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North Korea is believed to be preparing to send another group of soldiers to come to Vladimir Putin’s aid in the war in Ukraine, despite heavy combat losses already suffered by troops from the east Asian country.

When Ukrainian forces crossed the border into the Kursk region of Russia in August 2024, Ukraine’s military commanders hoped that their surprise move would force Moscow to withdraw troops from eastern Ukraine to defend Russia’s own territory. Kyiv did not expect its troops to end up fighting North Koreans.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have officially confirmed that North Korean troops are fighting side by side with Russians. But South Korean intelligence has been reporting on their presence since October 2024, when approximately 1,500 North Korean special forces were observed to have arrived in Russia’s far eastern city of Vladivostok, initially for training.

This group was later joined by another 10,000 or so of their comrades (some of whom are also believed to be from North Korean special forces units). They were transported nearly 7,000 kilometres across Russia to reach the combat zone.

North Korean soldiers were first spotted fighting in the Kursk region alongside Russian forces in early December, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. By mid-January more than 40% of the North Koreans are believed to have been killed, injured, missing or captured – with as many as 1,000 thought to have been killed. There are some reports that North Korean troops are now being pulled by from the front lines due to those losses, potentially for extra training.

North Korea, an isolated dictatorship with few allies, is one of Russia’s most reliable suppliers of weapons, including missiles and millions of rounds of ammunition that Russia needs to continue to fight its war against Ukraine. North Korea, however, would seem to have little reason to send its own people to risk their lives in that conflict. But North Korean soldiers appear to be at the heart of a deal struck by North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

What does Putin want?

For Putin the gains are clear. His campaign in Ukraine has received a much-needed influx of trained soldiers to shore up efforts to retake Russian territory occupied by Ukrainian forces.

Although the numbers of North Korean troops are relatively small, their strategic deployment allows Russia to push the Ukrainians back without diverting any of its forces from their offensive operations in eastern Ukraine. Expectations are high that Donald Trump’s return to the White House could mean an end to the war – or at least a pause – sooner rather than later. This gives Putin an incentive to occupy as much Ukrainian territory as possible ahead of a ceasefire, when occupied areas are likely to form the basis of territorial settlements.

The suggestion that Russia is not capable of maintaining its position in Ukraine and also defending its own territory without the addition of foreign troops is very revealing.

Moscow is struggling to recruit enough of its own citizens to fight in Ukraine. This is despite offering salaries and benefits packages to prospective soldiers that are beyond generous. The lack of resistance to Kyiv’s summer incursion into Russian territory made it clear that Russia is relying upon barely trained conscripts – that is, teenage boys doing their one year of compulsory military service – to defend its borders rather than professional soldiers. And while Russia has regained control of a substantial proportion – perhaps more than 60% – of the area seized by Ukraine in the summer, this has taken nearly six months to accomplish.

What does Kim Jong-un want?

For Kim Jong-un, sending his soldiers to fight with Russia provides his troops with valuable experience of combat in a conflict that is rapidly defining how war will be waged in the future.

Since the end of the Korean War (1950-53), Pyongyang has placed a high priority on maintaining a large and heavily armed standing army. After training, North Korean soldiers are mostly used for patrolling the de-militarized zone that marks its border with South Korea. Participating in Russia’s war against Ukraine provides the North Korean military with its first experience of combat in more than 70 years.

North Korean soldiers captured in Ukraine.

Observations from Ukrainian soldiers suggest the North Korean soldiers are courageous and determined fighters but with no experience of actual combat. The Ukrainians have described the North Koreans as relying on strategies typical of the second world war – for example advancing in large groups on foot, where they provide easy targets for artillery and drone strikes. They were also apparently bemused by the appearance of drones on the battlefield and had no idea that these objects could deliver lethal attacks.

This degree of inexperience, together with Russia’s tactic of using the North Koreans to draw the fire of the Ukrainians and clear the way for the Russians to advance, is believed to be the reason for such high losses so soon after their deployment.

In January the Ukrainians managed to capture two North Koreans and question them, which has provided the clearest picture so far of their experiences of fighting with the Russian armed forces. The North Korean soldiers both had false identity papers with Russian names, which is consistent with official denials of their presence. The men, who do not speak any foreign languages and had to be questioned through an interpreter, said that they had both been soldiers for several years. This supports the Ukrainians’ impression that the North Koreans are trained and disciplined. Both prisoners, however, reportedly believed they were being sent to Russia to participate in training exercises, not to fight in a war.

Considering the heavy losses and the brutal treatment that North Korean troops have already suffered, Kim Jong-un might be expected to seek the speedy return of his soldiers rather than preparing to send more of their comrades to fight with Russia. But high casualties on the battlefield seems to be a price that North Korea’s president is willing to pay for combat experience that might give his army an edge in any future war that he fights on his own behalf. Läs mer…

It has taken decades for some to accept the devastating effects of climate change on our planet. Despite scientific evidence that was available years ago, many people were reluctant to make the connection between increasing use of fossil fuels, rising global temperatures and devastating weather events.

A key reason for this reluctance is the dislocation of cause and effect, both in time and geography. And here there are clear parallels with another deadly human activity that is causing increasing levels of suffering across the planet: the production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs. Here are some troubling “highlights” from the UN’s latest World Drugs Report:

Cocaine production is reaching record highs, with production climbing in Latin America coupled with drug use and markets expanding in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Synthetic drugs are also inflicting great harm on people and communities, caused by an increase in methamphetamine trafficking in south-west Asia, the near and Middle East and south-eastern Europe, and fentanyl overdoses in North America.

Meanwhile, the opium ban imposed by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan is having a significant impact on farmers’ livelihoods and incomes, necessitating a sustainable humanitarian response.

The report notes how organised criminal groups are “exploiting instability and gaps in the rule of law” to expand their trafficking operations, “while damaging fragile ecosystems and perpetuating other forms of organised crime such as human trafficking”.

Illicit drug use is damaging large parts of the world socially, politically and environmentally. Patterns of supply and demand are changing rapidly. In our new longform series Addicted, leading drug experts bring you the latest insights on drug use and production as we ask: is it time to declare a planetary emergency?

At every stage of the process of producing drugs such as cocaine, there are not only societal impacts but environmental ones too. An example of the interconnected relationship between climate change and drugs is demonstrated in the use of land.

Demand for cocaine has grown rapidly across many western countries, and meeting this can only be met by changing how land is used. Forests are cleared in South America to make way for growing coca plants. The refinement of coca into cocaine involves toxic chemicals that pollute the soil and nearby watercourses. This in turn compromises those living in these areas as access to clean water and fertile land is reduced.

Until this is reversed, these local communities will not be able to cultivate the land to earn an income or rely on water sources to live. And each year, some of their number will add to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who die, directly or indirectly, as a result of illicit drug use.

People in the world with drug use disorders (1990-2021)

Our World in Data, CC BY

Having spent most of my career researching the human toll of drug use at almost every stage of the supply and consumption chain, I believe a complete shift in the way we think about the world’s drug problem is required.

We already have many years of evidence of the ways that drugs – both natural and (increasingly) synthetic – are destabilising countries’ legal and political institutions, devastating entire communities, and destroying millions of lives. My question is, as with climate change, why are we so slow to recognise the existential threat that drug use poses to humanity?

The disconnect between users and producers

For decades, problems with drugs have been viewed as a mainly western issue, affecting Europe, North America and Australasia in terms of drug taking. This perception was fostered in part by US president Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs” announcement in June 1971, when he declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one”.

This western-centric focus has come at a cost – we still have little data and information about drug use and problems in Africa, for example. But we are beginning to see how far drugs and their associated devastation has reached beyond traditional western borders.

Deaths attributed to illicit drug use (2021):

Our World in Data, CC BY

Illicit drug use has increased by 20% over the past decade, only partly due to population growth. Almost 300 million people are estimated to consume illicit drugs regularly, with the three most popular being cannabis (228 million users), opioids (60 million) and cocaine (23 million). According to the UN report:

The range of drugs available to consumers has expanded, making patterns of use increasingly complex and polydrug use a common feature in most drug markets. One in 81 people (64 million) worldwide were suffering from a drug use disorder in 2022, an increase of 3% compared with 2018.

There are multiple harmful consequences of drug use. The largest global burden of disease continues to be attributed to opioids, use of which appears to have remained stable at the global level since 2019, in contrast to other drugs.

In the same way that climate change has threatened whole populations, so too have drugs. Yet many of us remain disconnected from how they are produced and distributed – and the misery they cause throughout the supply chain, all over the world.

The production of cocaine, for example, is associated with violence and exploitation at every stage of the manufacturing process. Death threats to farmers and unwilling traffickers have all increased in parallel with the growing demand for cocaine in the US and Europe.

Global drug use disorder deaths by substance (2000-21):

Our World in Data, CC BY

Organised crime groups not only supply and distribute drugs but also trade in people, whether for the commercial sex trade or other forms of modern slavery. This makes sense as the infrastructure and contacts to move drugs are similar to those used to move humans across borders and even continents. Yet many cocaine users are oblivious – wilfully or otherwise – of the violence associated with how this drug is supplied to them. As the UK National Crime Agency points out:

Reducing demand is another critical factor in reducing the supply of illegal drugs. Many people see recreational drug use as a victimless crime. The reality is that the production of illegal drugs for western markets has a devastating impact in source countries in terms of violence, exploitation of vulnerable and indigenous people and environmental destruction.

While some of the suffering associated with the production of drugs like cocaine makes the headlines, it’s often overshadowed by the glamorisation of criminal drug gangs in films and on TV. To the extent that people worry about the impact of drugs, it’s usually focused on those in our immediate communities, such as people dependent on heroin who are sleeping rough and vulnerable to exploitation. But there have already been other victims before the drug reaches our streets.

Shifts in the global supply chain

Tracking heroin routes demonstrates the way that drug supply is an international effort which affects every community on its journey, from the Afghan farmer to officials who are bribed so the drug can cross borders or be let through ports without being seized, to the person injecting or smoking the finished product.

Much of Europe’s heroin is produced in Afghanistan by small farming operations growing opium, which is then transformed into the drug. Most Afghan farmers are simply surviving growing the crop, and don’t reap significant wealth from their harvest. It is those supplying and distributing the opium as heroin who can make serious money from it.

Meanwhile, following the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, those farmers’ livelihoods have faced a new threat.

The Taliban is ideologically opposed to the production of opium. Soon after assuming control, its leaders issued a decree banning farmers from growing opium. They have enforced this by destroying crops when farmers have ignored the ban – although there is still believed to be a significant stockpile of heroin in the country, meaning that as yet, there has not been a big impact on supply to Europe and the UK. But this could change amid the emergence of more deadly synthetic alternatives, including nitazenes and other new synthetic opioids.

Heroin trafficking flows based on reported seizures (2019-22):

UN World Drug Report, CC BY

Either way, the drug gangs who traffic heroin won’t worry about the opium farmers’ wellbeing. As so often happens with changes in the availability of illicit drugs, when there is a shortage, these groups prove adaptable and nimble at providing alternatives quickly.

While gathering intelligence about organised crime gangs is difficult and potentially dangerous, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) has provided some insights about who these groups are and how they operate. The Netherlands remains an important hub for the distribution of heroin, with several Dutch criminal groups involved in importing and distributing heroin from Afghanistan.

But others are involved too: the EUDA’s intelligence shows that criminal networks with members from Kurdish background are central to the wholesale supply and have control over many parts of the supply chain. These professional, well-organised groups have established legal businesses throughout the route of supply that facilitate their illicit activities – largely along the Balkan route with hubs in Europe.

Intermediate & final recipients of heroin shipments (2019-22):

UN World Drug Report, CC BY

Unlike these organised crime gangs, governments and law enforcement appear to respond to emerging threats slowly and lack the flexibility and ingenuity that the gangs repeatedly demonstrate.

As drug detection techniques have improved, organised crime has shown how inventive it can be. Taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, dealers used consignments of surgical masks to conceal large quantities of cocaine being trafficked to China and Hong Kong from South America.

And as western markets for cocaine become saturated, organised crime gangs have exploited new markets in Asia, where cocaine seizures, a proxy for use of cocaine, have increased. But the shifting landscape is also reflected in changes in consumption, with use of the synthetic stimulant methamphetamine growing rapidly in Asia – reflected in record levels of seizures in the region in 2023.

Main methamphetamine trafficking flows (2019-22):

UN World Drug Report, CC BY

For the organised crime gangs, production and supply of synthetic drugs is in many ways easier, as it is not reliant on an agricultural crop in the way that heroin and cocaine are and can be manufactured locally. This reduces the distribution logistics and distance needed for an effective supply chain. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, organised crime gangs are exploiting gaps in law enforcement and state governance to both traffic large volumes of drugs and expand their production in the region.

Where there is destabilisation, there is opportunity for those who seek to profit from drug addiction. In Syria, Russia and Ukraine, war has made some people very rich.

Syria and Russia: the new drug hotspots

The wars in Syria and Ukraine bear testament to the way drugs provide solutions to people who are experiencing the worst of times – and to governments that are ready to exploit evolving situations.

As the war in Syria progressed, the Bashar Al-Assad regime actively developed a strategy to dominate the captagon market in the Middle East and North Africa. First produced in the 1960s in Germany to treat conditions such as attention deficit disorders and narcolepsy and other conditions, captagon is a stimulant that staves off hunger and sleep, making it ideal for military use – particularly in countries where food supplies are inconsistent. It has been referred to as the “drug of jihad” used by Islamic fighters in the region.

As the war progressed in Syria, the country and its leader became increasingly isolated, its economy crashed creating the perfect conditions to develop the trade in captagon. Rather than drug production leading to the collapse of law and order, it was the other way round.

Isolated by the west and with a historically strained relationship with its neighbours including Saudi Arabia, the Assad regime – under the guidance, reportedly, of Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad– ruthlessly positioned itself as the world’s main producer and distributor of this drug, then used this position to leverage its influence and try to reintegrate into the Arab world.

Video by TRT World.

Captagon also provided much-needed revenue for the Assad regime. The drug was estimated to be worth US$5.7 billion annually to the Syrian economy – at a time when western governments have placed severe sanctions on the country, restricting its ability to raise revenue. Saudi Arabia was one of the main countries being supplied captagon by Syria. Until the fall of Assad, it was the senior leadership in Syria that controlled the supply and distribution of the drug – giving rise to the label “the world’s largest narco state”.

The Assad government achieved this position by making captagon good value – a viable alternative to alcohol in terms of price and for those who don’t drink. Exploiting many of its own citizens, the regime encouraged individuals and businesses to participate in manufacturing and distributing the drug.

The fall of Assad and his hurried escape to Russia left the rebel fighters to pick up vast hauls of captagon and other drug ingredients. “We found a large number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity,” one fighter belonging to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group told the Guardian. What this will do to drug production and supply in the region is unclear.

Read more:
What is the drug captagon and how is it linked to Syria’s fallen Assad regime?

While the latest UN World Drug Report highlights “a rapid increase in both the scale and sophistication of drug trafficking operations in the region over the past decade”, it goes on to highlight that “one of the most striking changes worldwide in drug trafficking and drug use over the past decade has taken place in Central Asia, Transcaucasia [Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia] and eastern Europe”, where there has been a shift “away from opiates, mostly originating in Afghanistan – towards the use of synthetic stimulants, notably cathinones … There is hardly any other region where cathinones play such a significant role.”

This is part of “a groundbreaking shift in the global drug trade, pioneered in Russia and now spreading globally,” according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. This shift is changing the nature of drug sales, using “darknet markets and cryptocurrency for anonymous transactions, allowing buyers to retrieve drugs from hidden physical locations or ‘dead drops’, rather than direct exchanges.”

The rise of Russia’s dead drop drug trade stems from several unique national factors: restrictive anti-drug policies, strained western trade relations, and a strong technological foundation. Enabled by these conditions, the dead drop model has reshaped how drugs are distributed in Russia.

Drug transactions now involve no face-to-face interactions; instead, orders are placed online, paid for with cryptocurrency, and retrieved from secret locations across cities within hours. This system, offering convenience and anonymity, has seen synthetic drugs – especially synthetic cathinones like mephedrone – overtake traditional imported substances like cocaine and heroin in Russia … These potent synthetic drugs are cheap, easy to manufacture, and readily distributed through Russia’s vast delivery networks.

The report notes that this shift in drug distribution has been accompanied by rising levels of violence including punishment beatings, and a public health crisis.

Podcast by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Yet officially, there is very little reliable data about drug use in Russia. Under the premiership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has no sympathy with those who are dependent, viewing them as weak and without value. And its invasion of Ukraine three years ago has had ramifications for Ukraine’s users too.

Prior to the war, Ukraine had demonstrated an increasingly progressive policy towards those who had problems with drugs, establishing treatment centers and encouraging access to treatment. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, this strategy has been severely set back, with many people who need access to substitute treatments such as methadone unable to secure consistent supply of these drugs.

Another global blind spot is China, where, like Russia, little is known about the extent or type of problems that drugs are causing. Both regimes are ideologically opposed to recreational or problem drug use and, as far as we know, there is no state-funded rehabilitation provided in either country; the approach is to criminalise people rather than offer health-based interventions.

We shouldn’t be too critical as many western countries, including the UK, also need to pivot from a criminal approach to drug problems towards a health-focused one. Portugal made such a policy change several years ago, recognising that people who develop problems with drugs such as dependency need help rather than punishment.

This radical shift in thinking has made a significant change to the way those using drugs are treated, in the main offered help and specialist support rather than being arrested and sent to jail, only to be released and then repeat the same cycle of drug use, arrest and prison.

The evidence of this policy change is impressive: not only have drug-related deaths fallen, but population-level drug use is among the lowest in Europe. Nowhere is this policy shift more urgent than the US.

North America: epicentre of the opioid crisis

In the US, the synthetic opioids fentanyl and oxycodone have contributed to more than 100,000 fatal overdoses each year since 2021. While there are signs this deaths toll is at last beginning to fall, the harm and pain of addiction and overdose affects every strata of American society – as shown in moving portrayals of America’s opioid crisis such as Painkiller and Dopesick. Most fatalities are caused by respiratory depression where breathing is significantly slowed or stops altogether.

Official trailer for Painkiller (Netflix)

Fentanyl is an analgesic drug that is 50-100 times more potent than heroin or morphine. Where China used to be the principal manufacturer and supplier of fentanyl to the US, Mexico is now the primary source. In December 2024, Mexican authorities announced “the largest mass seizure of fentanyl pills ever made” – amounting to more than 20 million doses of fentanyl pills worth nearly US$400 million. The pills were found in Mexico’s Sinaloa state, home of the Sinaloa drug cartel and a hub of fentanyl production,

“This is what makes us rich,” one fentanyl cook recently told the New York Times. He was scathing about the idea that Donald Trump would be able to stamp out the supply of fentanyl from Mexico to the US by threatening Mexico’s government with tariffs. “Drug trafficking is the main economy here.”

However, the introduction of synthetic opioids to the US came not via organised crime but through a deliberate strategy of the pharmaceutical industry. Upon launching its prescription opioid painkiller OxyContin (a brand name for oxycodone) in 1996, Perdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, devised a plan to increase prescriptions of the drug by incentivizing and rewarding doctors to give these drugs to their patients. On a business level, this was a success; on a human level, it has been a disaster.

As patients quickly developed tolerance to drugs such as OxyContin, they had to take higher doses to avoid withdrawal symptoms or the positive feelings it gave them. Taking more of these opiates increases the risk of accidental overdose, many of which proved to be fatal. It has also driven those dependent on drugs to the black market, and into the hands of organised drug gangs, as they seek the drugs in greater quantities.

US overdose death rates by drug type (1999-2020):

Our World in Data, CC BY

Dependency on fentanyl and other opioids is all-consuming. When not using these drugs, people are entirely focused on ensuring sufficient supply of the next dose. This includes funding supply which can take people to places they thought they would never be, for example breaking the law, shoplifting or getting involved in commercial sex to make enough money to buy drugs.

Synthetic opiates like OxyContin and fentanyl have proved to be classless, ageless and sex blind. The first-hand experience of addiction and fatalities have radically altered the way many Americans think about drugs and the problems they cause. Canada, too, is suffering a major crisis.

Compounding this tragedy is the failure of the state to provide interventions and treatment that could have reduced fatal and non-fatal overdoses. It is only now that evidence-based interventions are beginning to be made widely available, such as access to Naloxone – a drug that can reverse the effects of opiates and potentially save a life.

Of course, it isn’t just hospitals and health professionals that are challenged by the results of widespread use of opioids, but public services like the police and fire service. In some areas of the US, there have been so many daily overdoses that every service was called on to try and deal with it. Local mayors have made it a priority to train police and fire personnel to be trained as first responders, such is the scale of the problem.

But it is not just in North America that we see the failure of politicians and the state to act when faced with growing problems with drugs. In the UK, where record numbers are dying because of using drugs such as heroin, the government has not invested in overdose prevention strategies. At a time when fatal overdoses increase year on year, budgets for specialist treatment have been reduced. It remains to be seen what the recently elected Labour government will do, if anything, to tackle the tragic rise in drug related fatalities.

Death rates from opioid use disorders (2021):

Our World in Data, CC BY

What connects both examples from the US and UK is the attitude and perception of drug use many of us have. Drug use and the heavy use of prescription painkillers is still heavily stigmatised. Many of us still view this as something individuals bring on themselves or have a choice about.

So, if we don’t care about what happens to people who develop problems with drugs, why should our elected representatives? In part, it is our bigotry that is enabling the lack of timely intervention, despite us possessing the knowledge and evidence of how drug harms can be minimised.

Latin America: breakdown of the rule of law

Under the last Conservative government, the UK Home Office asserted that people who used cocaine recreationally are supporting violence not only in the UK but in the countries that produce its raw ingredients. It’s not clear if this has made any difference to those using cocaine in the UK – personally, I doubt many people consider or are aware of how cocaine is produced or its provenance.

Perhaps if those using cocaine, mainly in western countries, realised the extent of violence and suffering that cocaine manufacture causes they might think again. Latin America has suffered enormously, with few countries there not touched in some way by the violence and breakdown of law associated with drug production and supply. According to the latest UN World Drugs Report:

Global cocaine supply reached a record high in 2022, with more than 2,700 tons of cocaine produced that year, 20% more than in the previous year … The impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt in Ecuador in particular, which has seen a wave of lethal violence in recent years linked to both local and transnational crime groups, most notably from Mexico and the Balkan countries.

Cocaine seizures and homicide rates increased five-fold between 2019 and 2022 in Ecuador, with the highest such rates reported in the coastal areas used for trafficking the drug to major destination markets in North America and Europe.

Cocaine trafficking flows based on reported seizures (2019-22):

UN World Drug Report, CC BY

As with opium production in Afghanistan, it is small-scale farmers in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia that grow the coca plant that will be turned into cocaine. Like their Afghan counterparts, they grow coca as it is more profitable than alternatives such as coffee. While it may be profitable in the short term, there are greater costs to them and their society.

