#DealingWithDrugs

Long stories short The Met Office said the UK’s record 2022 heatwave will be seen as “average” by 2060.Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to tax and firearm charges after his plea deal collapsed in court. Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer-songwriter, died aged 56. What’s worse than heroin? When the Taliban took back Afghanistan, a ban on heroin poppy cultivation was reinstated. A year on, Afghan poppy production is down an estimated 80 per cent. So what? Ultimately this is likely to mean less heroin for Europe, and more synthetic opioids. In 2021 Afghanistan supplied 95 per cent of the UK’s heroin and less of the drug doesn’t mean fewer users. Rather, experts agree there will be an influx of synthetic opioids – including fentanyl, already the biggest killer of young Americans – to fill the gap. European public health officials, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institute fellow on international organised crime, should be “very, very concerned.” Worse than heroin? Yes. Synthetic opioids are… more addictive – heroin addiction takes time, whereas fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent and users can be hooked from their first use;deadlier – since that potency increases the chances of an overdose; andeasier to make – synthetics don’t require climate-correct fields and hundreds of labourers to grow and pick plants. Instead, according to Harry Shapiro, director of DrugWise UK, all that’s needed is “a chemist who knows what they are doing” and access to the requisite chemicals, which mostly come from China.  The last time the Taliban banned poppy production, in 2000, fears that the ban would fail and cheap heroin would flood the UK never materialised. This time the flourishing synthetic market is a “game-changer”, Shapiro says. At any sign of a drop in heroin supplies, synthetics can be substituted. In fact, they’re already here. Fentanyl in the UK isn’t new, but the emergence of a mixture known as tranq is. Tranq – a mixture of fentanyl and the animal tranquilliser xylazine – has become popular in the US specifically for its ability to mimic the high of heroin.  Heroin delivers a long period of euphoria; tranq can recreate the experience, says Dr Caroline Copeland of the UK’s National Programme on Substance Abuse.  And so are the suppliers. The intercontinental supply chains needed to bring synthetic opioids to Europe are already established. Much of the US supply of fentanyl comes via Mexican cartels which import the Chinese input chemicals through Pacific ports, chiefly Manzanillo, then use cheap labour in the rural highlands to turn them into pills.  Recently, according to Felbab-Brown, these cartels have expanded into Europe to produce methamphetamine. Most have set up labs on the continent, mainly in Bulgaria, Spain and Portugal, boosting supplies of meth further afield including in the UK. And where meth leads, fentanyl can follow. Horses, not zebras. Will the devastation wrought on the US population by synthetic opioids happen in the UK? Not on the same scale. America has a very specific problem linked to long-term over-prescription of painkillers that left a population ripe for addiction to synthetics. The UK does have regional over-prescription problems but isn’t yet fertile ground for a national epidemic.  Furthermore, any effects of the poppy shortage are still at least a year away. There are heroin stockpiles along smuggling routes precisely to even out short-term supply dips.  Still, complacency kills. “You can do policy one of two ways,” Felbab-Brown warns. “You can do [it] reactively… or you can take a look at [what’s happened] and say ‘ok, we aren’t going to play catch-up’.” Proactive, not reactive, laws are a shiny rarity for governments. A two-year warning of a problem that doesn’t have to happen comes about once in a prime minister’s lifetime.  Also, in the nibs UK tycoon bailed Weird weather Spacey cleared Niger coup Moldova meltdown Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up, send us ideas and tell us what you think. Email sensemaker@tortoisemedia.com. Photograph Hilary Swift / New York Times / Redux / eyevine Choose which Tortoise newsletters you receive NEW from tortoise

For decades the Sacklers were one of the most famous and feted philanthropic families in the world. However it has become clear that the money of several family members has come from the manufacture of the opioid OxyContin, implicated in the opioid crisis in America and who have been described as “essentially a crime family … drug dealers in nice suits and dresses.” But does it matter? The imperfect Medicis gave the world Michelangelo: bad money can do good things. But should galleries accept it? What is a Tortoise ThinkIn? A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. Modelled on what we call a ‘leader conference’ in the UK (or an editorial board in the US), it is a place where everyone has a seat at the table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It’s where, together, we sift through what we know to come to a clear, concise point of view. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise. Drinks from 6.00pm, starts promptly at 6.30pm. If you are late to a ThinkIn you can ‘SlinkIn’! If you would like to contribute to this ThinkIn, let us know by emailing thinkin@tortoisemedia.com We film our Thinkins so we can watch them back, edit the best bits and share them with members who weren’t there in person. Members can find their ThinkIn booking code in My Tortoise, under My Membership.