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9 Drugs trade 9.1 The most persistent of all legends, still present in Tommaso Buscetta's confessions, is that there once existed an honourable mafia which refused on principle to involve itself in drug operations. If this version of history is clearly inaccurate, involvement in the drugs trade did lead to profound changes in the mafia. It produced enormous profits, led to the closer ties with Cosa Nostra in the USA and to the internationalisation of the mafia. Si fa risalire al summit mafioso dell'ottobre 1957, svoltosi a Palermo presso l'Hotel delle Palme, il
Why did the international drug regulatory regime of the twentieth century fail to stop an explosive increase in trade and consumption of illegal drugs? This study investigates the histories of smugglers and criminal entrepreneurs in the Netherlands who succeeded in turning the country into the so-called ‘Colombia of Europe’ or the ‘international drug supermarket’. Increasing state regulations and intervention led to the proliferation of ‘criminal anarchy’, a ‘hydra’ of small, anarchic groups and networks ideally suited to circumvent the enforcement of regulation. Networks of smugglers and suppliers of heroin, cocaine, cannabis, XTC, and other drugs were organized without a strict formal hierarchy and based on personal relations and cultural affinities rather than on institutional arrangements. These networks used the excellent logistics and infrastructure of the country and stimulated the development of illegal drug production from Afghanistan to Morocco. They transformed the Netherlands into a transit hub for the international drug trade, supplying other European countries and the UK. They developed direct and indirect connections between supply countries and demand in the Americas. They also created a thriving underground industry of illegal synthetic drug laboratories and indoor cannabis cultivation in the Netherlands itself. Their operations were made possible and developed because of the deep historical social and cultural ‘embeddedness’ of criminal anarchy in Dutch society. Using examples from the rich history of drug smuggling, this book investigates the deeper and hidden foundation of the illegal drug trade, and its effects on our drug policies.
Never has a reconsideration of the place of drugs in our culture been more urgent than it is today. Drugs are seen as both panaceas and panapathogens, and the apparent irreconcilability of these alternatives lies at the heart of the cultural crises they are perceived to engender. Yet the meanings attached to drugs are always a function of the places they come to occupy in culture. This book investigates the resources for a re-evaluation of the drugs and culture relation in several key areas of twentieth-century cultural and philosophical theory. Addressing themes such as the nature of consciousness, language and the body, alienation, selfhood, the image and virtuality, the nature/culture dyad and everyday life – as these are expressed in the work of such key figures as Freud, Benjamin, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze – it argues that the ideas and concepts by which modernity has attained its measure of self-understanding are themselves, in various ways, the products of encounters with drugs and their effects. In each case, the reader is directed to the points at which drugs figure in the formulations of ‘high theory’, and it is revealed how such thinking is never itself a drug-free zone. Consequently, there is no ground on which to distinguish ‘culture’ from ‘drug culture’ in the first place.
Is there a pill for love? What about an anti-love drug, to help you get over your ex? This book argues that certain psychoactive substances, including MDMA—the active ingredient in Ecstasy—might help ordinary couples work through relationship difficulties and strengthen their connection. Others may help sever emotional ties during a breakup, with transformative implications for how we think about love. Oxford ethicists Julian Savulescu and Brian D. Earp build a case for conducting research into "love drugs" and "anti-love drugs" and explore their ethical implications for individuals and society. Why are we still in the dark about the effects of common medications on romantic partnerships? How can we overhaul scientific research norms to put interpersonal factors front and center? Biochemical interventions into love and relationships are not some far-off speculation. Our most intimate connections are already being influenced by drugs we ingest for other purposes. Controlled studies are already underway to see whether artificial brain chemicals might enhance couples' therapy. And conservative religious groups are already experimenting with certain medications to quash romantic desires—and even the urge to masturbate—among children and vulnerable sexual minorities. Simply put, the horse has bolted. Where it runs is up to us. Love is the Drug arms readers with the latest scientific knowledge as well as a set of ethical tools that you can use to decide for yourself if these sorts of medications should be a part of our society. Or whether a chemical romance might be right for you.
Ch a pter 9 ANTI - LOVE DRUGS a cure for love, is almost as old as love itself. References crop up in the writings of Lucretius, Ovid, Shakespeare, and many others and are tightly linked to the idea that love, desire, and especially obsessive infatuation can sometimes be like a serious illness: bad for your physical and mental health and in some cases destructive to your overall well-being. The playwright George Bernard Shaw called romantic love one of “the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions” and even mocked the idea that
I think there’s a genuine prospect of untreatable malaria unless there is considerable incentive to develop new drugs, and that the spectre of untreatable malaria will rise within the relatively near future. We could have untreatable malaria as we go into the next century. 1
The Corner makes its political intentions clear from the beginning. Its first scene shows its director Charles S. Dutton in Western Baltimore talking about the prevalence of open-air drug markets across major cities in America. This is, he tells us, “the information center of the neighborhood” but also “the place of death, of addiction or the suddenness of gunshots.” In Dutton's words, The Corner is a story about “the men, women, and children living in the midst of the drug trade,” people whose “voices are too rarely
This essay positions the drug-using doctor at the intersection between traditional Gothic horror and a new fin-de-siècle medical realism, embedding the cultural anxieties at the fin de siècle in relation to the ethical and theological boundaries of scientific knowledge. The objective is to provide a framework for reading and interpreting the medico-gothic narrative of addiction. The essay examines the writings of three pioneering physician-scientists: one historical – Sigmund Freud – and two fictional – Dr Jekyll, in Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Strange Case of DrJekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and Dr Seward in Bram Stoker‘s Dracula (1897).
3 Deconstruction and drugs – all mixed up Nick had a deprecating little laugh that he used for punctuation. Sort of an apology for talking at all in the telepathizing world of the addict … (W. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p.170) ‘You’re feeling it aren’t you?’ ‘Yeah, I am actually.’ ‘It’s quite impossible to describe, isn’t it?’ ‘Yeah, it is.’ (M. Amis, Dead Babies, p.187) Sometimes ah think that people become junkies because they subconsciously crave a wee bit of silence. (I. Welsh, Trainspotting, p. 7) He couldn’t tell at first but he was dancing like a maniac
12 From Galileo to embryos and narcotic drugs: the quest for the right to science Marco Cappato Introduction: from Galileo to embryos ‘Foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture’ (Library of Social Science 2016). This was the conclusion reached in 1615 by the Roman Inquisition on Galileo Galilei’s heliocentrism. Using a telescope, Galileo had observed the moons of Jupiter and sunspots, and advocated a heliocentric solar system. He also conducted investigations in buoyancy