The US government spends billions of dollars fighting the Mexican drugs cartels. But the Americans stand accused of getting too close to some of the world’s most notorious criminals. This World: Secrets of Mexico's Drug War, BBC 2015
American law enforcement helped the gangs. ibid.
In 2008 the focus shifted to another commodity: heroin produced in Mexico. ibid.
For several years they simply deposited the cash in the bank ... HSBC. ibid.
Amy Winehouse bumps into Jeremy Clarkson and they start to chat.
She says to him, ‘What do you do?’
He replies, ‘Top Gear.’
She says, ‘Fucking brilliant! I’ll have two grams. Amphetamine culture online
Marijuana leads to homosexuality ... and therefore to AIDS. Carlton Turner, White House Drug Czar, 1986
A drugs test? What kind of drugs would I have to take? Mad Money 2008 starring Diane Keaton & Queen Latifah & Katie Holmes & Ted Danson & Roger Cross & Adam Rothenberg & Stephen Root & J C MacKenzie & Christopher McDonald 7 Finesse Mitchell & Bryan Massey et al, director Callie Khouri, Keaton seeking job
Why do we use drugs? And just how far back does our relationship with drugs go? The Stoned Ages, H2 2015
There is no remaining organic evidence for drug use in early hunter-gatherer culture. ibid.
By the fourth century, with the rise of Christian influence, the first anti-drugs laws are introduced to society. ibid.
Different drugs became associated with different races. ibid.
LSD floods the brain ... It’s so potent that two gallons would be enough to take the entire US population on an acid trip. ibid.
50% of all crime in the US is drug-related. ibid.
Behind closed doors Hitler maintained a closely guarded secret ... The Fuhrer was a physical wreck. Secret History: Hitler’s Hidden Drug Habit, Channel 4 2015
His dependence on drugs ... The relationship between Hitler and his doctor ... Hitler took 74 different medications during the Second World War. ibid.
German forces had been pepped up for battle with a Crystal Meth pill called Pervitin. ibid.
By the end of 1943 the Fuhrer was dependent on a destructive mix of uppers and downers. ibid
Thus begins a life-long drug addiction. Goering’s Secret, Yesterday 2015
Oh and I love drugs. The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 starring Leonardo diCaprio & Jonah Hill & Margot Robbie & Matthew McConaughey & Kyle Chandler & Rob Reiner & Jonn Favreau & Jean Dujardin & Joanna Lumley & P J Byrne et al, director Martin Scorsese
The key to success in this racket is this little baby right here – it’s called cocaine. ibid.
Equal parts – cocaine, testosterone and body fluids. ibid.
It’s a young man’s game. Beside, there’s drugs now. The Color of Money 1986 starring Paul Newman & Tom Cruise & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio & Helen Shaver & John Turturro & Bill Cobbs & Robert Agins & Alvin Anastasia & Iggy Popp & Forest Whitaker et al, director Martin Scorsese
The NHS clinic offering detox for people who are hooked on prescription drugs. Panorama, Hooked on Painkillers, BBC 2015
GPs are prescribing record doses of potentially addictive painkillers. Around four million people in the UK are now taking drugs in the same family as heroin. ibid.
We’re on the trail of an organised crime gang that laundered British drugs cash around the world. We reveal how the financial system failed to stop the dirty money. We expose the big city firm that covered up evidence of crime. And we meet the whistleblowers whose lives were destroyed after speaking out. Panorama: Following the Drug Money, BBC 2019
County Lines drugs dealers on the streets of Britain. Under lockdown they have become bolder than ever. It’s a ruthless business that exploits vulnerable children. Panorama spent a year following one of the country’s busiest police forces. Panorama: Drugs, Cops & Lockdown, BBC 2021
A County Line is a drug dealing network often with a city-based dealer distributing illegal drugs in smaller towns. County Lines gangs sell their drugs through phone-dealing lines. Crack and heroin are the most popular drugs. ibid.
