As a society, we sure do like a tipple. Government figures estimate nearly 87 percent of Americans will drink alcohol at some point in their lifetime, with 70 percent enjoying at least one drink a year. In England, around 69 percent of men drink at least once a week. It’s easy to see why. A couple of beers make you more relaxed, more sociable, and better-looking to the opposite sex. What’s not to love?

Well, it’s not quite so simple as that. While we all know the dangers of alcoholism, it turns out alcohol may be far more harmful than most of us realize, maybe even more so than any illegal drug. We’d never go so far as to argue for prohibition, but once you look at the data, getting horrendously drunk starts to look less like an amusing diversion, and more like a portal to your nightmares.

10 It’s The Single Most Important Factor In Ruining Life Happiness

If you’ve never heard of the Grant Study, you should know it’s one of the longest-running sociological studies in the world. Starting in 1938, researchers at Harvard tracked the lives of 200 men and reported on their emotional and physical well-being. Over the years, findings have included that intelligence (above a certain level) has no influence on earnings and that older liberals tend to have way more sex. They’ve also revealed that one thing above all else can destroy your happiness utterly: alcohol.

In the 2012 update to the study, Triumphs of Experience, study director George Vaillant revealed that alcohol was one of the key factors in participants’ life outcomes. More so than intelligence, more so than political leanings or how rich their parents were, alcohol was the top decider in how subjects’ lives turned out. No matter where they stood on the social spectrum, those who developed drinking problems took mostly the same path: downward. Alcoholism was the main cause of divorce in the study, one of the main triggers for neurosis and depression (importantly, the alcohol abuse tended to come before the mental problems), and tied with smoking as the single biggest contributor to an early grave. Vaillant called it “a disorder of great destructive power.”

Of course, a similar effect would probably be seen if the men had become drug junkies. But there’s no denying alcohol has other startling effects that reach beyond the murky shadows of addiction.

9 It’s One Of Our Biggest Killers

Between 2006 and 2010, 88,000 Americans died annually from alcohol abuse. That’s not a typo. Every year, the nation’s favorite drug killed more people than Mexico’s brutal drug war. According to the CDC, that makes alcohol the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death for people living in the USA. In Britain, the figures may be even worse. According to respected scientist David Nutt, alcohol is the leading cause of death for Brits aged 16–60.

The reasons for this make for some grim reading. Although by far the highest number of alcohol-related deaths come from liver disease and addiction, accidental poisoning and behavioral disorders caused by drinking ranked highly, too. Drunk driving also played a huge factor. According to the CDC, nearly one-third of all fatal road accidents in the US were caused by alcohol. On average, this means drunk driving killed one American every 51 minutes. The total cost of all this carnage is estimated at over $59 billion annually—roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of Croatia.

8 It Increases Sexual Assault Rates

It isn’t just where individual health is concerned that alcohol can have a hugely negative impact. We’ve known for years that alcohol and sexual assault rates have a disturbing connection to one another.

In one widely cited Harvard study from 2004, college campuses with reputations for binge drinking had significantly higher rates of sexual assault. The team first split colleges into either low, medium, or high binge drinking environments. Those classified as low had less than 35 percent of the student body drinking more than five drinks in one sitting over a two-week period. In those classified as medium, 36–50 percent of the students did so. In those classified high, the rate was over 50 percent. The team then concluded that being female at a medium or high binge drinking college increased your risk of getting raped by a shocking 1.5 times. A 2013 study later found similar results.

That’s a serious increase, and it doesn’t just occur on campuses. An influential 1990s study found around half of all attackers committed sexual assaults while drunk, while half of all victims likewise reported being intoxicated. That’s not to suggest the victims were in any way to blame. There’s only one bad guy here and that’s the scumbag rapist. Nor is it intended to suggest that one beer turns all men into rape-happy hooligans. Studies show only 3 percent of college men commit 90 percent of all campus rapes. It does show how entwined alcohol and violence can be, though, in a way it simply isn’t with other drugs.

7 No Other Drug Is As Bad For Public Safety

What would you say is the world’s most dangerous drug? If we’re talking about dangers to others, most of us would probably think of crack or meth. We would be wrong. According to a British study, the answer is alcohol.

