Cocaine is a drug which has a certain ‘high life’ status attached to it, mainly because of its price. It is expensive. Conversely, amphetamines have a similar stimulant effect, yet their average street price is only a fraction of that of cocaine. The large profit margins make cutting cocaine with other substances a lucrative option for drug dealers. Most users are aware of the potential impurities of cocaine, but they do not know much about impurity levels or the modern adulterants used. To address this gap, we looked at a recent paper published by Julian Broséus and colleagues, from the Univ…

“People are afraid of the Police. If you go to protests… you are marked and whenever they see you, they might stop you, control you.” This is just one of the obstacles restraining drug user activism in Macedonia. An article by Vlatko Dekov.

“The local authorities in Bucharest, Romania, don’t have any official statistics on the city’s homeless population.” According to a local NGO, there were about 5,000 people in 2010. Read the story of Florian, by Vlad Odobescu, who cannot go to shelters because of his alcoholism.

Hallucinogens are known to affect cognition, perception and emotions; we still, however, know little about how these drugs produce their mind-altering effects. Hallucinogenic action is thought to occur by binding and activating a subtype of serotonin receptor, called the 2A. In this edition of Dose of Science, we look at a recent paper which demonstrates the role of this receptor during psychedelic experiences.

Vašek is a drug user; when he was younger, he played football for many years. He had a dream – to have a football cup for drug users. Watch this video of David Pešek from the Czech SANANIM Contact Centre about the Harm Reduction Cup 2016.

An image from the centre of Skopje: Children, barely five years old, walk around the park, holding a bag, pressing it to their faces from time to time to inhale. Healthy Options Project Skopje fights for available treatments for these kids thus for their lives.

“Instead of promoting harm reduction programs, journalists and other relevant actors use stigmatizing and discriminating terminology” Ognjen Martinović and Irena Molnar from the Serbian NGO Re Generation deconstruct the problem drug and terminological confusion.

While the federal government of Germany does not dare to change cannabis laws, cities like Berlin and Düsseldorf are taking over the lead in reform. We interviewed Georg Wurth, the chairman of the German Cannabis Association about the situation.

In this month’s Dose of Science, instead of focusing on a specific scientific paper, we present a biography of Dr Timothy Leary, the controversial psychedelic pioneer. Before he became the messiah of sixties’ counterculture, Leary was a professor of psychology at Harvard. In this piece, we trace his journey from straight academic to prophet of the psychedelic era.

The Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSF), an expert group of the European Commission with more than forty members representing leading European NGOs, held its annual plenary meeting in Brussels last week. The Forum has become an important voice, but it needs more inclusion and funding from EU institutions.