Category Archives: Drugs

Notorious Ecuadorian crime gang designated a terrorist group by US

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Trump administration to seek extra funding from Congress to ‘dismantle’ Los Tiguerones over narcotics trafficking

The US has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang, which stormed a television station during a live broadcast in 2024, as a terrorist organisation as the Trump administration expands its campaign against narcotics traffickers it says are destabilising Latin America.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made the announcement in Quito, where he met Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, one of several rightwing allies of Donald Trump whom Rubio is courting as a security partner during a three-nation tour through Latin America that began on Tuesday.

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Indonesian foragers may have sucked on mind-altering nuts 25,000 years ago, research finds

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Analysis of two skeletons reveals tooth wear and traces of psychoactive substance in what may be earliest known evidence for human drug taking

What may be the earliest known evidence for human drug taking has been traced to ancient Indonesian foragers who sucked on mind-altering nuts as long as 25,000 years ago.

Analysis of two exceptionally rare skeletons from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi revealed dramatic tooth wear and traces of a psychoactive substance in the individuals’ remaining teeth, suggesting they routinely sucked on hard, abrasive betel nuts.

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NSW government to resume pill testing at music festivals but rejects calls for wider community rollout

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Use of sniffer dogs and searches will continue despite health and harm reduction groups arguing they could lead to riskier drug taking

Drug testing will resume at New South Wales music festivals from October, but will not be rolled out into the wider community despite calls from peak health and harm reduction groups, while the controversial use of sniffer dogs and searches will continue.

On Wednesday the state government announced NSW Health will consult with the music festival industry and harm reduction organisations to roll out pill testing at up to 15 music festivals each year.

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FDA gives expedited approval to new groundbreaking pancreatic cancer drug

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FDA officials approve first-of-a-kind pill called daraxonrasib to fight one of the deadliest types of cancer

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a groundbreaking new drug for the most common form of pancreatic cancer, offering US patients a more effective treatment against one of the deadliest types of the disease.

FDA officials gave expedited approval to the first-of-a-kind pill, called daraxonrasib, that blocks a mutated protein which fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. It’s an approach that has eluded drugmakers for decades.

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US strikes a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing 2 people in first attack in months

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US Southern Command has struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing two accused of trafficking drugs

The US military has launched a deadly strike on a vessel in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people accused of drug trafficking.

On Monday, US Southern Command (SouthCom) announced it “executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific”.

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Thousands of sex offenders in England and Wales could get libido-suppressing drugs

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Exclusive: Voluntary use of sex drive-suppressing medication to expand to 20 prisons and expert says it could be rolled out widely by late 2028

Drugs that help control the libidos of people who have committed sexual offences could be rolled out for thousands of male prisoners in England and Wales from December 2028, an expert has said.

Prof Belinda Winder, who has evaluated the use of sex drive-suppressing medication in prisons, said about one in four sex offenders – equating to 3,750 current prisoners – would be considered for the treatment.

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Home Office could be blocked from deporting trafficking victims to Albania

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Many males are returned even if they have been trafficked but Home Office must now consider new legal guidance

The Home Office could be blocked from deporting many young male trafficking victims to Albania after a major court ruling.

Thousands of Albanian males have been identified as potential trafficking victims in the UK in recent years. Many are sent back to their country even if they are potential or confirmed victims of trafficking, as the Home Office contends they will be safe there.

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Gangs using Airbnb-type rentals as drug stash houses, top Belgian official says

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Flexible short-term bookings used to store and pack drugs and stash weapons and cash, says Ine Van Wymersch

Airbnb-type short-term rentals are being used as stash houses by criminal gangs for money, drugs, weapons and people, Belgium’s lead official in charge of countering drugs has said.

The booming e-commerce sector is helping “enormously” to facilitate organised crime, Belgium’s national drug commissioner, Ine Van Wymersch, said.

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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria increasingly leaving children vulnerable to common infections, global study finds

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Exclusive: Research spanning 82 countries finds antibiotic resistance increased in every region between 2004 and 2022

Harry Booth has had a rough run through Australia’s coldest months. The 13-year-old has been in and out of hospital with a range of common chest and urinary tract infections that his doctors find challenging to treat.

Harry was born with kidney failure and began dialysis at six months old, before receiving a kidney transplant from his father at age four. The surgery saved his life but comes with a trade-off: he now needs to take medications that suppress his immune system to prevent his body from rejecting the kidney.

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Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ sentenced to life in prison in US federal court

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Case against Ismael Zambada García, who helped co-found and lead the violent Sinaloa cartel, unfolded in New York

The Mexican drug kingpin, Ismael Zambada García, known as “El Mayo”, was sentenced in a US federal court on Monday to life in prison, after a plea deal last year in which he admitted ⁠to shipping vast amounts of cocaine and other substances as leader of the violent Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada is 76 and one of the most high-profile Mexican ⁠drug traffickers to be sentenced in a US court since his fellow Sinaloa leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán ​was sentenced to life in prison in ‌2019. The case unfolded in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

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‘Truly international’ network of drug-facilitated rape uncovered by UK crime agency

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NCA says offenders arrange to sexually assault and film victims via online networks with crimes often taking place in trusting relationships

Criminal investigators in the UK say they have uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual assault in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.

