"If you don't help us, we will kill you. Do you know what it is to be a gangster? We will cut off both your hands so they can make you an ear." It is November 15, 2022, and alleged members of the Casuals, the criminal group that was born from the Boixos Nois, held a man in a house after kidnapping him by force and putting him inside a car. He was a friend of a caretaker of a marijuana plantation who owed money to the feared Casuals. They tied him up in a house and threatened him: "Nobody plays with the Boixos Nois," they warned him. Finally, they set him free and this illegal detention was one of the starting pointsof a major judicial case by the Mossos d'Esquadra against the Casuals.Last Saturday afternoon some men dressed as police officers kidnapped another man in the middle of the AP-7, in front of the gaze of many drivers who witnessed how they pulled him out by force, assaulted him, and took him away. Later, they released him a few kilometers away. Apart from coinciding in the method, this latest illegal detention also coincides with that of the Casuals because everything points to it being related to a marijuana plantation that the victim was supposedly guarding and that the police discovered in 2025. On Monday, another man was also kidnapped in Barcelona, beaten up, and released near a gas station in Salt.

Sometimes, ports are almost as large as the cities that give them their name. The one in Barcelona has a dimension of 11 km²; more than 1,500 football fields, or the equivalent of the Eixample and Ciutat Vella districts together. The immensity of these facilities and the water that bathes them are some of the main adversities for police forces in the fight against drug trafficking. But, due to their characteristics, they also have a small advantage that the authorities want to expand in the coming years: in any given city, anyone can enter and exit with total freedom, but at the port, only those people who are authorized to do so can.

The modern habit of chewing areca nut is practiced by approximately one in ten people worldwide. It is usually chewed with betel leaf and other ingredients such as calcium hydroxide, some spices, and tobacco, and it leaves the mouth a deep red color. It resembles nutmeg in shape and color, but it has a very different taste, slightly bitter and intense. It is a drug used primarily in tropical Asia and the Pacific, and it is considered the fourth most popular psychoactive substance on the planet, only behind alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine. Deeply rooted in some cultures, its history has a much older origin than previously thought.

The Civil Guard is investigating the discovery of the bodies of an Irish couple, aged 50 and 45, inside a house in the Cap Blanc urbanization in Cullera, in the Valencian region of Ribera Baixa. It was their two minor children, aged 14 and 15, who found the lifeless bodies this Tuesday afternoon. According to sources close to the investigation and as reported by Efe, the couple showed apparent signs of having consumed drugs.

Firu agilely gets out of the van where he was waiting –with the air conditioning on– wagging his tail. He wants to play. His handler leads him towards the ramp leading to the festival entrance, with a crowd of people heading towards the access controls. The handler lets himself be led by Firu, who, hyperactive, weaves between the legs of the attendees. Some pet him, others comment on how beautiful he is, this German Shepherd, until he starts to circle a young man and sits down in front of him.

Since the beginning of the year, the situation in a building on Muntaner street in Barcelona has forced the police forces to pay special attention to it. For months, residents have called 112 dozens of times and the Mossos d'Esquadra have intervened up to 49 occasions. The main reasons: on the one hand, arguments, threats, and incidents that make residents feel unsafe and, on the other hand, alleged drug possession. However, as ARA has learned, ongoing police investigations have not been able to confirm that there is a drug den – where drugs are sold and consumed – nor is there any report of the property being occupied.

It was sold as a concentrated vanilla, in liquid form, ideal for adding a few drops to coffee, accompanying some desserts, and even, now that it's summer, for combining with good ice cream. But it wasn't just any vanilla: it came directly from Mexico, the territory where this product originates and from which colonizers exported it to Europe five hundred years ago. It was twelve tons of vanilla making the same journey: leaving Jalisco and traveling on board a maritime container to France, then boarding a truck and being transported to a logistics center in Barcelona, the last stop before the final destination, an isolated farmhouse in Almenar, in El Segrià. But what were twelve tons of Mexican vanilla essence doing on a farm far from everything and with a swimming pool in a Lleida town of 3,000 inhabitants?