In 2010, respected journal The Lancet published a study led by former government adviser Professor David Nutt into the dangers posed by 20 available drugs. While heroin, crack, and methamphetamine took the top places for dangers posed to individual users, one drug was found to be far and away the most harmful to society at large. According to the study, use of alcohol was over twice as likely to result in harm to others as use of crack cocaine was. Out of a possible score of 100, it scored 45, compared to slightly over 20 for heroin in second place.

The reasons for this are varied, with the researchers focusing on factors such as crime, environmental damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community cohesion. While some drugs scored well in one category, alcohol was the only one to sweep the boards. Part of that may be due to its ready availability, but it’s still an astounding finding. By way of comparison, cocaine and cannabis both scored under 10 for harm to others, while ecstasy, LSD, and mushrooms scored around zero.

6 It Kills More Teenagers Than Any Other Drug

Every couple of years, some new drug will come along and whip up a media panic about teenagers. In September 2015, K2 was supposedly turning people into nude, psychotic zombies. Before that, it was Cloud 9 putting kids in hospitals. What every single one of these scare stories always glosses over is that we already have a readily available, extremely deadly drug doing the rounds among our kids. Every year, 4,300 US teenagers die from drinking alcohol.

That’s more people than died during 9/11. According to nonprofits and pressure groups such as Mothers Against Drink Driving (MADD), it’s more than are killed each year by all illegal drugs combined. Even if you think their data might be susceptible to bias (they are an overtly anti-alcohol charity after all), if they’re anywhere in the ballpark, it’s still an enormous number. To give it a comparison point, the panic-inducing Cloud 9 was linked to only a handful of deaths, some of which may have been falsely attributed by an overexcited media. If we can get worked up over a comparatively tiny number of deaths, all while ignoring a much bigger epidemic, it’s tempting to wonder what’s going wrong.

5 Media Bias Against Other Drugs Is Unbelievable

The media loves a simple narrative. Fitting a nuanced argument into a headline is a tricky task, so most outlets don’t even bother to try. Sometimes this reaches absurd heights, as in the case of drug reporting. Since the 1990s, it’s been utterly clear that the media’s response to drug and alcohol stories is horrendously biased at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

Between 1990 and 1999, Scotland recorded 2,255 drug-related deaths. Curious to see how the media reported these deaths, Alasdair J.M. Forsyth compared every single Scottish news report on a fatality against the coroner reports. Of the 546 deaths that received coverage, the bias was profound. Only 1 in 72 deaths from morphine was reported, because it didn’t fit into any easy media narrative. By contrast, one in every five deaths from heroin got coverage, as did one of every eight cocaine-related deaths. But the biggest imbalance by far came from ecstasy. Nearly every single one of the 28 deaths ascribed to ecstasy received coverage in this period, a period that just happened to coincide with a media scare in the UK. Meanwhile, only 1 in 256 aspirin-related deaths got a similar treatment.

The point is that “bad” drugs get a disproportionate amount of press attention, reinforcing the belief that these deaths are happening all the time. In the exact same period of time, alcohol killed around 2,000 people—over 70 times the number killed by ecstasy—but wasn’t once reported as a deadly menace. As a result, talking seriously about the dangers of alcohol compared to other drugs becomes all but impossible.

4 Many Of The Alternatives Are Safer

Plenty of drugs are highly dangerous. Heroin, crack, GBH, and crystal meth can all mess you up in ways we’d rather not think about, leading to horrendous health problems. But so can alcohol. And while all those drugs are rightly frowned upon in our societies, alcohol is basically given a free pass.

The differences are even starker compared to other drugs we might consider socially acceptable. While cannabis does have detrimental health effects and may be linked with an increased risk of mental illness, it is far safer for you than drinking. David Nutt’s research that we referred to earlier placed the risk of cannabis to a user as less than half of that of alcohol. In recorded history, there has never been a single confirmed case of a marijuana overdose. The DEA has estimated you would need to smoke nearly 700 kilograms (1,500 lb) of the stuff in 15 minutes to be at risk of death. (Good luck staying awake.) Even the Dude in The Big Lebowski couldn’t manage something like that.

Other recreational drugs are even safer. The risk of death from ecstasy is roughly equivalent to that of riding a horse, while that from both LSD and magic mushrooms is essentially nonexistent (provided you don’t accidentally pick and eat a poisonous mushroom). It’d be a fool’s game to try and get people to give up drinking entirely, but cutting down becomes even harder when many of the safer alternatives are illegal.

3 The Alternatives Would Still Be Safer If Taken On A Larger Scale

One major obstacle to comparing alcohol with other drugs is that alcohol is both legal and widely available, whereas most others are not. Even in states like Colorado that passed pot legalization laws, not every city is selling, and it remains illegal in much of the country. This means there are way more drinkers than there are users of any other kind of drug.

Taking this into consideration, statistics about things like public health spending on alcohol can suddenly seem weaker. After all, some would argue that we’d see equally expensive (if slightly different) health problems if everyone was smoking pot all the time. That may not be true. In 1995, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a study into drugs and public health. They concluded that even if everyone started using cannabis as regularly as they do alcohol or tobacco, the effect on public health would likely be significantly lower.

That’s not to say there wouldn’t be serious health issues arising from widespread pot consumption, especially among teenagers. We’re not trying to convert everyone to be militantly pro-marijuana here. But the overall effect would still be less than at current levels of alcohol consumption, even though most legal systems treat alcohol as the safer substance.

2 Alcohol And Child Abuse

It’s a terrible fact of life that some adults get off on abusing kids. Whether through violent sexual acts or just through miserable, half-assed neglect, there are parents out there who do nothing but make their children’s lives a misery. Toss alcohol abuse into that mix and you’ve got the ingredients for a nightmare.

Studies have found that children who have either one or two alcoholic parents are anywhere between 2 to 13 times more likely to experience an awful situation at home. Known as adverse childhood experiences, these awful situations could be anything from living in forced squalor to seeing their mom get hit to being deliberately abused. In each case, the likelihood of that abuse increased with alcoholism. In situations where both parents were alcoholics, for example, children were 13 times more likely to grow up with a battered mother. Other studies have linked alcoholism to “profound suffering” in families.

Again, it’s not just the children of alcoholics who have crappy childhoods. Having a mom or dad who’s addicted to crack, gambling, or heroin can produce similar results. But the point is those activities are largely illegal or sensibly restricted. Alcohol is completely entwined with Western culture and its consumption actively encouraged.

1 It’s Basically Our Culture’s Fault

After reading all that, here’s a theory that might surprise you. According to respected anthropologist Dr. Anne Fox, alcohol doesn’t cause violence. She maintains there’s no proof that drinking can trigger violent acts in people. Instead, she thinks our problems with alcohol go deeper. It’s our culture that’s to blame.

If alcohol itself caused violence, we’d see uniform levels of violence across all drinking cultures. But places like Iceland drink way more and in a much more reckless manner than somewhere like Australia, all while experiencing significantly less alcohol-related violence. Instead, Dr. Fox says that how we behave when drunk is mostly how our culture teaches us to behave. That’s potentially very worrying.

Most of us grew up in cultures that taught us getting drunk was a wonderful thing to do. In countless movies, TV shows, and books, drinking is shown as something that normal people do regularly. At the same time, we’re taught to connect this popular pastime with violence and lack of self-control. The result is a powder keg of all worst possible outcomes. We put our own health at risk by drinking at a level we’d consider excessive if done with any other sort of drug. Then we endanger the health of others and those around us by acting out our violent, thuggish roles when we’re completely wasted.

We’re not trying to agitate for prohibition. It failed spectacularly last time, and we like the occasional drink as much as the next group of list-writers. But maybe we need to stop this glamorization of alcohol and the violence that accompanies it. Happily, this might already be happening. In Britain at least, rates for binge drinking among teenagers are dropping sharply, and young people are becoming more sensible in their alcohol consumption. Here’s to hoping the trend continues.

