The 1960 Newport Jazz Festival is perhaps best remembered for Anita O’Day’s legendary rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown”—a performance she later found herself unable to recall, due to the fact that she was strung out on heroin when she took the stage. But while we can’t help but get shivers when O’Day croons, our favorite […]
Having finally closed the Wired story that sent us out to Kenya last fall, we’ve moved on to another big project for the magazine. This time the focus will be on addiction, which means you should expect plenty of drug-policy posts in the coming months. We’ll kick off the fiesta today by noting this paper […]
“There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster,” Lenny Bruce once opined. While there’s certainly a kernel of truth to that statement, we believe the late comedian missed the mark by just a few degrees. Far sadder, in our estimation, is an aging drug addict, whose aims to recapture lost glory not by feigning interest […]
Tags:books·drugs·heroin·Irvine Welsh·life expectancy·opium·public health·Scotland·statistics·Trainspotting
Allied troops in Afghanistan are celebrating a heroin bust reputed to be one of the biggest ever: Approximately 92 tons of street-ready horse, along with several tons more of “processing chemicals.” Given our nerdly inclinations, our first thought upon learning of this seizure was, “Why no details on those chemicals?” Because the unsung villain in […]
Tags:acetic anhydride·Afghanistan·chemistry·drugs·heroin·India
Today’s installment of NtHWS Extras is gonna have a past-is-prologue feel, as we look back at Japan’s alleged narcotics profiteering during World War II. We’re accustomed to hearing plenty about the Taliban’s reliance on narco-dollars, but Japan’s wartime opium production is now largely forgotten. At the time, however, American politicians were fond of harping on […]
Tags:Afghanistan·drugs·heroin·Japan·North Korea·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·opium·Taliban