Cocaine production brings with it violence as those further up the drug production chain try to control its trade. Few parts of these societies are unscathed, from bribing local politicians through to whole regions that are controlled by organised crime. Keeping control means that the use of firearms and violence increases. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that basic health and social services suffer.

So, while a coca grower may have more money, every other aspect of their life is negatively impacted. Whether it is regional or state institutions, both are compromised by the drug trade and those that control it. While this may not lead to the total collapse of law and order, it does create injustice and distorts the rule of law in many areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, where competition between gangs has also resulted in an increase in homicides.

The impact is on all sectors of society, now and into the future. For example, while historically the role of women has been largely underrepresented in research and drug policy, the UN report recognises that this is changing:

As women increasingly participate in economic activities, the role that women play in the drug phenomenon may become increasingly important. For example, a shift away from plant-based drug production may affect many women in rural households involved in opium poppy and coca bush cultivation.

The UN also identifies the specific risk to young people and the drugs trade, highlighting:

Long-term efforts to dismantle drug economies must provide socioeconomic opportunities and alternatives, which go beyond merely replacing illicit crops or incomes and instead address the root structural causes behind illicit crop cultivation, such as poverty, underdevelopment, and insecurity. They must also target the factors driving the recruitment of young people into the drug trade, who are at particular risk of synthetic drug use.

Meanwhile, demand for treatment in Europe due to problems with cocaine has risen significantly in recent years, since 2011 there has been an 80% increase in treatment presentations. This reflects the growing number of people using cocaine and the rise in purity of the drug.

Death rates from cocaine use disorders (2021):

Our World in Data, CC BY

Change is possible

Amid what may seem to be a story of unrelenting despair and hopelessness, there are local initiatives and even a few state-wide policies that provide optimism that change is possible.

In my roles both as clinician and scientist, I’ve often been amazed by how ingenious people can be when faced with the apparently impossible. For example, the way some people use heroin to dampen their psychotic symptoms, such as auditory and visual hallucinations – or the development of Naloxone, a drug that can temporarily reverse the effects of opioids, providing a short window for emergency services to treat people who have overdosed.

Early in my career, I witnessed the emergence of HIV in the UK in the 1980s. The speed at which this disease spread was not matched by our ability to treat it. Our response to HIV was undoubtedly hampered by prejudice and stigma towards marginalised groups in society, namely gay men and those using drugs (particularly injecting them).

However, unexpectedly and courageously, the Conservative government recognised those who were most at risk of contracting HIV, and organised a package of measures to contain the spread of infection. One part of this was a media campaign based on public health messaging designed to reduce the risk of contracting the disease. But the government also invested in treatment for those who had been infected and engaged with people at high risk, such as those intravenously injecting drugs.

Read more:
Drug consumption facilities: they’ve been around since 1986 and now Scotland has one – but do they work?

I worked in specialist HIV clinics for those using drugs. At the time, methadone and diamorphine were provided as an alternative to heroin. Regulations and protocols that restricted the prescribing of these medical opioids were eased, so we could ensure patients attending these clinics were given sufficient oral and injectable opioids that they didn’t need to source street heroin.

This meant they had access to medical grade opioids and, crucially, were given regular supplies of sterile injecting equipment. It was this that reduced the risk of contracting HIV, as some people would share injecting equipment when using heroin.

This impressive policy ran counter to the Conservative party’s ideology at the time, which was to punish rather than help those using drugs like heroin. It showed me how, even with traditional mindsets, it is possible to shift policy thinking in the face of a health crisis. And make no mistake, the global drug problem is an ongoing health crisis. Today, the UN points to the risks that intravenous users of drugs still face:

An estimated 13.9 million people injected drugs in 2022, with the largest number living in North America and East and South-East Asia … The relative risk of acquiring HIV is 14 times higher for those who inject drugs than in the wider population globally.

There are, though, signs of positive change in the way some countries and regions are changing their drug policies. Scotland recently opened a drug consumption facility in Glasgow – a safe place for people to use their drugs, usually injecting drugs like heroin. Such spaces provide access to sterile injecting equipment, reducing the risk of blood-borne infections such as HIV or Hepatitis. At the same time, they offer the opportunity to engage with people who have not accessed traditional health services.

Read more:
Why Colombia sees legalising drugs as the way forward. Here’s what’s being proposed

Portugal, as mentioned earlier, has made substantial changes to the way it approaches drug use and the problems associated with it. This policy shift since 2000 has saved lives and brought a more humane way of treating people who develop problems with drugs.

Contrast this with the wasted effort and resources ploughed into the war on drugs – initiated by Nixon and followed by so many western governments ever since. My plea to policymakers is simple: employ the same evidence-based science you use for health issues towards drugs and problem drug use.

Science and research can help in many ways, if given the chance. Some of it might seem radical, like providing safe drug consumption spaces. Some of it is more mundane, but vital – like tackling inequality, a clear driver of problem drug use across the world.

But while we often look to politicians to take the lead on change, it is people – us – that really hold the solution. By far the greatest threat to people and society from drugs is ignorance and bigotry. So many lives have been lost to drugs because of shame, either as a driver of drug use or a barrier to seeking help.

Beliefs are notoriously difficult to shift. As with climate change, the most powerful driver of change is personal experience. We know that when a family or community is affected by a drug overdose, their beliefs and perceptions change. But this is not the way any of us should want to see change happen.

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Have you ever bought a souvenir from a local market on holiday? Or tried to travel overseas with a guitar? If so, you may have been stopped at the airport if your item contains animal or plant parts. This is because most countries, and also the EU, implement Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Cites is the main global agreement regulating international wildlife trade to ensure the protection of the 41,000 species covered by the convention. Under Cites, trade measures are established for species to ensure that international trade is legal and ecologically sustainable. For most species (96%), this comprises close regulation of trade. For more threatened species (3%), commercial international trade in wild animals and plants is banned (the remaining 1% refers to a third category of species protected in at least one country).

Under Cites, countries must prohibit international trade in violation of the convention. They are also encouraged to restrict or prohibit the collection of – and domestic trade in – Indigenous species included under Cites. Crucially, countries must enact laws to implement the convention. By design, Cites relies mainly on state-led law-enforcement to achieve its goals.

This year, as Cites marks its 50th anniversary, our new study evaluates the convention’s effectiveness. It asks whether it solves the problem for which it was designed, as well as outlining how it could be more effective.

Taking stock

Cites has had several successes. It can boast an effective system of international cooperation among 184 countries and the EU. Much international trade in Cites-listed species is legally permitted and has been determined to be sustainable. The convention has helped raise the profile of, and catalysed conservation action for, species threatened by international trade, such as pangolins and seahorses.

The convention has also supported the recovery of species, such as crocodiles and vicuña, a member of the camel family that lives in South America. Since 2010, Cites has generated awareness of, and coordinated action to address, illegal wildlife trade, most notably through the establishment of the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime.

Commercial, international trade in wild pangolins is prohibited under Cites.
Afrianto Silalahi/Shutterstock, CC BY-NC-ND

However, there are some major problems with the Cites approach. Illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade involving thousands of Cites-listed species occurred in at least 162 signatory countries from 2015 to 2021. This includes countries such as the US that are well resourced to deter it. A predominant focus on state-led law enforcement is therefore proving ineffective in many instances.

We find that many law enforcement agencies are not well enough resourced to deter illegal collection and trade of species. Simply creating laws does not necessarily mean that people or businesses will comply with them.

Also, regulating or prohibiting international wildlife trade does not necessarily reduce the threat to the species concerned. These measures may signal scarcity and lead to price increases, which could accelerate over-exploitation by incentivising speculative collection and stockpiling. In this context, there is much room for improvement.

What needs to change

Deciding on appropriate Cites trade measures for species relies primarily on biological criteria, such as population size. Typically, that process does not involve consultation with the people extracting or trading wildlife. Nor does it really consider insights from the social sciences, including economics, on the likely impact of trade measures on wildlife and people. Decisions by the world’s governments to establish these measures are therefore highly uncertain.

To better prevent species from being overexploited for international trade through Cites, countries need to have a greater understanding of how different species are traded. This would enable them to identify the most appropriate combination of rights, rules and decision-making procedures along supply chains, and then pre-test and implement interventions specific to these systems.

Countries therefore need to analyse how species are traded. This would include looking at the relevant property rights and other laws that affect people involved in the trade, as well as understanding factors such as incentives for people to harvest species, the extent to which trade contributes to peoples’ income, and market size for traded species and products.

Countries could then reconfigure rights and rules so that they are aligned along supply chains. This is needed to avoid creating loopholes and facilitating illegal trade. Where trade (both within countries and between countries) is taking place, these arrangements should support it to be legal and sustainable. That’s the ultimate aim of Cites. The relevant actors, including collectors and traders should also be consulted – or better yet involved in co-designing regulations – so that the rules are legitimate to them.

Read more:
From rhino horn snuff to pangolin livestock feed: we analysed half a century of patents to track the wildlife trade’s evolution

The most appropriate interventions will depend on each country’s analysis of its own trading situation and their role in the trade of given species. They may include devolving land or use rights to Indigenous peoples so that they manage and can benefit from the species. Or interventions may be programmes to reduce consumer demand or develop responsible markets for wildlife products as appropriate.

The approach we propose in our study has the potential to reduce reliance on state-led law enforcement along international supply chains. Pluralist regulatory approaches, including self-regulation, community monitoring or the engagement of appropriate third parties, could be used to support compliance with new rules at each stage of supply chains. Where property rights are appropriately assigned, clear and enforceable, this could mean less reliance on state law-enforcement. This is because local people with a sense of ownership of wildlife are more likely to help protect it rather than overexploit it.

How could Cites be more effective? By understanding the dynamic trade systems for species in greater detail. Then, identifying the most appropriate combination of rights, rules and decision-making procedures to achieve sustainability throughout supply chains. And, finally, integrating Cites trade measures within these broader systems.

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Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far. Läs mer…

A nationwide plan to digitise immigration documents recently came into force. Since January 1, millions of foreign nationals who live in the UK must now use digital-only status documents, as all biometric residence permits expired at the end of 2024.

The Home Office says an online system will mean faster processing times and lower risk of fraud. However, the rollout has created significant problems for some migrants, with reports of non-citizens being denied entry to the UK after border agents did not accept their proof of status.

My recent work with colleagues at the Oxford Migration Observatory suggests this was predictable. When migration rules and processes change, non-citizens are less likely to understand the rules. This can have serious consequences, as their access to housing, employment and healthcare hinges on their ability to show they have a valid immigration status.

Even when migrants do understand the rules, they may still experience problems proving their status if the people they interact with – such as employers and landlords – do not, or if the processes are unclear. This has been the case for some Ukrainians in the UK, who have been unable to renew their tenancies and face losing their jobs because of uncertainty surrounding visa extensions.

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The results of an online survey by the Migration Observatory reveal non-UK citizens’ knowledge of the rights and conditions attached to their immigration status. The survey asked respondents which immigration status they held, a question not usually included in British surveys or the census.

Using this data, we compared the experiences and understanding of people who received their status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EU citizens and their family members who came to the UK under EU free movement rules) and those with “non-EUSS” statuses (typically non-EU citizens arriving on family, work or study visas).

We found that migrants were less likely to understand their rights and responsibilities when immigration rules related to their situation had recently changed.

There was, for example, no consensus among EUSS pre-settled status holders (people who arrived in the UK under EU free movement but have lived in the UK for fewer than five years) as to whether their status had an expiry date. While 72% said their status would not expire, 17% said they would need to reapply, and 11% did not know. For comparison, 99% of respondents with temporary immigration statuses – such as a work or family visa – knew their status had an expiry date.

Rules around settled status have changed several times.
Cmspic/Shutterstock

One likely reason for the confusion is that the situation is genuinely a bit complicated and keeps changing. When the EU settlement scheme was introduced, pre-settled status lasted for only five years. People who did not upgrade to the more secure “settled status” would see their leave expire.

However, since December 2022, people with pre-settled status can stay in the UK indefinitely if they still meet the original eligibility criteria. Rules on permitted absences (the amount of time somebody can spend outside the UK without it affecting their immigration status) have also changed several times.

Similarly, almost a third of in-work pre-settled status holders did not know they were eligible for most benefits, such as universal credit. This is another area where the rules have evolved following several court cases. A surprisingly high share also did not know they were entitled to free NHS hospital treatment.

By contrast, pre-settled status holders were more likely to know they could work for any employer, an area where the conditions for access have been consistent. This suggests that some people who are not aware of what they are entitled to access may refrain from seeking support they require.

Changing immigration processes

To access the labour and housing markets, receive secondary healthcare, or get married, migrants must show they hold valid leave (permission to live in the UK). At the time of the survey, most non-EUSS status holders could show a physical document, such as a biometric residence permit.

Most EUSS status holders, however, had a digital eVisa. This is a relatively new addition to the immigration system. People with an eVisa prove their status by presenting a “share code” linked to gov.uk.

Most respondents from both groups – 92% – had not experienced issues proving their right to live and work in the UK. However, problems were more common among people with a digital-only status than with physical documentation.

Read more:
Clearing the UK’s asylum backlog has led to rising refugee homelessness

In addition, this group faced different challenges — 48% of digital-only respondents who encountered an issue said it was because the person checking their status would not accept the proof provided, compared to 29% of people with physical documentation.

While most people with a digital-only status were confident they could generate a share code to demonstrate their status to an employer or landlord, a substantial minority of older respondents lacked this confidence. People who had experienced a problem proving their status in the past also lacked confidence, and they considered having a physical card to prove their status to be more important to them.

The challenges migrants face in navigating the UK immigration system are unlikely to disappear — rules and processes will continue to evolve in the years ahead in response to changes in UK migration patterns more broadly. However, policymakers cannot assume that everyone understands the rules, particularly when they keep changing. Läs mer…

Visit a supermarket in 2025 and you’ll see that a tub of Lurpak butter can cost £5.70. It may strike you that this represents a staggering increase from £3.65 just three years ago, so instead of paying the premium, you reach for the supermarket’s own brand at £3.80.

This kind of switch, multiplied across millions of shopping baskets, represents a massive shift in consumer behaviour that has been largely invisible to official statistics. But that’s changing, as the UK embarks on its biggest revolution in measuring living costs since the second world war.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is transforming the way it tracks inflation, moving from painstakingly checking prices to analysing millions of real purchases through supermarket scanners. Consider olive oil, the price of which surged by 47% in a year, or milk, which jumped by more than 25%. While official statistics captured these price rises, they couldn’t track how households adapted – whether by switching to cheaper alternatives, buying less, or cutting back elsewhere. This was a blind spot in our understanding of consumer behaviour.

Currently, price collectors visit stores across the country each month, checking the prices of about 25,000 products. It’s like taking a snapshot of what’s on the shelves at a particular moment. But this system, designed decades ago, often misses the real impact of inflation on different household types in things like choosing different products or switching stores.

This is crucial for understanding the real impact of inflation on lower-income households. These families often have less flexibility in their budgets and must make more dramatic changes to their shopping habits when prices rise. During recent periods of high inflation, many on low incomes found that official figures didn’t match their experience, which was of even higher inflation than the headline rates. And there’s a good reason why.

