Category Archives: Drugs

Home Office gives green light to first drug testing clinic

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‘Life-saving’ scheme, licensed by the government, launched amid rising concern over potentially toxic substances

The first drug-checking service licensed by the Home Office will allow users to have their illicit substances tested without fear of being arrested in a move that could be rolled out nationally if it is shown to save lives.

The year-long pilot project, which had a soft launch in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, last Friday but begins in earnest this week, will allow anyone over the age of 18 to take their drugs to the clinic, run by the charity Addaction. Testing the content will take about 10 minutes, during which time the user will complete a short questionnaire to allow harm reduction advice to be tailored to them.

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El Chapo’s lawyers request new trial after report of juror misconduct

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Allegations emerged this week that jury members followed media coverage of high profile trial, despite orders not to

Lawyers for convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán intend to petition for a new trial after a news report indicated that multiple jurors followed media coverage of the trial against the instructions of the judge in the case.

Allegations of juror misconduct came to light earlier this week in an article published by Vice News. In the piece, an anonymous juror said jurors had routinely violated the judge’s instructions to “stay away from media coverage, not doing any research on the internet or otherwise and [to not] communicate anything about the case to anyone”.

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‘Air Cocaine’ drug-trafficking trial begins in France

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Two former military pilots, a customs officer and celebrity bodyguard among the accused

Sitting on the asphalt at Punta Cana international airport in the Dominican Republic, the private plane was about to take off for an overnight flight to Saint-Tropez in France when police swooped.

Inside the aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 50, officers found four Frenchmen – two pilots and two passengers – along with 680kg of cocaine, with an estimated street value of €20m (£17.5m), in 26 battered suitcases.

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Nan Goldin threatens London gallery boycott over £1m gift from Sackler fund

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Artist brands planned donation from pharmaceutical family to National Portrait Gallery unethical over OxyContin link

The National Portrait Gallery will be forced to turn down a gift of £1m from members of the multibillionaire Sackler family if it goes ahead with a prestigious new exhibition of the work of US artist Nan Goldin.

The photographer and activist is threatening to boycott the gallery if it accepts the donation from the owners of the American pharmaceutical company that makes the addictive painkiller OxyContin, the Observer has learned.

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Cancún shooting: five people gunned down in Mexico’s tourist hotspot

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Bar attacked near hotel zone amid rising drug-related violence in the Caribbean resort city

Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.

Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

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New drug raises hopes of reversing memory loss in old age

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Toronto researchers believe the drug can also help those with depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s

An experimental drug that bolsters ailing brain cells has raised hopes of a treatment for memory loss, poor decision making and other mental impairments that often strike in old age.

The drug could be taken as a daily pill by over-55s if clinical trials, which are expected to start within two years, show that the medicine is safe and effective at preventing memory lapses.

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Anti-opioid protesters target New York’s Guggenheim over Sackler family link

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Demonstrators call on museum to refuse donations from the owners of OxyContin

US art photographer and activist Nan Goldin brought the Guggenheim Museum in New York to a standstill on Saturday night as thousands of fake prescriptions were dropped into the atrium to protest against the institution’s acceptance of donations from the family who owns the maker of OxyContin – the prescription painkiller at the root of America’s opioids crisis.

Tourists and locals gawped in confusion as Goldin and fellow demonstrators began chanting criticism of the Sackler family, who owns Purdue Pharma. The activists handed out fake pill bottles as sheets of paper fluttered down inside the landmark building.

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Opioid strong enough to sedate elephants on rise in Ohio, coroners warn

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Carfentanil, described as ‘extremely potent’ and often undetectable, involved in multiple overdose deaths

Coroners in two of Ohio’s largest counties have issued drug abuse warnings following the reappearance of an opioid so powerful it’s sometimes used to sedate elephants.

Dr Anahi Ortiz is coroner in Franklin county in central Ohio. She said Friday that the county which calls Columbus home had at least three carfentanil-related overdose deaths in January.

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‘County lines’ drug gangs tracking children via social media

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Warnings on coercion and blackmailing over smartphones went unheeded, say experts, as child exploitation spirals

A failure to grasp how technology and social media is being used to coerce, control, blackmail and track the movements of children as young as 11 by “county lines” drug gangs has seen an epidemic of child criminal exploitation spiral out of control in the UK.

“For the past seven or eight years we have been warning the government, the authorities, teachers, anyone who would listen, that technology is the central organising feature of the county lines business model,” said Sheldon Thomas, a consultant on gang behaviour through his organisation Gangsline.

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The white stuff: why Britain can’t get enough cocaine

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Britain snorts more of the drug than almost anywhere in Europe, more young people are taking it and deaths are rising. Why?

