A Heroin Crisis Rears Its Head as a Presidential Campaign Issue

Staff / Truthdig Oct 10, 2015 With New Hampshire battling record overdose deaths, the sense has emerged that candidates who are not prepared to discuss the matter may as well skip the state's primary. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Recalled to Life

Chris Hedges / Truthdig Mar 24, 2014 Christine Pagano's drug addictions took her from a middle-class home to prostitution and homelessness on the streets of Camden, N.J., one of our poorest cities. Her journey into hell showed her the other America. Dig deeper ( 18 Min. Read )

Reformulated Drug Sends Users Elsewhere

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jul 14, 2012 A harder-to-abuse version of OxyContin released two years ago has pushed users to other drugs that mimic the effects of opiates, including heroin. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Study: Alcohol More Harmful Than Crack

Staff / Truthdig Nov 2, 2010 Startling but true, according to one of those expert sources that make these kinds of pronouncements: Alcohol is more harmful to both users and those around them than crack cocaine. It's worse than heroin too. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge: Karzai’s Alleged Drug Problem

Staff / Truthdig Apr 7, 2010 Peter Galbraith, the former U.N. envoy who claims he was fired for trying to confront the election fraud in Afghanistan, says of Hamid Karzai: “In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports.” (video after the jump) Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Junk Food Is the New Crack

Staff / Truthdig Mar 29, 2010 Those who have ever suspected, after apparently taking leave of their reason in the face of their favorite junk food, that their guilt-inducing pleasure contained some highly addictive substance may not be too far off the mark, according to a new study. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Supporters Hold London Vigil for British Death Row Inmate in China (Updated)

Staff / Truthdig Dec 29, 2009 With less than a day to go before his scheduled execution in China, British supporters of Londoner Akmal Shaikh held an eleventh-hour vigil in London on Monday in an attempt to persuade the Chinese government to spare his life, arguing that Shaikh, 53, suffers from mental illness. Update after the jump. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Is the ‘War on Drugs’ Ending?

Staff / Truthdig Sep 6, 2009 Mexico and Argentina's recent decisions to decriminalize the personal use of drugs mark a growing trend across Latin America to reject the now-40-year-old, U.S.-led, Nixon-founded "war on drugs" as both harmful and ineffective. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

U.S., Britain Part Company in the Poppy Fields

Staff / Truthdig Jun 29, 2009 The U.S. has decided to stop funding poppy field eradication in Afghanistan, declaring the policy a failure and a waste of money. Since 2003, opium production has gone up 40-fold in Afghanistan, making it the producer of 90 percent of the world's heroin. But Britain, backed by the Afghan government, will continue destroying poppy fields as a way to stem the drug trade. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Drugs Are Sick

Staff / Truthdig Jun 24, 2009 U.N. drug chief Antonio Maria Costa believes drug use should be treated as an illness and not criminalized. Costa says international law enforcement should shift focus to traffickers rather than users, an intriguing (look at the U.S. prison population) but problematic (look at Mexico's drug war death toll) strategy. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Portugal’s New Fix for Drug Users

Staff / Truthdig Oct 8, 2007 Portugal is the latest European country to pick up on a growing trend of favoring therapy over jail for possession and use of small amounts of illegal drugs. Critics of the new law worry that Portugal will become a hot spot for foreign drug users, but supporters believe the law will shift the focus of the government's anti-drug efforts from users to traffickers and will give addicts a better chance to get clean. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Robert Scheer — Afghanistan: High on Opium, Not Democracy

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Sep 6, 2006 While Bush was distracted with Iraq, the patrons of terrorism were very much in business back where the 9/11 attack was hatched, turning Afghanistan into a narco-state that provides a lucrative source of cash for the "evildoers" Bush forgot about. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )