Nearly half a million people died from drug use in 2023. The United Nations now warns that the global drug crisis is entering a more dangerous phase. In turn, synthetic substances are edging out traditional plant based drugs across major markets worldwide. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, published its World Drug...
The UK government has signed a new working arrangement with the European Union Drugs Agency. It marks a significant step in the shared effort to reduce drug related harms across Britain and the wider continent. Signed in London on 13 July, the agreement lets both sides exchange information on new substances. It also covers emerging...
A Liberia cocaine bust worth close to 19 million US dollars has turned into one of the country’s most explosive political scandals in years. The reason is not what customs officers found. It is who has never been caught. Weeks after agents intercepted 237.6 kilograms of cocaine at Roberts International Airport, not a single major...
Jacob Diaz was still a teenager in foster care in rural Florida when a chance introduction pulled him into one of the world’s most dangerous industries. Within a few years, he had gone from a homeless sixteen-year-old sleeping under friends’ beds to a trusted operator inside a transnational drug smuggling operation, coordinating cash runs, safe...
A new study has confirmed what critics of Germany’s 2024 cannabis reforms warned might happen. Consumers in the country’s medical cannabis market are gravitating toward the cheapest, most potent products available, and the evidence increasingly suggests this has little to do with medicine. In 2024, Germany legalised limited recreational cannabis for personal use and home...
Sixty years after Yale scientists first turned their instruments on lysergic acid diethylamide, the compound is back under the microscope, and this time the questions are less about hallucinations and more about how the brain learns.
Europe is facing a sharp rise in cocaine related violence. That’s the warning from experts who gathered for a recent European Union Drugs Agency webinar. The focus was on how criminal networks fight for control of the continent’s booming narcotics trade. Why Old Definitions of Cocaine Related Violence no Longer Fit The session looked at...
For years, Australia held itself up as a global model for anti-smoking policy. Graphic warnings, plain packaging laws, and sky-high cigarette taxes all pointed one way: make smoking too expensive, and people will stop. However, the tobacco black market that grew in response tells a very different story. The ambition was logical. The outcome was...
The European Parliament has released a 12-page briefing confirming what many in public health and law enforcement have long feared: drug trafficking in the EU is not a problem being contained. It is expanding. Criminal networks are more sophisticated, supply chains are more global, production is increasingly domestic, and the drugs reaching consumers are more...
A Wedding That Shocked a Nation Cocaine trafficking in Europe has never been more brazen. In October 2016, a gangster’s wedding brought the streets of Borgerhout, Antwerp, to a standstill. Sports cars jammed the narrow lanes. Watches glinted. Jewellery flashed. The whole spectacle went viral. The groom belonged to the so-called “Turtle Clan,” one of...