Issue

Drug Crises

Militant Islamists escort drug convoys through northern Mali in exchange for hefty payments. The U.S. military and Honduran authorities use commando-style tactics to catch traffickers in the remote jungles of La Moskitia. A 15-year old from Ciudad Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico, chooses the clarinet over drugs after dropping out of school twice.

Drug Crises tells of men, women, and children who risk their lives—as drug users, traffickers, smugglers, and enforcement agents. You will find searing portraits of those who suffer from addiction, their family members, and loved ones. These are stories not only of lives lost and opportunities missed, but also of the fear and disruption that can overwhelm a community.

Pulitzer Center journalists expose corruption, extortion, and murder in an often violent war on drugs, fought in all corners of the globe, in Cuba and Crimea, in Bolivia and Burma, and from the Philippines to Tajikistan. They cover various recovery programs, such as opioid substitution therapy, as well as policy debates involving the roles of drug enforcement agents, the police, the military, and government. And they ask important questions: Are drug users criminals or patients in need of medical treatment?

 

Drug Crises

Body Hunters

The mothers of Mexico's missing learn forensic investigative techniques to try to uncover what happened to their children and identify bodies found in mass graves. 

Guinea-Bissau: West Africa's New Achilles' Heel

An international network led by Latin American drug cartels and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah has chosen West Africa, among the poorest and more corrupted corners of the world, as the nexus for illegal trade in cocaine, oil, counterfeit medicines, pirated music and human trafficking. International law enforcement officials...

Cuba: Tropical Depression

Six months after Fidel Castro's exit, Lygia Navarro explores the hidden epidemic of depression in Cuba. With the wait for social and economic transformation dragging on, many Cubans find escape from the difficulty of day-to-day life in black-market sleeping pills. Although Cuba's medical system is lauded internationally, the government...

Is the War on Drugs Over?

A panel discussion on U.S. drug policy with Hamilton Morris, Kathleen Frydl, and César Gaviria, the former president of Colombia. Sponsored by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and n+1.