Inflation statistics aren’t just academic exercises. They drive decisions that affect every aspect of our financial lives. The Bank of England uses them to set interest rates, which in turn influence mortgage payments and savings returns. Employers use them in wage negotiations. Government uses them to adjust benefits, state pensions and tax thresholds. Even commercial contracts, including mobile phone bills and rail fares, are often linked to inflation rates.

When these numbers don’t accurately reflect price pressures, it can have serious consequences. If official figures underestimate the inflation experienced by lower-income households, benefit increases might not keep pace with their actual cost increases. Similarly, if wages don’t rise in line with real living costs, workers effectively experience a pay cut.

The scanner data revolution

The ONS’s new approach, to be introduced next year, will analyse around 300 million price points from supermarket scanners, covering about half of all grocery transactions in the UK. Instead of just seeing what’s on the shelf, they’ll know exactly what prices people are paying at checkouts across the country.

This massive increase in data points – from 25,000 to 300 million – will allow for a more nuanced understanding of consumer behaviour.

The change will also enable quicker identification of emerging price trends. After the start of the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine war, prices of certain goods changed rapidly. Scanner data could help spot these changes faster, allowing for more timely policy responses. It might also reveal regional variations in price pressures.

Take the 2023 surge in food prices – while overall food inflation hit 19%, the impact varied dramatically across households. Current statistics would not capture lower-income families switching from fresh to frozen vegetables, or from branded to value ranges.

In times of cost pressures, shoppers may switch from fresh produce to frozen.
sirtravelalot/Shutterstock

With scanner data, policymakers could spot these trends quickly and respond more precisely – perhaps by adjusting benefit payments or targeting support to specific households when essential food costs spike. Instead of waiting for quarterly surveys to reveal hardship, they will be able to see in real time how different groups are coping with price pressures.

The ONS recently said full implementation will come in 2026, a year later than planned. While it will have the technical capability ready by March 2025, it is opting for a year of parallel running to ensure accuracy. This approach reflects how crucial these statistics are for the economy.

It has already modernised other areas of price collection, including incorporating 40 million train fare data points and 300,000 used car prices. But grocery prices, being central to household budgets and varying significantly across different income groups, require extra attention.

The change is coming at a crucial time. Recent years have shown how rapidly economic conditions can change and how differently these changes can affect various segments of society. The pandemic, Brexit adjustments, and global supply chain disruptions have all contributed to price pressures.

For consumers, while the changes won’t directly lower prices, they could lead to more appropriate responses from the Bank of England, government and employers. Most importantly, it could ensure that official inflation figures better reflect the reality of the weekly shop, particularly during times of economic stress.

The transformation of inflation statistics might seem like a technical detail, but its implications reach far beyond government offices and economic reports. It’s about ensuring that the official measures of living costs better reflect the reality experienced by millions of households across the UK. In this challenging economic environment, that’s something worth getting right. Läs mer…

The UK government’s new plan to foster innovation through artificial intelligence (AI) is ambitious. Its goals rely on the better use of public data, including renewed efforts to maximise the value of health data held by the NHS. Yet this could involve the use of real data from patients using the NHS. This has been highly controversial in the past and previous attempts to use this health data have been at times close to disastrous.

Patient data would be anonymised, but concerns remain about potential threats to this anonymity. For example, the use of health data has been accompanied by worries about access to data for commercial gain. The care.data programme, which collapsed in 2014, had an similar underlying idea: sharing health data across the country to both publicly funded research bodies and private companies.

Poor communication about the more controversial elements of this project and a failure to listen to concerns led to the programme being shelved. More recently, the involvement of the US tech company Palantir in the new NHS data platform raised questions about who can and should access data.

The new effort to use health data to train (or improve) AI models, similarly relies on public support for success. Yet perhaps unsurprisingly, within hours of this announcement, media outlets and social media users attacked the plan as a way of monetising health data. “Ministers mull allowing private firms to make profit from NHS data in AI push,” one published headline reads.

These responses, and those to care.data and Palantir, reflect just how important public trust is in the design of policy. This is true no matter how complicated technology becomes – and crucially, trust becomes more important as societies increase in scale and we’re less able to see or understand every part of the system. It can, though, be difficult, if not impossible, to make a judgement as to where we should place trust, and how to do that well. This holds true whether we are talking about governments, companies, or even just acquaintances – to trust (or not) is a decision each of us must make every day.

The challenge of trust motivates what we call the “trustworthiness recognition problem”, which highlights that determining who is worthy of our trust is something that stems from the origins of human social behaviour. The problem comes from a simple issue: anyone can claim to be trustworthy and we can lack sure ways to tell if they genuinely are.

If someone moves into a new home and sees ads for different internet providers online, there isn’t a sure way to tell which will be cheaper or more reliable. Presentation doesn’t need – and may not even often – reflect anything about a person or group’s underlying qualities. Carrying a designer handbag or wearing an expensive watch doesn’t guarantee the wearer is wealthy.

Luckily, work in anthropology, psychology and economics shows how people – and by
consequence, institutions like political bodies – can overcome this problem. This work is known as signalling theory, and explains how and why communication, or what we can call the passing of information from a signaller to a receiver, evolves even when the individuals communicating are in conflict.

For example, people moving between groups may have reasons to lie about their identities. They might want to hide something unpleasant about their own past. Or they might claim to be a relative of someone wealthy or powerful in a community. Zadie Smith’s recent book, The Fraud, is a fictionalised version of this popular theme that explores aristocratic life during Victorian England.

Yet it’s just not possible to fake some qualities. A fraud can claim to be an aristocrat, a doctor, or an AI expert. Signals that these frauds unintentionally give off will, however, give them away over time. A false aristocrat will probably not fake his demeanour or accent effectively enough (accents, among other signals, are difficult to fake to those familiar with them).

The structure of society is obviously different than that of two centuries ago, but the problem, at its core, is the same — as, we think, is the solution. Much as there are ways for a truly wealthy person to prove wealth, a trustworthy person or group must be able to show they are worth trusting. The way or ways this is possible will undoubtedly vary from context to context, but we believe that political bodies such as governments must demonstrate a willingness to listen and respond to the public about their concerns.

The care.data project, was criticised because it was publicised via leaflets dropped at people’s doors that did not contain an opt-out. This failed to signal to the public a real desire to alleviate people’s concerns that information about them would be misused or sold for profit.

The current plan around the use of data to develop AI algorithms needs to be different. Our political and scientific institutions have a duty to signal their commitment to the public by listening to them, and through doing so develop cohesive policies that minimise the risks to individuals while maximising the potential benefits for all.

The key is to place sufficient funding and effort to signal – to demonstrate – the honest motivation of engaging with the public about their concerns. The government and scientific bodies have a duty to listen to the public, and further to explain how they will protect it. Saying “trust me” is never enough: you have to show you are worth it. Läs mer…

The way you see nutrition labels on food packaging is about to change. By 2025, new front-of-package labels will start appearing on grocery store shelves, and by January 2026, they’ll be mandatory.

Over the past two decades, nutrition labelling has evolved into a cornerstone of public health strategies worldwide. Traditional back-of-package labels, which provide comprehensive nutritional details, are often overlooked due to their complexity and placement, making them less effective in guiding consumer choices.

Front-of-package labels address this issue by simplifying key nutritional information and positioning it in a more prominent, visible space. This streamlined approach has proven successful in leading consumers toward healthier choices, as research indicates that simplified, visible labels can influence purchasing decisions.

Globally, front-of-package systems vary, with some countries employing warning symbols to flag excessive nutrient levels, while others use colour-coded “traffic light” systems or endorsement icons to promote healthier options.

Canadian policy

The Canadian government’s new policy requiring front-of-package nutrition symbols aims to guide consumers toward healthier food choices by highlighting foods high in sodium, sugars or saturated fats. These nutrients are closely linked to chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.

