45,000 alcoholics die from withdrawal each year. ibid.
This insomnia isn’t unusual for Meth addicts: it’s a chronic side-effect. ibid.
Crystal Meth addicts have a high risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. ibid.
In the US 5 million women are alcoholics. ibid.
Alcohol is the most common drug a person turns to when experiencing trauma. ibid.
18 million Americans are alcoholics … The most abused drug in the United States. Drugged s2e4: High on Alcohol
The first impact of alcohol is rapid. ibid.
The children of alcoholics are four times as likely to become alcoholics themselves. ibid.
The threat of death hangs over every alcoholic … The lack of alcohol has its own hazardous effect. ibid.
Chronic alcohol abuse damages the digestive system making it extremely painful to eat. ibid.
Time and again I learned how one person’s struggle had grown into a crisis for their family and their community. Storyville: The House I Live In, BBC 2013
Since 1971 the War on Drugs has cost more than $1 trillion and resulted in more than 45 million arrests. ibid.
‘Everybody involved hates what’s going on’. ibid. rozzer
With only 5% of the world’s population, the United States holds 25% of its prisoners. Over 500,000 are incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes. ibid.
Black Americans were disproportionately represented. ibid.
In the 1950s as drug use was growing among Americans of all backgrounds, Law Enforcement became increasingly focused on one group in particular. ibid.
Drug laws had done more to punish individuals and their loved ones than to mount a serious effort to prevent drug abuse. ibid.
Today 2.7 million children in America have a parent behind bars. ibid.
‘We have people doing a whole lot of time for not very much crime. It’s almost like they’re paying for our fear’. ibid. screw
Drug laws targeted any immigrant group seen as a threat to the established economic order. ibid.
With overwhelming support Ronald Reagan signed into law an unprecedented array of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. ibid.
‘What’s being taken from them is all hope in the future’. ibid. bloke
‘Wars on ordinary people’. ibid. expert
‘The drug war is a holocaust in slow motion’. ibid. rozzer
The damage that decades of drugs laws have caused. ibid.
Yaba: a menacing mix of Methamphetamine and Caffeine. It’s creating a new epidemic. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Thailand’s Drug Craze, BBC 2013
In less than five years Yaba has completely overtaken all other drug use in Thailand. ibid.
Candy-scented pills. ibid.
Children as young as eight are becoming addicted. ibid.
All over the world hundreds of thousands of people are fighting a hidden war. The outcome of which affects us all. It’s the war against Drugs … A country that’s now replaced Colombia as the world’s number one coke producer. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Cocaine Capital of the World
The coca leaves release the chemical Cocaine Hydrochloride which is then skimmed from the surface of the liquid. Then more chemicals are added. ibid.
Hundreds of thousands of poor people with nothing to lose. ibid.
I’m investigating the struggle to keep drugs out of the West, so I’m heading to Ukraine. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Europe’s Dirty Drugs Secret
Cartels have been smuggling cocaine from South Africa to Western Europe through this port [Odessa]. ibid.
Heroin from Afghanistan in the east has also been trafficked to Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. ibid.
Boltushka is a dangerous chemical cocktail made from prescription drugs and household products. ibid.
‘Krokodil’ is killing users at an alarming rate … Bleach & petrol & chemist’s tablets … A highly toxic cocktail which slowly rots human flesh and bone. ibid.
The world’s best-selling dance drug: ecstasy ... The world-wide trade in ecstasy is huge. Stacey Dooley: Ecstasy Wars, BBC 2015
Some of the most sort-after trees in the world ... the natural oil they contain ... Safro-oil. ibid.
I’m in South Africa – a source of our most used illegal drug: cannabis. Stacey Dooley: The Cannabis Smugglers, BBC 2015
Swaziland is notorious for growing stronger weed. ibid.
Nyaope is a mix of cannabis and heroin. This often cut with HIV drugs, rat poison and other toxic substances. ibid.
It’s estimated that 15% of South Africans have a drug addiction. ibid.
The south of Spain: famous for its beaches and sunshine. But this region is also one of the most popular routes for smuggling cocaine and hashish into Europe. Violent drugs wars between criminal gangs have led to the government to issue a crackdown. Stacey Dooley: Costa del Nacos, BBC 2020
A single boat can carry up to four thousand kilos of hashish. ibid.
We underestimate the power of the drugs trade to corrupt. Professor Neil McKeganey, Centre for Drugs Misuse Research
Millions of tons of narcotics are smuggled into the US every year. Extreme Drug Smuggling, Discovery 2011
From submarines to super-tunnels. ibid.
Drugs are changing: the old generation of party drugs – ecstasy and cocaine – are out. And mephedrone, ketamine and GHB are in. These new party drugs are cheap. Crazy For Party Drugs, BBC 2013
Mephedrone was banned in 2010 but started out as a legal high. ibid.
‘Mephedrone is the Devil’s Dandruff, I call it’. ibid. bloke with broken ankle in Leeds General Infirmary
GHB is a liquid high popular on the party scene – but one drop too much can send you over the edge. ibid.
Whereas previous generations had heroin, cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, and a handful of other conventional drugs, young people across the UK now have dozens of new drugs to choose from. Legally High: True Stories, Channel 4
The new drugs are synthesised by the ton in India and China. ibid.
Their drug of choice is 2MEO-Ketamine, a research chemical. ibid.
Anyone can now sell Mephedrone in bulk. ibid.
As a culture we’re fascinated by them. Your Body on Drugs: Curiosity, Robin Williams, Discovery Science 2013
Four heavy users have volunteered to test how they function after taking the most abused drugs in America: Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Marijuana, and Heroin. ibid.
Most drive on drugs regularly. ibid.
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have perilled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. Edgar Allan Poe
A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole. Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. Charles Bukowski
Even as I’m shovelling up my hooter, I realize the sad truth. Coke bores me. It bores us all. We’re jaded cunts, in a scene we hate, a city we hate, pretending that we’re at the centre of the universe, trashing ourselves with crap drugs to stave off the feeling that real life is happening somewhere else, aware that all we’re doing is feeding that paranoia and disenchantment, yet somehow we’re too apathetic to stop. ’Cause, sadly, there’s nothing else of interest to stop for. Irvine Welsh, Porno