They were a new generation of antidepressants hailed as the latest wonder drugs. Now one in seven of us is taking an antidepressant. But only now decades after their launch is a different story being told. How a patient’ movement revealed what some drug companies tried to ignore. Many say they have been helped by antidepressants but for those who have been harmed by them, it’s been a struggle to be heard. Panorama: The Antidepressant Story, BBC 2023
During the 1990s these new antidepressant became global blockbusters … The drugs made millions worldwide. ibid.
This new generation of drugs were the SSRI antidepressants. ibid.
‘Now people accept that a small minority of people will have significant difficulty stopping antidepressants.’ ibid. Professor Taylor
When Hitler unleashes an unseemingly unstoppable army of soldiers on Europe ... a dangerous secret is driving the Nazi forces: now, incredible new research reveals how far Hitler and his high command pushed the drug experiment ... Drug-fuelled Nazi soldiers and the regime that created them. Nazis on Drugs, Discovery 2015
The Allies suspected the Nazis were using something to supercharge their troops. ibid.
A synthetic chemical compound ... Crystal Meth ... consumed by the millions. ibid.
A wonder pick-me-up pill under the brand-name Pervitin. ibid.
Nazi soldiers now had Crystal Meth on tap ... Crystal Meth turned them into ruthless killers. ibid.
At lavish parties Nazi officers pop amphetamines ... The lure of drugs reached to the very top. ibid.
Adolf Hitler had been plagued with episodes of deep depression. ibid.
The Nazi war machine was in danger of ... drug addiction. ibid.
Across the world, the trade in narcotics was one of the most profitable criminal activities. All the major criminal groups in the former Soviet Union had built up extensive business interests in the manufacture of amphetamines and Ecstasy, in the importation of cocaine into Europe and, above all, in the distribution and sale of heroin from Central Asia into Eastern and Western Europe and the USA. Misha Glenny, McMafia
It was during the rule of the IBB that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) noticed how Nigeria was becoming the major trans-shipment centre for cocaine destined for Europe, and for heroin en route to the United States. ibid.
95,548. By 1994 Nigeria had developed into a new and very significant hub for the distribution of cocaine from West to East, and of heroin in the opposite direction. ibid.
The debate between Washington and Ottawa and the future course of narcotics policy have enormous implications for the shadow global economy, for transnational organised crime, for international policing, and for domestic policy around the world. ibid.
But if economic globalisation has enabled this huge expansion, cultural globalisation has also played a part, advertising the pleasures offered by narcotics in regions that were opening up as markets. Rave culture, for example, and the accompanying use of drugs such as Amphetamines and Ecstasy, swept across the world, reaching Japan. ibid.
But with narcotics, where demand is immense and relentless, prohibition drives the market towards the only place capable of satisfying that demand and regulating the industry: organised crime. ibid.
Prohibition is also a godsend to terrorist networks. Organisations like the Taliban and al-Qaeda fund their activities through the narcotics trade. ibid.
Cultivation of the opium poppy had sky-rocketed by more than 1,000% within the first year of Afghanistan’s occupation. It was not long before the Taliban was rearming itself by taxing this opium harvest. ibid.
If a country supports prohibition, it is also guaranteeing that on the supply side all profits will accrue to underground networks; and on the demand side it is guaranteeing that any social or public-health problems associated with drug-taking will only come to light in the great majority of cases once they are out of control. ibid.
Lev Timofeev argues that prohibition tends to distort the market, favouring cartels and monopoly tendencies. This is because, he continues, larger organisations are more efficient at enforcing their monopoly than smaller ones. Translated into the vernacular, this means that big criminal groups can beat the shit out of smaller ones. ibid.
In 1973, inspired by President Nixon’s War on Drugs, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, introduced a new set of Drug Laws that remain in force to this day, continuing to bear his name. For possessing a risible amount of any drugs, New Yorkers risk draconian sentences of between fifteen years and life in a state penitentiary. And New York State pays out more than $500 million every year to keep incarcerated those who have fallen foul of this regime. ibid.