The National Crime Agency [NCA] has said online networks, “many as yet unidentified by law enforcement”, were allowing offenders to arrange to rape and abuse victims or arrange for sexual assaults to be filmed.

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Almost three tonnes of cocaine found buried under Sydney property in Australia’s biggest ever seizure, police say

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Australian federal police arrested and charged two men after allegedly finding $800m worth of cocaine in ‘bunkers’ under shipping containers

Police claim to have made Australia’s biggest ever cocaine bust after finding $800m worth of the drug buried under false flooring on a semi-rural property.

Two men, aged 21 and 25, allegedly tried to run from police and were arrested on Friday after an operation by Australian federal police, alongside investigators in multiple states.

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Cannabis commercialisation not decriminalisation drives up usage, study finds

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Review reveals rise in users and rates of psychosis in countries where cannabis is sold commercially

Decriminalising the possession of cannabis or strictly regulating access to the drug do not appear to drive up usage, but when the drug is sold commercially the number of users increases and more mental health problems are seen, a review has found.

An international team analysed the dramatic shift in policies on cannabis between 2000 and 2025, including how the numbers of people taking the drug, its potency, and rates of psychosis changed after new rules came in.

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Guatemala requests US military cooperation against drug trafficking

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Central American country says its president spoke with Pete Hegseth to confirm terms of cooperation

Guatemala has requested US military cooperation spanning access to equipment, training and experts to assist Guatemalan operations against drug trafficking, the country’s president, Bernardo Arévalo, said on Thursday.

The joint plans stopped short of US military operations on Guatemalan soil and fall within existing bilateral agreements, the government noted.

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Three dead and 18 first responders sickened by apparent fentanyl exposure in New Mexico

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First responders hospitalized and decontaminated after four people were found apparently overdosing

Three people died and 18 first responders were sickened by exposure to fentanyl in a rural New Mexico home this week, New Mexico state police said.

Police initially found four people unconscious at the home in Mountainair, 90 miles (145km) east of Albuquerque. Two were declared dead at the scene and a third died at a hospital.

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13 men killed by US military boat strikes identified: ‘These were flesh-and-blood people’

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All victims of US strikes in eastern Pacific and the Caribbean identified so far came from extremely poor communities

A five-month investigation has named 13 previously unidentified victims of US attacks on boats allegedly carrying narcotics in a campaign that has killed nearly 200 people in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.

It is unclear if the US has ever identified any of its 194 victims before attacking them, and the names of just three had previously emerged, after their families launched legal cases against the White House.

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How the Trump White House works against itself in its efforts to prevent overdoses

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Contradictory policies that gut harm reduction programs while supporting naloxone access are confusing experts

Within just a few weeks, the Trump administration has proposed multiple contradictory policies related to overdose prevention – some that could help save lives and others that experts say could further strain health resources and put people at risk for overdose.

These policies include a new prohibition on funding for fentanyl test strips, which help people avoid overdoses; proposed budget cuts that would gut the country’s overdose prevention efforts; and an ambitious drug control strategy that will be impossible to implement if the aforementioned cuts go through.

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Australian director Phillip Noyce shoots feature film for Saudi Arabia celebrating ‘heroism of security men in combating drugs’

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Exclusive: Regime, which executed 243 people last year for drug offences, accused of investing in entertainment to whitewash its human rights record

The acclaimed Australian film-maker Phillip Noyce is being paid by the Saudi regime to make a feature film portraying the repressive state’s narcotics officers as heroes.

The Watchful Eyes, based on a real Saudi ministry of interior narcotics case, is billed as a dramatic depiction of the “heroism of security men in combating drugs”.

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Federal authorities arrest 18 people in Los Angeles raid amid drug crackdown

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Justice department targets MacArthur Park, which has long struggled with fentanyl use, overdoses and homelessness

Federal authorities arrested 18 people in Los Angeles in a crackdown on drugs in MacArthur Park, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.

The DoJ said it was targeting an “open-air drug market” in the park near downtown, which has long struggled with fentanyl use and overdoses and has at times had large encampments of unhoused people.

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Polanski says he is not ready to be PM, but might be in two years’ time – UK politics live

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Green leader also apologised for misrepresenting his work with the Red Cross, and defended party policy on drugs

Labour has criticised Zack Polanski for saying he was concerned about how the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings was treated when he was arrested by the police.

Referring to what Polanski said about this in his Today interview this morning (see 9.33am), a Labour party spokesperson said:

Our brave police ran towards a suspected terrorist and tackled him while he was still carrying a knife and before they could handcuff him.

The fact that Zack Polanski is still sympathising with this individual is utterly astounding. For the Green party leader to be litigating the case for the defence against the police shows whose side he is truly on.

The latest unemployment figures for February showed a fall, interest rates were expected to come down, the markets were pricing in a couple of cuts during the course of the year.

The truth is, with the effect of the Iran war, we can’t count on any of that at the moment. There is likely to be an effect on prices, which feeds through from energy costs, and there may well be labour market implications.

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