Drugs
A government adviser has suggested rebranding painkillers to curb overuse. But is this a "style over substance" approach?
“All I want to do now is support people that have gone through what I’ve gone through,” says Chris Panikkou, 48.
Experts worry it's becoming normalised, following 13 deaths linked to the 'deadly combination' last year.
“Behind these statistics are human beings, who like all of us, had talents and ambitions,” Crisis chief says.
The drugs have a street value of around €500,000.
In their largest burning of confiscated drugs to date, Panama's security forces burned 24 tonnes of cocaine and two tonnes of marijuana, in a remote area. The destroyed drugs were confiscated only in the last four months.
Police have seized a UK-record haul of heroin worth more than£120m at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk. Around 1.3m tonnes of the class-A drug was hidden in boxes among towels and bathrobes on board a shipping container.
Two British men aged 51 and 40 were arrested in Queensland after a multiagency investigation led to the seizure of 766kg of MDMA. According to the police, the batch was the purest ever recorded in Queensland. As part of the same investigation, another two British men, aged 60 and 49, were arrested in New Zealand following the seizure of 200kg of meth.
These causes of deaths have followed a generation – now in their 40s and 50s – from the 1980s to today.
Birds are getting sick from swallowing balloons and beaches are littered with canisters.