Drug Wars

A Drug Lord and His Hungry, Hungry Cocaine Hippos

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar had so much money that he literally could not spend it fast enough. He and the Medellín cartel he started dominated the cocaine trade in the 1980s. By then, he was earning about $420 million per week. Storing piles of cash in fields and warehouses, he’d write off 10 percent […]
The post A Drug Lord and His Hungry, Hungry Cocaine Hippos first appeared on Dissident Voice.

Decriminalized Marijuana Reinvents Racism and Poisoning

The change in marijuana laws across the US raises issues far beyond, “Hey, dude, we can blow a joint now without getting busted.” The racism that permeated the age of criminalization now lurks throughout the phase of decriminalization. The burgeoning business of growing pot raises the specter of corporate agriculture with its threats to human […]

Requiem for a People-Centered World Dream

My dream is to invite a reader into a room and pour a nice cup of tea . . . and then nail the door shut. — author Charles Bowden, 2010 NPR interview There is so much daily that expresses so much about the slippery slopes we are in globally because of predatory-penury-parasitic-pugilistic capitalism. In the […]
The post Requiem for a People-Centered World Dream first appeared on Dissident Voice.

The War in Afghanistan: The real “Crime of the Century” behind the Opioid Crisis

In May, the HBO television network aired a new two-part documentary exploring America’s ongoing opioid epidemic entitled The Crime of the Century. The first episode summarized the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the crisis, specifically that of Sackler family drug-maker Purdue Pharma and its deadly prescription painkiller, OxyContin. Part One also thoroughly investigates the […]

Biden and the Pot Heads: The Return of the Drug Moralists

Promises are very much made to be broken, and the Biden administration is proving to be no exception.  In a moral fit, the Biden White House has gone through the ranks of staffers with a keen eye on past marijuana use and wielded the axe and cudgel.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, a firm […]
The post Biden and the Pot Heads: The Return of the Drug Moralists first appeared on Dissident Voice.

Incredible Lightness of Quetzalcóatl

From the far distance sounded the muffled howling of a family of monkeys, monos gritones, passing the night in the crowns of the mighty trees. It echoed through the jungle like the roar of an angry mountain lion. Gruesome and terrifying, it seemed to tear the night apart, but it did not disturb the jungle. It sang and fiddled, chirped and whistled, whined and whimpered, rejoiced and lamented its ever-unchanging song with the constancy of the roaring sea.