The rise and fall of Lisette Lee, the self-proclaimed “Korean Paris Hilton,” who was busted for drug trafficking.

The rise and fall of Mickey the Pope, the founder of a New York City marijuana delivery business.

Life inside a provincial Russian drug den. Originally appeared in Russky Reporter.

Perpetually reinvented through experimental chemistry, manufactured in Asian mills, packaged in foil with names like White Slut Concentrated and Charley Sheene for use as “hookah cleaner,” distributed in college town head shops, snorted and injected by hardened addicts and high school thrill seekers alike, bath salts may be the strangest and most volatile American drug craze since crack. And they’re (quasi) legal.

How a Mexican drug cartel makes its billions.

On the Mexican drug cartel accused of laundering money with race horses.

Portraits from weed country.

A profile of the Mexican newsweekly, a “lone voice” in reporting on the narcos.

The profile of a crime syndicate which dominates the European cocaine trade.

"Opium does not deprive you of your senses. It does not make a madman of you. But drink does. See? Who ever heard of a man committing murder when full of hop. Get him full of whiskey and he might kill his father."

A journey into New York’s turn-of-the-century opium dens to find out who gets hooked and why.

How Tom Arnold’s little sister started the meth epidemic.

After the United States demanded the extradition of a drug lord, a bloodletting ensued.

A statistics-based argument that drug pricing, not drug use or law enformencement, is the only way to predict swings in violent crime rates.

How LA-style gang life migrated to the slums of San Salvador.

The intertwined destinies of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.

A tony bedroom community in Los Angeles, a kidnapping gone horribly wrong, and the birth of a teenage fugitive.

How synthetic drugs became a booming (and mostly legal) business.

American demand for drugs gave birth to the cartel war that is paralyzing Mexico, but American guns purchased legally across the Southwest and smuggled over the border have made it staggeringly lethal.

The anatomy of a bungled, massively expensive undercover sting conducted by the Seattle Police Department.

An interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire.

How Craigslist dealers do business in New York City.

Has Mexico become a failed state?

On the many lives and careers of Owsley Stanley (1935-2011), chemist, sound design innovator, and outback jeweler, whose name appears in the OED as a synonym for “a particularly pure form of LSD.”

An undercover report on Afghanistan’s drug-smuggling border police that is now heavily used for intelligence training.