The estimated value of the US pharmaceutical industry was $446 billion in 2016. In fact, the research and development spending per employee is unparalleled by any other industry. Despite this, the discovery of revolutionary drugs and treatments is sometimes a case of noticing something unexpected, looking for something else, or just pure luck.

10 Chlorambucil

Chlorambucil is an antileukemia drug first approved by the FDA in 1957. Leukemia is cancer of the blood cells and is one of the leading cancers in individuals under age 15. The origins of this drug go all the way back to the use of mustard gas on World War I battlefields.^[1]

Many years after the war and under the threat of World War II, researchers at Yale were looking into treatments for mustard gas poisoning when they noticed that soldiers exposed to the gas had unusually low white blood cell counts.

This led to the discovery that nitrogen mustard–based compounds could be used in the treatment of leukemia to kill mutated and cancerous white blood cells and prevent further tumor division. More research led to the development of chlorambucil, which is still used to treat these types of cancers today.

9 Viagra

There is no doubt that Viagra is a highly used and appreciated pharmaceutical discovery worldwide. Its popularity stems from its widespread use in pop culture, especially in Hollywood.

However, the story of its discovery is a little more sedate. It started in Merthyr Tydfil, a small Welsh town in the UK. Scientists testing a new angina-prevention drug received reports of an unexpected effect from the volunteers.^[2]

Male participants were experiencing more frequent erections. Further research indicated that it was indeed the angina medication causing this effect, and thus, the “little blue pill” was born.

It was marketed as the first oral treatment for erectile dysfunction in 1998. Now, 20 years later, it has become one of the most prescribed drugs in the world.

8 Botox

Almost everyone has heard of Botox and its infamous face-freezing effect, leaving countless “celebrities” devoid of facial emotion. But fewer are aware of the drug’s surprising origins. Botox is actually a neurotoxin that is made from a purified form of the botulinum toxin that causes botulism.

It was first used as a drug to prevent muscle spasms within the body, specifically for people suffering from eyelid or vocal cord spasms. However, its usage around the eyes had some unexpected effects. The drug began to diminish wrinkles around the brow area of the face, which led to its use in cosmetic surgery to reduce facial wrinkles and to smooth skin.

The rapid evolution of this treatment has led to Botox cosmetic surgery becoming one of the most popular medical treatments, with over seven million procedures in the US alone in 2016.^[3]

7 Smallpox Vaccination

In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner made remarkable contributions to the development of the smallpox vaccine. Smallpox was one of the most feared diseases due to its high mortality rate and the extensive facial scarring inflicted on those who survived.

Prior to Jenner, the only preventive measure was variolation (inoculation) using pustule material from someone who already had the disease. Variolation led to a less severe case but could still result in death.^[4]

However, in his small-town practice in rural England, Jenner noticed that milkmaids who caught the less serious cowpox would not catch smallpox. This idea of infection with a less harmful virus led to the development of the vaccination. (Vacca is Latin for “cow.”)

The importance of developing the smallpox vaccine cannot be understated. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared this once-feared disease officially eradicated, making it the first and only disease to achieve this status.

6 Lithium

The treatment of bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression) has varied greatly throughout history. Sadly, until the late 20th century, patients were often confined to asylums. However, in 1948, Australian psychiatrist Dr. John Cade devised a revolutionary treatment using lithium salts.

This discovery came from his testing of the incorrect historical belief that a link existed between urea and mania. Cade took a somewhat unorthodox approach by collecting urine from patients and storing it in his own kitchen fridge to inject into live guinea pigs.

Over time, he began to inject uric acid directly into the guinea pigs, using lithium urate as it was so highly soluble. Lithium salt caused the animals to become relaxed, so Cade later tried it on himself with similar results.^[5] His work paved the way for the current leading treatment of bipolar disorder.

5 Penicillin

Although many people have heard of the chance discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, very few know the story of Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, the men who developed penicillin into a drug. All three men shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 for their work on penicillin.

While studying antibacterial substances at Oxford University in the 1930s, Chain, Florey, and their team began researching Fleming’s work on penicillin and devised a plan to mass-produce the penicillin mold to treat infections.

