-masculine podcast bros? For Die Zeit, Berlin-based author Norman Ohler writes about his experience as a guest on Rogan’s show.
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.
A new generation of coca leaf growers and pickers is posting video content on social media. They show their life in the fields, how the crops grow, the laboratories where they create the coca paste, and even the exit routes for drug trafficking. And while they used to be stigmatized, and threatened by armed groups, their content is escaping censorship and violence.
Tourism has become big business in Medellín, Colombia, but it also be fueled the city’s worst sociocultural traits and encouraging drugs and abusive sex work. With new laws and bans being put in place, is change afoot in “the City of Eternal Spring”?
The crisis of gang violence in Ecuador is being driven by international drug trafficking, a major illicit economy that exists because of the ban on drugs. It and other Latin American countries are paying a high price for this unjust ban, and must unite to call for its end.
Categories
Magazine #67 — ¡Emergencia! Ecuador
January 22 – January 28, 2024
Ecuador’s simmering civil war, curiously, appears to also be a byproduct of the disbanding of Colombia’s FARC rebels in 2016. Since then, chaos has reigned through much of Latin American drug trafficking routes, reverberating with criminal elements in Ecuador.
Ecuador’s President has called in the army to fight the country’s rampant drug gangs. Sadly he can at best sever the fingertips of a criminal hydra, as big as the world itself.
Italy’s highest-profile nemesis of organized crime networks, prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, discusses the mob’s use of social networks, and how TikTok allows criminal organizations to advertise their lifestyle to impressionable viewers. Sound familiar?
It’s easier than ever to get prescription drugs online. Should regulators be paying more attention?
Psychedelic-assisted MDMA therapy for PTSD has shown some promise in the West, but plans to export it globally may be premature.
June 12 – June 18, 2023
Iran is reacting mildly to recurring Taliban provocations on its frontier. Is this due to diplomatic weakness, policy incompetence or is there some murky complicity inside Iran with the Afghan drug trade?
Over the past two years, the United States has lost more than two years of life expectancy, wiping out 26 years of progress. French daily Les Echos investigates the myriad of causes, which are mostly resulting in the premature deaths of young people.
In Bolivia, the coca leaf was once reserved for ancestry rituals and practices. Now it is being combined with other substances, especially amongst the very young, to create a toxic experience and dangerous concoction.
This essential morning drink for millions worldwide was once considered an addictive menace, earning itself a ban on pain of death in the Islamic world.
The Biden administration and Colombia’s new government seem to agree on the need for a new approach to drugs policy. But will they be able to find support in their countries to forge a new strategy?
From self-induced trance to psychedelics, altered states of consciousness are experiencing a renewed interest in the scientific community for their therapeutic value.
At least 20 people have died after taking toxic cocaine bought in a poor suburb of the Argentine capital. Police have doubts that it was just an accident, and may have been a diabolical attempt by a drug gang to discredit the product of its rivals.
The three victims, 14 and younger, were contacted while playing the online game Free Fire, and promised paid work.
Unlike ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan), drug cultivation and trafficking are not an ideological matter for the new rulers of Afghanistan — more likely a bargaining chip in negotiations with the West.
The capture of Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker shows that in spite of the cartels’ resilience, the state can and will fight crime at the highest levels, writes top Bogotá daily El Espectador.
If not for a Polish shopper, it might have remained lost in translation for all the Taiwanese parents who’ve bought their kids the popular toy cactus that raps in some exotic language. But a Polish mother living in the city of Taichung was doing some grocery shopping with her baby at the local Carrefour when […]
Grandpa, pass the unmarked 20s….
Once part of the cocaine kingpin’s private zoo, the animals are now an invasive species impacting the local environment. But few in Colombia have the heart to kill them off.
People with serious drug problems are particularly at risk of coronavirus because of underlying health problems, but also because normal treatment options are being cut off.
The war on drugs continues to feed the flames of violence in Colombia, even in this so-called ‘post-conflict’ period.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service likes to boast that it is the nation’s most trusted government agency. It certainly has the trust of dope dealers. A report by the Postal Service Office of Inspector General demonstrates just how valuable the mail is as a marketing tool for drug pushers: “For example, a cocaine trafficker claimed to have used the Postal Service to successfully distribute nearly 4,000 shipments, stating that they had a 100% delivery success rate. In addition, of the 96 traffickers who indicated they used the Postal Service as their shipping provider, 43% (41) offered free, partial, or […]
Rather than clamp down on drug users, Colombia might borrow a page from its far southern neighbor and consider a more humane approach.
Medellín authorities want tourists and youngsters to be mindful of the victims of drug trafficking, not view mobsters as merely rogues or ‘Robin Hoods.’
Young, poor Moroccans, desperate for a fleeting sense of power and control are turning to a nasty chemical cocktail called ‘karkoubi.’
Differently than places like the Netherlands or the state of Colorado, legalizing cannabis in Mexico is colored by the presence of drug cartels — and the absence of the state.
Techno scene in Belarus faces a youth tempted by emigration, pricey vinyls and the KGB lurking in the shadows. But the nights in Minsk are still something truly remarkable.