Category Archives: Drugs

Mexico president calls for ‘transparency’ amid secrecy over Sinaloa cartel arrests

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US announces arrest of two leaders of organised crime group as Mexican authorities say they were in the dark

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for “transparency” after the sudden and secretive arrests by US authorities of two top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 76, founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and has been a top target of US law enforcement for decades, with a $15m bounty on his head.

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Crisis at Tres Fronteras: how criminal syndicates threaten Amazon’s future

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At the lawless triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru, drug trafficking, illegal logging and gangs jeopardise the ecological and social fabric of the rainforest

The area of the Amazon where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet – referred to as Tres Fronteras (triple frontier) – brims with wildlife and natural resources. It is also a hotbed of illicit activity. Criminal groups are clearing the forest to plant coca and erect laboratories to turn the crop into cocaine. In the process of making coca paste, these labs discharge chemical waste – including acetone, gasoline and sulphuric acid – into rivers and soil.

Increasingly, these outfits are branching into illegal logging, gold dredging and fishing, in part because these activities allow them to launder money made from drug trafficking. These activities compound the environmental harm the groups are inflicting.

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Synthetic opioid detected in bodies of four people found dead in Melbourne home

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Police confirm drug’s presence after deaths of boy, 17, and three adults in Broadmeadows last week

A synthetic opioid has been found in the bodies of four people found dead in a Melbourne home last week, police say.

The bodies of the 17-year-old boy, two men aged 32 and 37, and a 42-year-old woman were discovered at the property in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne’s north, in the early hours of 25 June.

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Florida boaters find $1m worth of cocaine in Atlantic Ocean

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Wrapped in bald eagle packaging, 21kg of cocaine was found off the Florida Keys coast

Boaters have discovered $1m worth of cocaine off the coast of the Florida Keys, authorities announced.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, the Monroe county sheriff’s department announced that recreational boaters discovered a package containing approximately 21kg (61lbs) of packaged cocaine around seven miles (11km) off Islamorada, a village of islands in the Florida Keys.

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US woman faces up to 30 years in prison over bong water: ‘It’s just so wrong’

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Minnesota police charge Jessica Beske, 43, after traces of methamphetamine found in drug paraphernalia in her car

A woman who was pulled over by Minnesota police officers faces up to 30 years in prison after a bong containing water that tested positive for methamphetamine was discovered in her car, despite Minnesota decriminalizing drug paraphernalia last year.

The case shows how some are still affected by harsher laws from the “war on drugs” era.

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Rare birds at risk as narco-gangs move into forests to evade capture – report

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Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America’s key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds

Cocaine consumption is threatening rare tropical birds as narco-traffickers move into some of the planet’s most remote forests to evade drug crackdowns, a study has warned.

Two-thirds of key forest habitats for birds in Central America are at risk of being destroyed by “narco-driven” deforestation, according to the paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Sustainability.

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Akira Endo, ‘remarkable’ scientist who discovered statins, dies aged 90

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Biochemist found cholesterol-lowering compound in 1973 and the drugs have prolonged millions of lives

The scientist whose work led to the creation of statins, a chemical that prevents heart attacks and strokes, has died aged 90.

Akira Endo found the first cholesterol-lowering compound in 1973 in a lab in Tokyo. The Japanese biochemist was said to have been inspired by Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928, which lead him to study mould or fungi in order to develop medicines.

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Canadian drug advocacy group founders charged with trafficking

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Vancouver’s volunteer-led ‘compassion club’ offered users pure drugs like heroin and cocaine to prevent overdose deaths

Two founders of a drug advocacy group who sold cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in defiance of Canada’s federal government have been charged with trafficking-related offences.

Police in Vancouver said charges of possession for the purposes of trafficking were approved on 31 May against 28-year-old Jeremy Kalicum and 33-year-old Eris Nyx, co-founders of the Drug User Liberation Front. Kalicum and Nyx were arrested in October, but were only charged recently, and are due to appear in court on 2 July.

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Florida divers find trove of suspected cocaine packages in Atlantic Ocean

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State is considered a high-intensity trafficking spot where ‘cocaine sharks’ may be consuming the drugs underwater

Divers in Key West, Florida, have discovered more than a dozen packages of suspected cocaine in the Atlantic Ocean.

On Wednesday, the sheriff’s office in Monroe county announced the discovery, saying that divers found 25kg of individually wrapped packages of suspected cocaine that were located approximately 100ft underwater.

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Trial results for new lung cancer drug are ‘off the charts’, say doctors

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More than half of patients with advanced forms of disease who took lorlatinib were still alive after five years with no progression

Doctors are hailing “off the chart” trial results that show a new drug stopped lung cancer advancing for longer than any other treatment in medical history.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

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Huge number of deaths linked to superbugs can be avoided, say experts

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Models suggest deaths in poorer countries could be cut by 18% – or about 750,000 a year – with preventive measures

Every year 750,000 deaths linked to drug-resistant superbugs could be prevented through better access to clean water and sanitation, infection control and childhood vaccinations, research suggests.

Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a huge global challenge, with the evolution of drug-resistant superbugs, driven by factors including inappropriate and excessive antibiotic use, raising the prospect of a future where modern medicine fails.

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Medical cannabis: cross-party committee says Australia needs new roadside impairment test

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Researchers have questioned whether existing drug-driving laws can be relied on as an accurate measure of driver impairment

Greens senator and medicinal cannabis user Peter Whish-Wilson said the federal government had a “duty” to fund research into drug driving impairment levels, as leaders grapple with how to balance existing laws with medicinal THC use.

The joint committee on law enforcement has looked at the “challenges and opportunities” in tackling the nation’s drug problem, identifying the mismatch between medicinal cannabis use and existing drug-driving laws as an issue needing to be addressed.

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More than 100,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses in 2023

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Sobering figure obscures the fact that the number of overdose deaths in the US declined for the first time since 2018

An estimated 107,543 people died of drug overdoses in the US in 2023, a shocking figure that obscures a glimmer of hope – this is the first annual decline in drug overdose deaths since 2018.

The grim toll represents Americans’ struggle with powerful synthetic drugs, in particular the synthetic opioid fentanyl, known to be up to 100 times stronger than morphine. More than 1 million people have died of a drug overdose since 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Warning over asthma drug after 500 neuropsychiatric reactions reported in young children

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UK medicines regulator says information on boxes of montelukast will alert users to risk of mood and behaviour changes

More than 500 adverse neuropsychiatric reactions have been reported in children under the age of nine involving an asthma drug which is to get new warnings over its risks.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced last week that more prominent warnings would be added to the information provided on boxes of the asthma drug montelukast, sold under the brand name Singulair.

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British Columbia abruptly drops drug decriminalization after backlash

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Premier asks government to reintroduce ban, ending Canada’s first large attempt to gauge effects of decriminalization

British Columbia has abruptly reversed course on its landmark experiment decriminalizing the possession of certain illicit drugs, citing mounting public frustration and “disorder” in the Canadian province.

Premier David Eby said on Friday that he had asked the federal government to reintroduce a ban on public drug use, formally ending the country’s first large attempt to gauge the effects of decriminalization.

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Synthetic opioids: warning issued in NSW after nitazenes cause cluster of overdoses

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NSW Health investigating after powerful drugs detected in samples related to overdoses in Nepean Blue Mountains local health district

A cluster of 20 drug overdoses in New South Wales has prompted the state’s health department to issue a public warning about the danger of synthetic opioids, which are often substantially more powerful than heroin.

Called nitazenes, the drugs are often mixed into other substances such as MDMA and heroin without the user’s knowledge.

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Laughing gas abuse contributed to student’s death, inquest rules

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Ellen Mercer, 24, inhaled up to three ‘big bottles’ of nitrous oxide a day, Berkshire coroner’s court told

Long-term laughing gas abuse contributed to a 24-year-old student’s death, an inquest has ruled.

Ellen Mercer inhaled up to three “big bottles” of nitrous oxide every day, Berkshire coroner’s court heard. Mercer was taken to Wexham Park hospital for emergency treatment in the early hours of 9 February last year after she reported that she could not walk and would fall over when she tried.

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Queensland’s first festival pill-testing service finds ‘Canberra ketamine’ sold as MDMA

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Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival, near Warwick, held Australia’s first multi-day festival clinic last weekend

The organisers of Queensland’s first festival pill-testing service say many drugs sold as MDMA turned out to be other substances including one recently dubbed “Canberra ketamine”.

The Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival, near Warwick, held the first multi-day festival clinic in Australia on the weekend, after two patrons died at the same event in 2019.

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Queensland opposition leader casts doubt over future of state’s new pill testing regime

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David Crisafulli criticises pill testing trial in sign opposition may roll back harm minimisation polices if elected in October

The Queensland opposition leader, David Crisafulli, has criticised the state’s new pill testing regime, a potential sign his party would roll back Labor’s new drug policies if elected in October.

The sunshine state opened its first festival clinic on Thursday and will open the first fixed site clinic in Brisbane next month. The Labor government has committed to open a second once a site has been confirmed.

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Woman dead and two others in hospital after suspected drug overdoses on the Gold Coast

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Woman, 43, died after paramedics were called to a Surfers Paradise hotel on Friday night

A woman has died and two others have been hospitalised after suspected drug overdoses on the Gold Coast.

Queensland paramedics were called to a hotel in Surfers Paradise at 10.58pm on Friday night. Emergency responders found seven patients, three of whom were in critical condition, including a 43-year-old woman who was experiencing cardiac arrest at the scene.

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