Their culturing methods included the use of old dairy equipment and even Marmite as a growth medium. One early favored method involved the use of cantaloupes, which was successful enough to begin clinical trials.

The two men’s efforts did not go unnoticed by the US armed forces. During World War II, the military realized penicillin’s potential to treat battle wounds for infections and began mass-production of the drug for the D-day landings. Penicillin went on to save countless lives during the war and beyond.^[6]

4 LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a Schedule I psychoactive substance that can cause intense hallucinogenic experiences for users. Ordinarily, it would not be considered a pharmaceutical drug. However, it has recently shown promise in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

LSD was first synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in the search for a blood circulation stimulant. However, this proved fruitless, so it was set aside for five years.

Upon resynthesizing the drug in 1943, Hofmann accidentally ingested a small amount from his fingertips, leading to an experience he described as “an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.”^[7]

Three days later on April 19, Hofmann purposely ingested a larger dose of the drug and experienced what is known by LSD fans as Bicycle Day (named after the mode of transport that Hofmann used to return home during his “trip”). With this, LSD was born and became popular as a symbol of the “flower power” movement during the 1960s. The drug is still used today.

3 Disulfiram

More commonly marketed as Antabuse, disulfiram is used to reduce alcohol addiction. The drug reacts with the alcohol consumed to cause nausea and an increased heart rate. This is meant to be a deterrent for drinking.^[8]

Two Danish medical researchers, Jens Hald and Erik Jacobsen, originally tested this drug as an antiparasitic. Each decided to try small samples to establish the side effects. Later, at an after-work cocktail party, this turned out to be a big mistake.

After the men consumed small amounts of alcohol, both rapidly became violently ill. This led them to conclude that the two events were connected and that their antiparasitic might have another use.

Interestingly, upon further research into this drug, it was noticed that workers in the rubber industry had already known about this connection for some time. The same type of reaction to alcohol was observed in those who used similar chemicals in the production of rubber, but the two were not yet linked.

2 Cisplatin

Cisplatin is used in the treatment of testicular cancers. In fact, it is estimated to cure up to 90 percent of cases of this type of cancer.

The discovery of the drug’s anticancer properties by US chemist Barnett Rosenberg in the 1960s occurred mainly by chance. Rosenberg was testing a hypothesis based on the effect of strong electrical fields on E. coli when he noticed that it was able to prevent division of the bacteria’s cells.^[9]

Rosenberg discovered that the use of platinum electrodes caused this effect, not the electrical current. He had actually synthesized a chemical known as “Peyrone’s chloride” that was first isolated in the 1840s. But its use in the treatment of cancer had not yet been realized.

Since this initial development in the 1960s, cisplatin has become one of the leading anticancer drugs worldwide.

1 Warfarin

Warfarin began with the drama of dead cattle, dead rodents, and a failed suicide before becoming the most popular anticlotting drug in the world. It is used by as many as 1 percent of adults in the UK.

During the 1920s, the northern US and Canada experienced an epidemic of dying cattle that were bleeding profusely. An investigation determined that the problem was caused by the cattle eating moldy silage made from sweet clover, and so the case was closed at that time.

Then, in the 1940s, Karl Link and his student Harold Campbell in Wisconsin isolated the compound responsible for the anticoagulant properties in sweet clover. This was developed into warfarin, which was licensed as a rat poison in 1948. It caused massive internal hemorrhaging in rats unfortunate enough to consume it.^[10]

Now, the most popular use of warfarin is in the prevention and treatment of diseases like stroke that are caused by blood clots. The drug was not licensed for use in humans until 1954 after a US military recruit’s failed suicide attempt showed that warfarin could be used in a nonfatal manner. Interestingly, one of the first recipients was then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Josh Sandy is an aspiring pharmacology student from the UK with a penchant for weird stories and a depressing obsession with politics.

There’s a reason the state can’t defeat the cartels—and it’s not just that people love drugs. It’s also about technology, which the state no longer controls. 

Over the past decade, technologies developed and even invented by Mexican and Colombian cartels have come to challenge not only the state’s monopoly over drug pushing and violence but its monopoly over citizens as well. Some drug lords are de facto regional governors and cartels are now parallel states.