There are words that everyone knows will make headlines, and for that very reason they are spoken. This is the case of the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, with the phrase "We don't want this riffraff in our city", referring to organized gangs using firearms to kill each other. Folk sounds energetic. It is a quintessential example of the end of politically correct language and is the type of expression that the far-right has plundered on the streets to convey a firmness close to the death penalty and to empathize with frightened voters. It is the language that a part of the left has been adopting so as not to be left behind when it began to admit, too late, that public security policies were left-wing, because the rich right could always afford private security.

It was the late 18th century and the English chemist Joseph Priestley made a discovery that revolutionized medicine. Specifically, he thought of a way to feel it less: he discovered a new gas, nitrous oxide, which had analgesic properties and could relieve pain. It was one of the first gases used to anesthetize a patient before surgery. In fact, it is still used in childbirth today. However, without knowing it, Priestley also revolutionized the parties of the time: the elites began to try nitrous oxide and discovered that, besides being a good analgesic, in small quantities it produced a feeling of euphoria. It became a fashion at high society parties. The laughing gas had just been born.

Cocaine is consolidating itself as the "most persistent" drug, and the "normalization" of its consumption and the level of integration it has in society is alarming. This is what Projecte Home, an organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of drug addiction, confirms. This 2025, 53% of the people attended by this entity were due to cocaine addiction, the highest figure in recent years.

The war on drugs was declared by then-US President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. The rest of the world quickly joined in. 55 years have passed, tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. And illegal drugs are now more accessible, cheaper, and more widely consumed than in 1971.

Captain Swing has translated into Spanish the 15 years of work of journalist Toby Muse in Colombia reporting on drug trafficking. In Kilo: The Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels, this London-born reporter tries to recover – with the help of translator Victoria Pradilla – the English journalism of American authors from the 70s, such as Joan Didion, Michael Herr or Tom Wolfe.

The Mossos d'Esquadra have deployed two major operations against drug trafficking this Tuesday morning. The first focuses on Lleida and Seròs, in El Segrià, to arrest members of a criminal network involved in cannabis production and arms trafficking. The operation involves nearly 200 officers and includes raids on properties and industrial warehouses in both towns. So far, the Mossos have made eleven arrests, seized over 1,000 marijuana plants, and also found weapons and ammunition.

On one side of the table, the Irishman Daniel Kinahan; on the other, the Bosnian-born Dutchman Edin Gaçanin, alias Tito; opposite, the Moroccan Ridouan Taghi, and at one end, the Italian Raffaele Imperiale. They are conversing in a private room with sea views of the luxurious Burj Al Arab in Dubai. The pandemic has not yet arrived. They control the most important cocaine cartel in the world and feel untouchable. Impunity. Each one fulfills their role. The Irish manage the routes and distribution across various European countries. Gaçanin is the broker, the logistics and financing of the operations. Imperiale transports cocaine to the Italian Camorra. Taghi, the visible face of the Mocro Maffia, supervises the entry of drugs through Dutch and Belgian ports. Power in capital letters. The drug business was decided in Dubai.