The moment Dan (not his real name) realised he had a problem with cocaine, he had been off work for a week, sick with flu. His phone buzzed. It was his cocaine dealer, calling to check he was OK. When Dan, one of his favoured customers, hadn’t been in touch to buy the cocaine he usually took several times a week, the dealer knew something was wrong.

“I don’t like thinking about that,” Dan says, shaking his head as we sit in a London pub. Now 36, Dan estimates he has spent £25,000 on cocaine. Lines in the pub on a Friday night after work. Lines on a Wednesday evening at a friend’s house while earnestly discussing 90s hip-hop. Lines at house parties, weddings, birthday parties and for no reason at all, other than that cocaine – the white powder that makes no one a better version of themselves, but that many of us continue to do anyway – is everywhere and freely available.

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Festivalgoers hospitalised in NSW and Victoria after suspected drug-taking

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Eleven people left ill in Sydney and six near Ballarat after Australia Day long weekend music festivals

A teenage boy has been found with almost 600 capsules and $2,000 cash at a Sydney music festival where several people left critically ill due to drug use.

Six young men aged under 25 left the Hardcore Till I Die festival at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday in critical or serious conditions. All were either stable or discharged from hospital by Sunday.

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How can we take power away from criminal gangs? Legalise drugs | Martin Drewry

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Prohibition makes our world a more dangerous place, trapping people in poverty

I have spoken out on many issues during my career, but there is one that leaders in poorer countries passionately lobby me to campaign on: the prohibition of drugs.

The “war on drugs” is harming the most vulnerable and criminalising poverty. It is not a war on drugs – despite decades of prohibition, drug production and consumption is on the increase globally – it is a war on the poor. Prohibition damages people and the planet.

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Revealed: UK patients stockpile drugs in fear of no-deal Brexit

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Doctors call for more transparency amid fears of shortages, especially of insulin

Ministers have been urged by top doctors to reveal the extent of national drug stocks, amid growing evidence patients are stockpiling medication in preparation for a no-deal Brexit.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), which represents tens of thousands of doctors, urged the government to be more “transparent about national stockpiles, particularly for things that are already in short supply or need refrigeration, such as insulin”.

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El Chapo paid $100m bribe to former Mexican president Peña Nieto, witness says

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Alex Cifuentes, a close associate of the cartel chief, testified that he told US authorities about the alleged bribe in 2016

A witness at the US trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has testified that he told US authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100m bribe to former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of the Sinaloa cartel chief for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered: “That’s right.”

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Mexico investigates battle between drug gangs that left at least 20 dead

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The bodies, some burned, found in the northern border town of Tamaulipas that’s convulsed by fighting to control drug trafficking

Mexican authorities are investigating a battle between two suspected gangs that left at least 20 bodies, 17 of them burned, in a border town near where Donald Trump will visit on Thursday to win support for his plan to build a wall.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily morning news conference that initial information pointed to a “battle between two groups”, and that security officials would later provide further information.

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Inside Mother Camp: the woman tackling Afghanistan’s drug problem

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Laila Haidari risks her life to run the country’s only private rehabilitation centre, helping hundreds of addicts a year

Laila Haidari is considered a criminal, despite never committing a crime. The 40-year-old works with drug addicts in Kabul. “The addicts I work with are considered criminal and dangerous and by extension I am considered criminal,” she says.

Despite opposition and death threats, eight years ago, Haidari opened the city’s only private drug rehabilitation centre, which so far has helped nearly 4,800 Afghans who would otherwise have ended up on the streets, or worse, dead.

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Farm bill’s federal hemp provision could disrupt Humboldt County cannabis economy

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A major agriculture bill passed by the U.S. Congress last week could legalize hemp at the federal level, allowing farmers across the country to cultivate hemp, but that doesn't necessarily spell good news for Humboldt County. The bill, which now awaits President Donald Trump's signature, includes a provision that lifts hemp off of a list of federally criminalized drugs.

Marijuana policies at play on Election Day, even in Republican strongholds

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The Long Beach Green Room sells various marijuana products to recreational users and medical patients on Friday, August 31, 2018. Marijuana will once again be a hot topic on Election Day, with the future of local, state and federal cannabis policies in the hands of voters Nov. 6. But this time, voters in states that typically lean Republican will be the ones weighing legalization measures at the ballot box.

Postal Service is the preferred shipper for drug dealers, report says

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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 percent delivery success rate. In addition, of the 96 traffickers who indicated they used the Postal Service as their shipping provider, 43 percent offered free, partial, or full reshipment if the package did not arrive to the buyer's address because it was confiscated, stolen, or lost."

Protesters target opioid maker

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The Winchester family of Philip Baldwin, who fatally overdosed in July 2017, participated in a protest Sunday against Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin. The all-day protest took place outside the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution and at Freedom Park near the White House, according to Beth Baldwin, Philip Baldwin's mother.