Ben Westhoff and Emily Dufton will join Katie on Substack Live on July 16th at 10 pm PT / 1 pm ET. They will talk about their books and their opinions on drugs and the war on drugs. The live video chat is open to all Subsack subscribers but archived for Primos only.
"The Deadliest Drug" is a multipart series by STAT about excessive alcohol use. Alcohol kills more Americans each year than all illicit drugs combined. Alcohol-related emergency department visits nearly doubled in the U.S. between 2003 and 2022. American emergency rooms recorded roughly 5.4 million visits due to alcohol in 2022.
Sean Tighe, 50, and Juan Rodriguez, 51, were among nine people charged and convicted for their roles in the organisation that imported more than one metric tonne of fentanyl-related substances and other drugs into the US. Five people have been sentenced to a total of 685 months in prison. The fentanyl crisis in the United States has killed tens of thousands of people annually in recent years. Washington characterised China as the primary source of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture the drug.
The illicit drug crisis requires a coordinated, multi-agency response. The National Institute of Standards and Technology convened stakeholders from law enforcement, border interdiction, forensic science, and public health for a two-day workshop in June 2025. The workshop aimed to assess the current landscape of drug surveillance data and identify pathways to overcome systemic barriers to information sharing.
The state of Washington wants Albertsons to be held responsible over its purported role in the opioid crisis. The supermarket chain is the state's second largest pharmacist. It dispensed more than 600 million opioid prescription drug pills to customers between 2006 and 2022. The state claims that 60% of those orders had "red flags" or warning signs about the customers. The grocery chain's lawyer says the red flag analysis prepared by Washington is meaningless.
Amy Massey used ketamine for years and suffered from severe bladder damage. Mat Southwell introduced her to ketamine harm reduction strategies pioneered by drug-user activists. After adopting these approaches, Massey's symptoms improved and her surgery was cancelled. Massey is now a peer trainer and a member of the Ketamine Peer Advisory Group (K-PAG).
Alcohol kills more than 178,000 Americans each year. The U.S. has not made a concerted effort to reduce heavy drinking since Prohibition ended nearly a century ago. Screenings are inconsistent or superficial, and there is a lack of follow-up for people with problematic drinking.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) makes and communicates decisions that directly affect the health choices and well-being of the US public. Behavioral and decision scientists have long supported FDA’s pharmaceutical (medical drug) regulatory and public health mission. This Perspective describes four interrelated cases illustrating these collaborations.
Enrique is a high-level co-ordinator in Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. He explains how ingredients to make the deadly drug fentanyl are shipped thousands of miles from Chinese factories to laboratories in Mexico. Enrique credits Brother Wang with establishing this supply chain. Brother Wang is a 39-year-old Chinese national whose real name is Zhang Zhidong.
Weekly digital edition of SPIEGEL includes e-paper (PDF), digital archive and S+ newsletter. Free access to all S+ articles on SPIEGel.de and in the app (e-paper, digital archive, and newsletter). For more information, visit the website.
Ben Westhoff and Emily Dufton will join Katie on Substack Live on July 16th at 10 pm PT / 1 pm ET. They will talk about their books and their opinions on drugs and the war on drugs. The live video chat is open to all Subsack subscribers but archived for Primos only.
"The Deadliest Drug" is a multipart series by STAT about excessive alcohol use. Alcohol kills more Americans each year than all illicit drugs combined. Alcohol-related emergency department visits nearly doubled in the U.S. between 2003 and 2022. American emergency rooms recorded roughly 5.4 million visits due to alcohol in 2022.
Sean Tighe, 50, and Juan Rodriguez, 51, were among nine people charged and convicted for their roles in the organisation that imported more than one metric tonne of fentanyl-related substances and other drugs into the US. Five people have been sentenced to a total of 685 months in prison. The fentanyl crisis in the United States has killed tens of thousands of people annually in recent years. Washington characterised China as the primary source of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture the drug.
The illicit drug crisis requires a coordinated, multi-agency response. The National Institute of Standards and Technology convened stakeholders from law enforcement, border interdiction, forensic science, and public health for a two-day workshop in June 2025. The workshop aimed to assess the current landscape of drug surveillance data and identify pathways to overcome systemic barriers to information sharing.
The state of Washington wants Albertsons to be held responsible over its purported role in the opioid crisis. The supermarket chain is the state's second largest pharmacist. It dispensed more than 600 million opioid prescription drug pills to customers between 2006 and 2022. The state claims that 60% of those orders had "red flags" or warning signs about the customers. The grocery chain's lawyer says the red flag analysis prepared by Washington is meaningless.
Amy Massey used ketamine for years and suffered from severe bladder damage. Mat Southwell introduced her to ketamine harm reduction strategies pioneered by drug-user activists. After adopting these approaches, Massey's symptoms improved and her surgery was cancelled. Massey is now a peer trainer and a member of the Ketamine Peer Advisory Group (K-PAG).
Alcohol kills more than 178,000 Americans each year. The U.S. has not made a concerted effort to reduce heavy drinking since Prohibition ended nearly a century ago. Screenings are inconsistent or superficial, and there is a lack of follow-up for people with problematic drinking.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) makes and communicates decisions that directly affect the health choices and well-being of the US public. Behavioral and decision scientists have long supported FDA’s pharmaceutical (medical drug) regulatory and public health mission. This Perspective describes four interrelated cases illustrating these collaborations.
Enrique is a high-level co-ordinator in Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. He explains how ingredients to make the deadly drug fentanyl are shipped thousands of miles from Chinese factories to laboratories in Mexico. Enrique credits Brother Wang with establishing this supply chain. Brother Wang is a 39-year-old Chinese national whose real name is Zhang Zhidong.
Weekly digital edition of SPIEGEL includes e-paper (PDF), digital archive and S+ newsletter. Free access to all S+ articles on SPIEGel.de and in the app (e-paper, digital archive, and newsletter). For more information, visit the website.