From weapons factories to surveillance networks, here are ten ways they’ve gone about it.

10. Tire punchers

Although primitive, especially for state-building, tire punchers get a place on this list. Police can use them to stop you from escaping, but cartels have reversed this dynamic. In a pinch, they’ll drop spikes from tubes on customized cars to send pursuers spinning out of control.

Known as ponchallatas, these spikes can be quite sophisticated. Some are just sharp nails welded together like jacks, so however they land one always points up. But others are cut from sheet metal, and some even have hollow spikes and holes to maximize the deflation of tires. 

The use of ponchallantas is most associated with southern Texas, the stomping grounds of Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. Between 2008 and 2013, they used tire punchers 80 times to stop police dead in their tracks.

9. Drones

In 2021, drones were used by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to drop explosives on poilice officers in Michoacan. Each of the drones was fitted with a remote-controlled hook carrying a container full of plastic explosives and ball bearings, complete with a cup to serve as a parachute.

Drone bombings are as much a status symbol or display of strength as anything else, and are filmed for broadcasting online.

Usually, though, drones are just used for surveillance, deployed to monitor rivals and police, or to carry small cargoes of drugs.

8. Tanks

Another weapon of the road pioneered by Los Zetas is the monstruo, or “monster”—a custom-built narco-tank with gun turrets, battering rams, and steel-plate armor four inches thick. Some are built from scratch, while others are converted from pickup trucks; but they’re all a brutal menace to the state. In fact, with their up-to-date camouflage, they’re indistinguishable from the tanks of the Mexican army (which is kind of apt given the number of special forces recruited to Los Zetas). They’re basically immune to anything the police have to throw at them.

Also known as rinocerontes (rhinoceroses), they’ve become popular with many cartels, not least as status symbols—hence the display of their initials on the shells (e.g. CJNG for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel). 

Despite each one costing more than two million pesos ($117,000), payable to cartel mechanics, monstruos have exploded in number. As of 2015, 40 had been seized nationwide; since 2019, however, 260 have been seized in Tamaulipas alone. 

7. Cannons and catapults

Sometimes the old ways are best. To get drugs over the border, smugglers have been known to just shoot them over the fence. One “medieval-style” catapult was actually welded onto it, and capable of firing loads up to 300 meters. It’s a tactic also used in Afghanistan, to smuggle opium into Iran.

Another method deployed by cartels in Mexico is the compressed air cannon, which is both faster and further reaching—something like 700 meters at 300 miles per hour. It’s not ideal, but it’s a good last resort for when other supply routes are closed.

6. Tunnels

In 2015, drug lord El Chapo humiliated the Mexican government by escaping from his prison cell through a tunnel underground. Complete with lights, ventilation, and a motorbike on rails, the mile-long passageway was a feat of clandestine engineering. 

But narco-tunnels are routinely used for smuggling. While it’s unknown (of course) how many there are, law enforcement has busted 15 over the last couple of decades. 

One of the most impressive ran from Tijuana to San Diego, 35 feet underground, allowing vast quantities of drugs to pass unimpeded under one of the most fortified stretches of the US border wall.

5. Stealth Aircraft

Between 2006 and 2011, authorities seized more than 400 aircraft from cartel drug smugglers—more planes than there are in the Mexican Air Force. They also destroyed more than 2,000 unregistered airfields. Most of these are single-engine, high-wing planes like Cessnas, suitable for landing on dirt roads and deserts. Some have modifications, such as metal plates under the nose to protect engines from gravel or big tires for landing on rocks.

Increasingly, though, low-flying ultralight aircraft are used to evade radar detection. Fitted with steel baskets for carrying drugs, they look like motorized hang gliders from the ground—if they’re seen at all. Usually, they’re painted black and fly at night without lights. Pilots wear night vision goggles or follow the routes of main roads, releasing their loads at illuminated drop zones. Extra fuel tanks keep them airborne for longer than ordinary ultralights.

Although they’re able to carry much less weight than larger planes, ultralights can’t be shot down by authorities—not legally anyway.

