In 2013 stories emerged of gangs stealing plasma TV screens to use to make street drugs. It’s a myth, but it tells us something about South Africa’s social anxieties.
Around 200 people in England use diamorphine as a treatment for drug addiction.
Jim Wileman/ Alamy Stock Photo
Current supply shortages may also be a problem for people in palliative care or receiving cancer treatment.
Cash crop: poppy cultivation and heroin trafficking vie with people smuggling as some of the most lucrative ways of making money in Afghanistan.
EPA-EFE/Ghulamullah Habibi
Having taken charge of multiple vital border trading posts, the Taliban is now increasingly in control of the Afghan drug trade.
According to Oregon law, possessing a small amount of drugs for personal consumption is now a civil – rather than criminal – offense.
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Possessing heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs for personal use is no longer a criminal offense in Oregon. The idea is to get people with problem drug use help, not punishment.
Opium played a fascinating role in southern African colonial politics, conflict and social change - from the poppy fields of Mozambique to the early days of Johannesburg city.
From colonial poppy fields to pharmatrash, southern Africa offers a fascinating history of drug regimes – one that helps us make sense of drug policies and legislation today.
To reduce opioid-related harms, we must ensure treatments for opioid dependence are accessible to those who need them.
From shutterstock.com
In the early 1970s, rumors about poisoned candy on Halloween led to mass paranoia. A historian explains why such fears emerge – and what, in reality, feeds them.
Naloxone, available as a nasal spray called Narcan or in injectable form, resuscitates 100% of people who overdose if administered quickly.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Opioid overdoses killed 47,000 Americans in 2017 — more than gun violence. Many fewer would have died if they’d been treated with the life-saving drug naloxone, also called Narcan.
A safety committee convened by the FDA has declared esketamine safe for severe depression. But isn’t this drug the same as ketamine, an illegal street drug? A medical anthropologist explains.