Designed for simplicity and consistency, the labels feature a black-and-white magnifying glass icon. This design’s uniformity in size, placement and bilingual presentation is intended to make it easily recognizable and understandable.

Fresh produce, plain dairy products and raw, single-ingredient meats are exempt from the regulations, acknowledging their inherent nutritional benefits.

Front-of-package labels simplify key nutritional information and position it in a more prominent, visible space.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

The policy is intended to promote transparency and improve public health by helping Canadians make more informed food choices. With full implementation set for January 2026, further research and targeted actions such as meetings and correspondence on healthy eating by Health Canada are required to ensure the effectiveness of the policy.

Health Canada’s development of these front-of-package labels has been shaped by years of research and stakeholder consultations.

Since 2016, extensive consumer testing, including focus groups, online surveys and in-store experiments, has informed decisions regarding the labels’ design, size and placement. As a result, the labels have been refined to better meet their goal of providing consumers with clearer, more actionable nutritional information.

While the initiative holds promise, several gaps could undermine its overall effectiveness. Varying levels of health literacy may hinder consumers’ ability to fully comprehend and act on the front-of-package labels, with some potentially unaware of the health risks associated with flagged nutrients like sodium, sugars and saturated fats.

Additionally, manufacturers face challenges in adhering to new labelling standards, reformulating products to meet healthier benchmarks and overcoming potential consumer resistance.

Addressing these issues requires significant investment in consumer education, alongside targeted support for manufacturers from the Canadian government in form of consultation in adapting to the new requirements.

The policy also presents an opportunity to engage consumers more deeply in their health choices. Education campaigns such as community workshops and public health initiatives, and point of sale posters that explain the purpose and interpretation of front-of-package labels, can empower consumers to make informed decisions.

These campaigns should address disparities in health literacy, ensuring that all Canadians benefit from the initiative regardless of socioeconomic status. Collaborative efforts among government agencies, health-care providers and community organizations could amplify these educational initiatives, reaching a wider audience.

Industry response

Mock packaging displays shown during a Health Canada announcement about labelling requirements for pre-packaged foods, in Ottawa in June 2022. Pre-packaged foods with high levels of saturated fat, sugar or sodium will require nutrition warnings on the front of the package starting in 2026.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

For manufacturers, the introduction of front-of-package labels often triggers efforts to reformulate products, reducing sodium, sugars or saturated fats to avoid negative labelling.

This process frequently involves ingredient substitution, recipe adjustments or portion size reductions. However, retaining the taste, texture and overall consumer satisfaction of a product while meeting nutritional targets requires significant innovation. If reformulated products fail to meet consumer expectations, brands risk losing loyalty and market share.

The stakes are particularly high for manufacturers whose flagship products are most at risk of being flagged. To overcome these challenges, collaboration with food scientists, ingredient suppliers and regulatory bodies is essential. Research and development efforts must focus on finding innovative solutions that meet regulatory requirements without sacrificing consumer preferences.

Beyond reformulation, compliance with front-of-package labelling requirements presents logistical and financial challenges. Packaging must be redesigned to incorporate the bilingual, standardized labels, often at significant cost. Smaller manufacturers with limited resources may find these changes particularly burdensome.

Updating supply chains to include new packaging materials and ensuring consistent application across product lines add further complexity. In addition to these financial and operational pressures, reformulation may affect production processes and shelf life, necessitating further adjustments.

Potential impact

Despite these challenges, front-of-package labelling has the potential to drive significant change within the food industry. By prioritizing healthier formulations, companies can gain a competitive advantage, particularly as consumer demand for health-conscious products grows.

Over time, this shift could lead to broader industry trends, pushing manufacturers toward greater transparency and accountability in their product offerings.

However, these positive outcomes require supportive policies. Tax incentives, subsidies for reformulation and clear regulatory guidance can help ease the financial and operational burdens faced by manufacturers, particularly smaller businesses.

While front-of-package labelling shows promise in promoting healthier choices and encouraging innovation, its long-term impact remains to be fully understood.

Key areas for future research include examining how manufacturers prioritize reformulation, tracking changes in nutrient composition over time, and analyzing consumer behaviour in response to labelled products. Studies that link front-of-package labels to dietary intake and health outcomes could provide a comprehensive view of their effectiveness in achieving public health goals.

This story was co-authored by Christopher Marinangeli. He is a nutrition scientist and regulatory expert with the Centre for Regulatory Research and Innovation at Protein Industries Canada, a not-for-profit organization and one of Canada’s five Global Innovation Clusters. Läs mer…

The portrait of President Andrew Jackson has recently made a comeback in the Oval Office. “Old Hickory” – Jackson’s nickname – has long been a favorite of President Donald Trump.

Trump identifies with Jackson on many levels. As a man and a leader, he likes the brash, confrontational, hypermasculine, lionlike attitude that characterized the seventh president. Jackson pushed executive power to the limits, just like Trump tries to do.

And there is a commonality of philosophical and political visions. The two tap into the same definition of freedom. They both believe the president has freedom from all restraint and from every form of legislative or judicial control.

However, differences exist between the two that might prompt Trump to consider the potential danger of how he governs and whom he listens to.

Personal loyalty and devotion

As an expert on American presidents, I can state with confidence that Trump is not the first to insist on complete obedience from his subordinates. Nor is he the first to take disagreement personally.

Trump’s attempt to create an army of sycophants, along with his effort to purge government staff he deems disloyal, is nothing new in America.

Personal loyalty and devotion were important to Andrew Jackson, who didn’t trust human nature. But he was steadfast in his trust, once he decided to place it in a person.

When Jackson had to choose his advisers and shape his first Cabinet, he relied on cronies from his beloved Tennessee – plus a handful of relatives.

The most famous and infamous of those chums was John H. Eaton. Eaton had developed a brotherly relationship with Jackson. Jackson felt indebted to him because Eaton had run his presidential campaigns of 1824 and 1828. Eaton would become secretary of war, but he also ended up embarrassing the president.

A political cartoon depicts President Andrew Jackson sitting stunned as his Cabinet, represented as rats, runs to escape his falling house during the political scandal surrounding the Eaton Affair.
Bettman/Getty Images

First off, he had an affair with a married woman, Margaret O’Neale Timberlake, whose husband was often at sea. When in 1828 Mr. Timberlake died abroad, rumor spread that he had slashed his own throat because of Margaret’s infidelity.

In Washington, D.C., gossip soon became ugly about what was known as the Eaton Affair. It ultimately led to the resignation of some Cabinet officials.

Jackson was irate. He had always realized he didn’t belong in the elite society of Washington, D.C. He was too self-conscious about his entire persona and too aware that he was perceived as an interloper. Consequently, he usually reacted defensively and often violently, thus betraying insecurity: “Our society wants purging here,” he wrote to one of his friends in 1829.

Under the same roof

Jackson’s clan lived with him in the White House. There was Andrew Jackson Jr., a nephew and his adopted son. Andrew Jr. would inherit a huge fortune, but he would die in debt. It’s no surprise that historians have described him as “irresponsible and ambitionless, a considerable disappointment to his father.”

There was Andrew Jackson Donelson and his wife, Emily. Donelson was the nephew of the just-deceased wife of the president, Rachel Jackson, who tragically died just days after her husband won the 1828 election. Donelson had served with Jackson in the Florida War – known as the First Seminole War – and later became his private secretary. Emily Donelson would act as the president’s hostess in the White House.

Another close friend from Tennessee, Maj. William B. Lewis, also moved into the White House. Also a presidential adviser, Lewis gained the official title of second auditor of the Treasury. But the Donelsons couldn’t stand the man. Emily Donelson would eventually label him a “sycophant” who had seized an opportunity to “save himself all expense.”

As he shaped his first Cabinet, Jackson consistently ignored the suggestions coming from the two higher-profile characters of his administration, Martin Van Buren and John C. Calhoun. It wasn’t just an ideological difference; it was that neither of them had been early Jackson men.