Between 2020 and 2025, the Guttmann Neurorehabilitation Hospital in Barcelona admitted six young people with serious neurological sequelae from consuming nitrous oxide, a substance popularly known as laughing gasThese are five young men and one young woman, aged between 19 and 25, who were hospitalized for between one and three months. All of them presented with severe muscle weakness in their limbs (tetraparesis or paraparesis), five had lost the ability to perceive vibrations (hypopalesthesia), and two had a decreased sense of touch due to nerve damage (hypoesthesia). In some cases, the patients lost mobility and required the use of a wheelchair. According to the Department of Health, nitrous oxide is the most commonly used drug within the category of new psychoactive substances among young people, with 1.6% of students aged between 14 and 18 having used it in 2025. Rehabilitation physician Margarita Vallès at the Guttmann Hospital. Journal of NeurologyThe case of a 22-year-old man with a spinal cord disorder affecting sensation and movement, who had begun using laughing gas two years prior, is one example. For the past eight months, he had been inhaling up to 200 balloons a day, the expert explains. Professionals at the Guttmann Institute warn that, although continuous use of laughing gas is generally necessary for serious effects, the effects can occur much sooner, especially in people with low levels of vitamin B12. Vallès explains that sometimes the affected person recovers completely, but other times long-term consequences remain. In the case of the six young patients, one made a full recovery, and the rest continue to experience symptoms, although their mobility has functionally improved. The center's psychologist, Joan Saurí, adds that the typical profile of patients treated for this type of use is that of people without routines or habits, sometimes with complicated family situations, who use laughing gas "as an escape." That's why it's common for these young people to also consume excessive amounts of alcohol or suffer from anxiety disorders, which often leads to poor nutrition.

Sports betting, cards, and roulette are the most common forms of gambling among young Catalans, especially boys. In fact, it is increasingly common for secondary school students, that is, teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, to gamble. Last year, for example, 17% of students participated in in-person gambling, although the percentage among boys rises to 24.5% due to the marked gender gap observed in this practice. This is one of the key findings of the latest survey on drug use in secondary education (ESTUDES), conducted by the Catalan Health Department to understand the consumption habits and addictive behaviors of young Catalans.

With honesty and without embellishments that would not do it justice, Natza Farré (Barcelona, ​​1972) collects in The last time I say goodbye to you (Angle Editorial) Her experiences as the sister of a drug addict. An autobiographical novel that explores family relationships, guilt, and the silence surrounding a period in which many young people tied their lives to drugs. The last time I say goodbye to you It's a very personal book. When did you decide to write it, and how long did it take you?

A jury has unanimously found the defendant guilty of killing a man to whom he owed money related to drug trafficking. The crime occurred in Sant Andreu de la Barca (Baix Llobregat) in May 2020, and the victim's body has not been found. Following the jury's verdict, the Barcelona Provincial Court ordered the defendant, Lluís B., to remain in pretrial detention, while the prosecution maintained its request for a 15-year prison sentence for homicide. The events that the jury unanimously found proven took place on May 11, 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. That day, the victim, Diego Vargas, called the accused in a fit of anger and demanded a meeting to collect payment of a debt related to marijuana trafficking, a matter of contention they had been having since 2019. Vargas, as usual, called the accused to ask him to open the door. This was the last activity recorded on Vargas's phone; although he continued to receive messages, he did not reply to any of them. As AHORA explained, the lack of the body —and, therefore, of all the evidence that could be derived from the victim— meant that the prosecution and the plaintiff had to work hard during the trial to highlight all the indications that pointed to the accused and try to prove the sequence of events.

In recent years, China has managed to capture a significant portion of the market that until recently was dominated by the European pharmaceutical industry, displacing the Old Continent to third place globally in many aspects. This ranking is led by the United States, but the Asian giant continues to gain ground. In this context, Catalonia, the leading center for the sector in Spain, with 44% of the pharmaceutical manufacturing plants (79 out of 181), and one of the main centers in Europe, must play a key role in the effort to improve innovation in the industry and regain its position. Within this framework, the Catalan government (Generalitat) and the industry association Farmaindustria are working to boost competitiveness and increase innovation and patient access to new treatments. The last meeting between the two parties took place last month, attended by President Salvador Illa, before his medical leave, and the president of the industry association, Fina Lladós.

Throughout his life, Jordi Chicletol, stage name of Jordi Gómez, has been a cultural activist, event organizer, DJ and presenter (until last season he was at the helm ofRoom 910(Betevé's pop music program). All these experiences are now compiled in the book I almost died (and other hits)Published by Dashbook, in which he discusses his addiction and mental health struggles and his healing process.