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June 2025

In the Hells Angels' world, Ricky Ciarniello was equivalent to a top CEO or government minister
Perhaps the last surviving founding member of BC's Hells Angels, Ciarniello was at the top of the organization as it grew into one of the richest and…
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Geoff Meggs
Have harm reduction advocates learned from their recent defeats?
Nearly ten years after BC's opioid emergency declaration, prospects for an effective response have never seemed bleaker. A US expert argues that feuding…
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Geoff Meggs
1
With harm reduction in retreat, should enforcement focus on top drug suppliers?
An American drug policy expert with BC experience proposes new enforcement strategies in the battle against the massive supply of synthetic opioids
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Geoff Meggs
1

May 2025

How Trump's new 'war on drugs' could make everything much worse
Repression of the drug trade always fails, in part because so many profit from it in the legal economy, but increased violence in Mexico has already had…
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Geoff Meggs
Americans demand Canada crack down on "narco-terrorist" drug networks to match sweeping enforcement in Mexico and US
The single arrest in RCMP's Falkland superlab bust last October underlines flaws in Canada's judicial rules that hobble enforcement, but Mark Carney's…
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Geoff Meggs
'A constellation of voids:' how Sam Wiebe's fiction lays bare the reality of BC's organized crime
The acclaimed series of novels chronicling the adventures of private investigator Dave Wakeland is 'entertainment first and foremost,' says Wiebe, but…
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Geoff Meggs

April 2025

A fentanyl lab in every town? RCMP announce three sophisticated labs taken down in a single operation
High end chemistry equipment from China leads Mountie investigators to three labs, each capable of producing 11 kilos of fentanyl in a three-day…
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Geoff Meggs
How Rat Park, the BC "morphine on demand" experiment that upended addiction theory, shows a path out of the overdose crisis
As an Easter Weekend bonus. I'm reprinting one of Lotusland's most-read posts in 2024 about Bruce Alexander's path-breaking study on the roots of…
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Geoff Meggs
1
The mother of all "drug dens:" Vancouver OPS, the life-saving overdose prevention site Pierre Poilievre vows to shut down
Since Sarah Blyth started Vancouver OPS in 2016, overdose prevention sites have been set up in nine provinces. All are at risk if Pierre Poilievre's…
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Geoff Meggs
Mexican cartels now charge money for shade or to allow a child to go to school
Donald Trump seeks a US-driven, continental anti-narco strategy as Mexican authorities struggle to prevail against cartels and cartel presence starts to…
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Geoff Meggs

March 2025

© 2025 Geoff Meggs
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