4. Arms

When you make everything yourself, it’s hard for the state to control you. Guns, in particular, from a cartel’s perspective, are better assembled in-house. They’re not easy, though. Authorities were taken aback by the sophistication of a gun factory busted in Jalisco. Hidden between a couple of farmhouses, it had, according to the Attorney General, “highly sophisticated machinery” and “very precise software”, allowing cartel armorers to make untraceable components for AR-15s from unfinished aluminum blocks.

But they also cobble together assault rifles from components smuggled in from the US.

It’s thought the next step for gunsmiths will be 3D printing, assuming they’re not there already.

3. Submarines

Luxury undersea superyachts aside, when you think of submarines, you think of the state—or the military anyway. Rarely are they used by civilians. In 2019, however, a fiberglass sub with a crew of three (an amateur boxer and two Ecuadorian cousins) was scuttled in Spain after four weeks at sea. Carrying three tons of coke, the 21.5-meter submersible, which belonged to the Colombian Gulf Clan cartel, had traveled 3,500 miles from a shipyard in the Amazon rainforest. 

Conditions on board were awful. Most of the space was for cargo and fuel, so the cabin itself was tiny. It was also dark, noisy, and smelly. The crew lived on energy bars, rice, and sardines, crapped in trash bags, and fretted constantly about leaks, betrayal, and detection—not to mention their health.

Still, it was the first narco-sub to reach European waters, hence its revolutionary nickname, Che.

2. Surveillance

Free trade and firepower can only get you so far. When you’re up against the state, you also need to know what it’s doing; you need eyes and ears everywhere. 

In Mexico, cartels use clandestine CCTV networks to monitor the competition—hooked up to the enemy’s own telephone poles. It’s not known whether these are centrally coordinated by some kind of narco-NSA, but individual cartels do have intelligence services. The Gulf Cartel, for instance, in the city of Reynosa, has an “intelligence and command and control faction” called the Ciclones. Thought to be operated “via an encrypted and anonymized system”, 39 of their cameras were discovered by police and taken offline in 2015. While operational, they provided clear views of government and military buildings, police stations, and the attorney general’s office, as well as civilian areas.

At the US border, another kind of surveillance is used. In 2011, at the height of the “drug war”, up to 300 cartel scouts were deployed on ridges and mountain top spy posts or “spider holes” to watch the movements of government agents. They relayed this intel to smugglers on the ground over an encrypted radio network set up by kidnapped engineers.

1. Propaganda

To really evade the law, you have to supplant it. You have to get the masses on side. Following the state’s example, cartels feed propaganda to kids—and TikTok is the place to recruit them, especially for the forward-thinking Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Videos of exotic pets, dancing gangsters, wads of cash, assault rifles, tanks, cars, and poppy fields, as well as daring Grand Theft Auto-style airdrops and speedboat chases—all to playful Mexican soundtracks—glamorize the cartel lifestyle. The clips get millions of views, not only in Mexico but around the world as well. TikTok tries to take down the videos, but supply and demand remain high. The result is a steady stream of youngsters only too eager to join. It also leaks into mainstream popular culture, with shows like Narcos on Netflix.

Within Mexico, infowar tactics deployed by cartels resemble those widely used by the state. Journalists and editors critical of cartels, for example, are kidnapped or murdered, forcing others to censor themselves. Nowadays, many outlets simply print cartel press releases as news. Sometimes it really is news, such as highlighting human rights abuses by the state, but always with a pro-cartel agenda.

Other means of propaganda include narcocorridos (folk songs or ballads glamorizing cartels), graffiti, blogs and other social media, banners, demonstrations, and flyers.

Drug lords must live by the proverbial sword. Often they die by it too. Cartel leaders and local drug runners know the nature of their business. Those at the top must be ruthless to retain power. When it all ends, many kingpins enter the afterlife on their own terms. With untold wealth earned during their lives, some of these smugglers spared no expense in death. Others entered the afterlife amid mystery and conspiracy. But they all left a mark as they left this realm.

