Ivy League professor and Influence contributor Dr. Carl Hart has written an op-ed for the Washington Post stating that he feels more fear that his children will have encounters with police than with drugs. Invoking the 2014 fatal police shooting...

38-year-old Terrill Thomas was arrested in connection to a shooting and taken to Milwaukee County Jail. Nine days later, he was dead of dehydration. His death has been ruled homicide. This article was originally published by The Influence, a...

Police in the township of Bath, Michigan have been playing odd games with public safety by posting a fake “Breaking News” bulletin that warns, “we have read reports about meth possibly containing the Zika virus.” This article was originally...

Ever hungry for attention, Dr. Drew Pinsky has decided to offer his two cents by stoking conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health. The latest iteration of the pattern of distortion in the right-wing echo chamber is the notion that...

George Soros, the Hungarian-born business magnate and philanthropist who funds many liberal causes, including drug-policy reform, has long been a hate-figure to the Right. But fringe reactions to the latest Wikileaks-dump of emails related to...

An audit of the California State gang database “CalGang,” run by California law enforcement agencies including the LAPD and San Diego Police Department, has exposed shocking incompetence, illegal practices and some disturbing anomalies. The...

Oh, how times have changed. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America is now called the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, and it’s playing on the nostalgia of Millennials and Generation X-ers. This article was originally published by The Influence,...

“Synthetic marijuana”—a misnomer—is a catch-all phrase that may describe any of myriad so-called “synthetic” drugs, including K2, Spice and more, that are marketed as alternatives to marijuana. Chemical formulations are often tweaked in attempts...

Since Richard Nixon declared his War on Drugs back in 1971—in order, according to one of Nixon’s own advisers, to attack black communities and hippies—popular culture, largely shaped by black and alternative artists,...

Fertility drugs are one of the miracles of modern science. They work by using hormones to induce ovulation, a concept that was pioneered by the Italian Scientist Piero Donini in the late 1940s, while he was working for the Italian company that...

The North Carolina-based Lumbee tribe is suing booze conglomerate Anheuser-Busch and local distributer RA Jeffreys after Budweiser stole both their logo and their slogan—“Heritage Pride Strength”—to use on posters advertising the beer. This...

Software giant Microsoft has announced that it will partner with KIND Financial to promote software that will help the government keep track of the marijuana agricultural process in accordance with stringent state regulations, reports To...

Nine-year-old Audrey Stepp’s 26-year-old brother, Sammy, has been using heroin for as long as she can remember. She’s close to her brother and wants to help protect his health, NBC News reports, so she’s taken action that many more mature people...

The reasons for video games featuring made-up drugs, rather than real ones, may not be entirely noble—avoid any need for any scientific accuracy; dodge any accusations of “promoting” real drugs; demonize drug users with impunity because it’s all...

Samantha*, who works full-time as a security guard in a large store, goes to the Bellevue clinic in Kips Bay, Manhattan once a week to pick up her supply of methadone. She’s permitted to pick up her whole week’s supply in one go because she has...