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drugs

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    2/24/2023

    The Real Story Behind "Cocaine Bear"

    The real story of "Pablo Escobear" involves far less action by the bear and much more by a ring of smugglers during the cocaine boom of the 1980s. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    10/25/2022

    Problems with Legal Marijuana will Demand Coherent Policy Response

    by Peter Thilly

    The state-by-state variation in marijuana laws means that legalization has the potential to create inequalities and subject some users to state violence. The history of opium in China shows the need for coherent overarching policies. 

  • SOURCE: Teen Vogue
    8/11/2022

    Another 90's Trend is Back: DARE

    by Rebecca Kavanagh

    The brainchild of LAPD Chief Darryl Gates, DARE wasn't good at steering kids away from drugs. But it was good at bringing police into schools and encouraging kids to report anyone using drugs to the cops. 

  • SOURCE: WNYC
    7/28/2021

    Fifty Years Since the War on Drugs

    "This summer marks 50 years since the war on drugs began under President Richard Nixon. But the opioid overdose epidemic continues to ravage the country, and incarceration—especially of Black people—has skyrocketed over the past 5 decades." 

  • SOURCE: North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
    4/30/2020

    A History of Inconvenient Allies and Convenient Enemies

    by Alexander Aviña

    The history of American alliances abroad doesn't make sense as a drug control strategy, but is consistent with a strategy of invoking the war on drugs to punish governments that resist U.S. domination.

  • SOURCE: Contingent Magazine
    1/13/20

    History and the Opioid Crisis

    by Jeremy Milloy

    In the 1970s, just as now, people living with and recovering from substance use disorders faced prejudice and mistreatment at the hiring stage and in the workplace itself.

  • SOURCE: Nursing Clio
    6/18/19

    The Opioid Epidemic as Metaphor

    by Faith Bennett

    As cinematic portrayals of opioid use and abuse tend to be this sensational, commonplace opioid usage almost feels as if it doesn’t fit into this pattern of addiction at all. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    4/16/19

    The return of ‘reefer madness’

    by Emily Dufton and Lucas Richert

    Both supporters and opponents of legalization are quick to use sensationalism to prove their points, stunting the pursuit of real research needed to determine cannabis’ social effects.

  • SOURCE: National Security Archive
    5/25/18

    Colombia's former president linked to Medellín drug cartel

    A Colombian senator told the U.S. Embassy in 1993 that the founders of the Medellín drug cartel “financed” the election campaign of then-senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez, according to documents posted by the National Security Archive.

  • Obama's Lost War on Drugs

    by Jeremy Kuzmarov

    Rather than relying on our hopeless forty-fourth president and an even more hopeless Republican-controlled Congress, citizen groups need to mobilize together to oppose the waste of their hard earned taxpayer dollars in the War on Drugs. 

  • SOURCE: LA Music Blog
    5-20-13

    Rock music historians debunk myths about Rolling Stones

    Many stories and figures have emerged from the hazy shroud of the genre-defining, five-decades-long sex-, drugs-, and rock n’ roll-fueled bender of The Rolling Stones. God knows some of the stories are exaggerated, while others are even more outrageous than we know.In celebration of The Stones’ 50th anniversary, broadcaster and music historian Pete Fornatale endeavored to get to the bottom of many of the stories surrounding The Rolling Stones’ members and catalog. He passed away in 2012 shortly before the release of his book, 50 Licks: Myths and Stories from Half a Century of the Rolling Stones, earlier this year, but I recently spoke with his two co-authors: son Peter Thomas Fornatale and broadcaster Bernie Corbett....