Surrounded by a few favorites

Jackson, the president who made no secret that he was running a one-man show, had a presidential style derived from his military experience. As a general, Jackson rarely summoned councils of war. When he had to decide on a given course of action, he didn’t share responsibility.

But critics saw things in a totally different way. In the spring of 1831, Sen. George Poindexter, a hesitant Jacksonian, complained that Jackson was “surrounded by a few favorites who controlled and directed all things.”

To describe the informal group of friends, family members and advisers whom they believed maintained too great an influence over the president, the opposition coined the phrase “kitchen cabinet.”

But the opposition’s image of the “kitchen cabinet” was not the reality. No matter his personal quirks, Jackson proved to be an excellent administrator. And contrary to Emily Donelson’s fears, he resisted sycophants and self-interested counselors.

Elon Musk, right, is a top adviser and donor to Donald Trump and directs the administration’s effort to cut government spending.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

A builder, not a destroyer

Jackson escaped manipulation because he managed to keep his eyes on his higher goal, the expansionist idea of the American nation.

He sought to create a blueprint for a government that would outlast him. He enacted impersonal rules that were sustained by elaborate systems of checks and balances. Whether you like him or not, Jackson was a builder, not a destroyer, of administrations.

The circumstances of the Jackson and Trump presidencies might look similar, but the key is that they are two very different men. Both wanted to fully reform the federal government, faced scandal, felt like an outsider in Washington, D.C., and had all sorts of close loyalists around pushing their agendas.

But Jackson didn’t get distracted. So he was not a useful puppet for those who sought to exploit him that way.

By contrast, it will be difficult for Trump to morph into President Jackson. Since the 1970s, the power of unelected and unconfirmed presidential aides and counselors has become more intense.

These individuals may easily end up negotiating deals or directing the course of events while escaping both congressional oversight and public scrutiny.

In their unaccountable influence, they are joined by major donors to a president’s campaign or causes.

There’s no doubt that they are a potential liability more dangerous than Jackson’s sycophants, more problematic than his cronies, more embarrassing than his wacky nephews. Läs mer…

In Zimbabwe they say, Hanzi bhande rinonzvenga vakadzi vakapinda mumigoghi (The gold belt will disappear if women go into the underground mine).

Many men on artisanal or small-scale gold mining sites are uncomfortable working with women in their syndicates because of this commonly held cultural belief, that women “pollute” the sacredness of the mining space.

Read more:
Informal mining in South Africa is here to stay. Police brutality won’t end it – here’s what will

Yet women remain a lively, if sidelined, community in the country’s growing mining sector. By 2000 there were more than 500,000 people working in artisanal and small-scale mining in Zimbabwe. By 2018 it was estimated that number could be up to 1.5 million. But this doesn’t include people operating illegally.

Women’s roles have varied inside this industry: they have been vendors, sex workers, and alluvial gold washers, panning for gold along streams.

We are researchers of resource extraction and environmental change and of history and the environment. Zimbabwean women in artisanal mining are the subject of our recent paper, drawn from a larger study in Mazowe, 40km from the capital, Harare.

While the main goal of the research was to understand women’s experiences and power relations in this apparently masculine sector, we realised there was something else to be uncovered. A secret world of ritual, rite and rumour.

Women sifting gold above ground.
Jabulani Shaba

We found that women under spiritual and ancestral possession (often referred to as masvikiro) have developed a new commercial vision on the mines.

They have created spiritual shrines that are visited by men seeking to make their fortunes. They profit from the beliefs of miners that their ritual instructions help them find gold.

Women at these mines are not allowed to go underground themselves, but their occult spirit being accompanies miners deep underground and guides them in looking for gold.

So, some women have tapped into spiritual economies in Mazowe to support their livelihood. Even in a deeply patriarchal society, these women push back against the social and cultural order of masculine mine spaces.

The study

Our study of occult practices is one of the outcomes of extensive fieldwork over the course of 13 months in the small mining community of Jumbo in Mazowe.

Women mining above ground, panning for gold in rivers.
Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images

Research involved interviews with 40 women and 20 men, as well as social conversations and observations. It included analysis of social media, mining reports and archive material. The goal was to shine a light on the dynamics that shaped women’s experiences in a gold mining frontier.

This included exploring the connections between gender and the occult, and the intimate rituals of how women survive on the mines.

Women’s many roles

Persisting land inequalities in Zimbabwe have catapulted women into artisanal gold washing to support their rural livelihoods. Yet poverty was not the only trigger; other women acquired gold mining licences and accumulated more profits in Mazowe.

Some women in Mazowe engaged in cross border trading activities and those who worked as domestic workers in South Africa and Botswana returned to Mazowe and invested in gold pits. They sub-contracted male labourers to work for them – a process that came to be known as ku sponsor makomba (financing gold pits).

In the post-2000 era, illegal gold mining continued to escalate. This was followed by a surge of sex workers in artisanal gold mining sites across the country. Sex work offered a lucrative business opportunity for women in a declining economic situation. Women in our study highlighted the need to provide food for their families as a key factor that pushed them into the sex trade.

Sifting the soil for gold.
Jabulani Shaba

A further commercial opportunity in Mazowe’s mines became spiritual work.

Rituals, rites and rumours

In Zimbabwe there is a long history of superstitions about women and mining. We discovered occult practices are popular and are used for different purposes by various social groups.

In the postcolonial period, miners have become targets of a growing number of fake prophets and diviners. They promise easy access into the mining world and a guarantee of striking rich gold veins.

Men in the mines use the occult to increase their dominance and masculinity over other men. There are many forms of rituals, including using marijuana (mbanje) to instil courage and chase away evil spirits.

Some women tapped into these existing spiritual life worlds to make money through spiritual entrepreneurship. In Mazowe, for example, Nehanda – a powerful and revered ancestral spirit – is still venerated. Artisanal miners shared stories about visits to these shrines to seek advice from women under the possession of Nehanda’s spirit. The diviners provide specific instructions for rituals that the men need to perform at mining sites.

A group discussion with sex workers in Mazowe District.
Jabulani Shaba

There were also numerous stories of how the older women were consulted by miners. It was reported, for example, that one helped the miners through kurombesa (the use of ritual charms). Miners would suck her breast and then they would strike a gold belt afterwards.

While these stories portray a “mythical” productive role played by women in ritual practices, they also show how this mining community regards the female body. In this case, it is associated with good fortune and at the same time death. It’s important to note that the sucking of breasts was seen to be a sacred activity and miners were supposed to honour the purity of the act.

These local beliefs have roots in the country’s precolonial history. Like many cultures across Africa, Zimbabwean iron smelters have traditionally used female body features in decorating and creating the shapes of their mining tools.

Read more:
Colonial powers tried to stifle traditional healing in Zimbabwe. They failed and today it’s a powerful force for treating mental illness

Sex workers in the district also developed new strategies of making a living, tapping into rituals and using rumours circulating in the community. These women gained an understanding of the social economic dynamics of mining settlements: when some miners get money from selling gold, they spend it on alcohol and sex.

However, some men in the community feared the agency of sex workers who were using rituals. They referred to these women as “sperm mongers” who secretly kept used condoms to take the sperm to “witchdoctors” to create potions to bathe in. It was believed this would make them sexually appealing.

While some sex workers denied the claims, a few admitted to them. One said:

We use muti to attract our clients and get more money to feed our families – as compared to our men who usually want the money to spend and drink alcohol.

Redefining a woman’s place

We argue that instead of being just “polluters of the mines”, women are central to understanding the ritual life of artisanal gold mining in Zimbabwe.

A neglected part of women’s history can be understood by unpacking their entrepreneurial everydayness. This can help to trace the role of women as they work to survive within male dominated communities. Läs mer…