So let’s look at how these drug lords met their end and where to find their final resting places—maybe.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre Ways People Smuggled Drugs

10 Felix Mitchell

Felix Mitchell was a street legend in Oakland, California. “Felix the Cat” turned a local heroin hustle into a drug empire that earned millions. By the 1980s, he was infamous for ruthless violence. Police claimed he killed or ordered the deaths of six people. Prosecutors caught up to him, though, and by 1985 he was imprisoned. The following year, Mitchell was stabbed to death by another inmate. His murder came two days before his 32nd birthday.

Mitchell’s funeral made headlines across the world. His two-hour funeral procession featured a horse-drawn carriage, Rolls Royces, and limousines. Ushers and attendees wore tuxedos. Mitchell’s coffin cost more than $6,000. City officials condemned the celebration, but nearly 2,000 people attended the funeral. Thousands more lined the streets to watch as Mitchell was taken to his resting place in the nearby city of Richmond.^[1]

9 José Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha

José Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha was brutal to his enemies but helpful to his hometown. The Colombian drug lord was beloved for funding various public projects in the city of Pacho. In 1989, the Medellin cartel underboss and his son were killed in a shootout with police. They were buried, but two days later, their bodies were exhumed and returned to Pacho. When Gacha’s body arrived home, 15,000 people took to the streets to mourn their local hero. After the public procession, the kingpin’s family held a private late-night funeral. Gacha was reportedly buried in an intricate wooden coffin.

Over the next few years, residents of Pacha started noticing a man in town who looked a lot like Gacha. The mystery man was said to have even attended the drug lord’s birthday memorial. Locals whispered that the funeral was suspicious for being held late at night and with a closed coffin. Ever since, many have wondered if Gacha faked his death.^[2]

8 Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Amado Carrillo Fuentes was known as the “Lord of the Skies” in his life. The drug runner was famous for using private jets to transport cocaine. The Juarez cartel leader’s sudden death in 1997 shocked the world: it came during plastic surgery.

Supposedly, the kingpin had been altering his appearance to escape justice. Fuentes’s final resting place in Mexico’s Culiacán state is incredible. The three-story mausoleum cost more than $415,000. It holds a 50-seat chapel and two burial chambers. But it may not hold Fuentes. Investigators have always wondered whether the secretive drug lord is really inside. Rumors swirl that one of his henchmen lies there instead. A few months after his funeral, the mystery deepened when the corpses of Fuentes’s plastic surgeons were discovered in barrels of concrete.^[3]

7 Ramón Arellano Félix

In life, Ramón Arellano Félix spent years on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitive List, right next to Osama bin Laden. But the long arm of the law found Félix by the end of 2002. That year, Mexican cops tracked down the Tijuana cartel boss and killed him in a shootout. At least they thought they killed the dangerous drug runner. The man thought to be Félix was carrying an ID card that claimed he was “Jorge Pérez Lopez.”

Authorities prepared to investigate further when someone claiming to be a family member of the deceased took the body from the funeral home. The corpse was quickly cremated before police could step in. Félix—or whoever—was lost to history. Police did the next best thing, testing DNA from blood left on the dead man’s clothes. When tests came back, cops announced they were “virtually certain” the dead man was Félix. But with no air-tight confirmation, the mysterious cremation continues to baffle.^[4]

6 Arturo Beltrán Leyva

Arturo Beltrán Leyva was known as “The Boss of Bosses” during his career smuggling cocaine from Mexico to the United States. His luck ran out in 2009 when he was killed by Mexican forces in a surprise raid on his compound near Mexico City. Distraught supporters hired a private jet to fly his body back home to Culiacán state. His funeral was an unusually low-key affair. To avoid police harassment, no men attended the event.

While Levya’s memorial may have been small, his trip to the afterlife was not. The drug lord’s two-story mausoleum is said to resemble a mansion. The tomb has two bedrooms and a kitchen. It is filled with Leyva’s memories, as well as guns, cars, and other things he owned in life. It even has satellite TV, air conditioning, and a Wi-Fi connection.^[5]

5 Heriberto Lazcano

Heriberto Lazcano was a Mexican Special Forces soldier who switched sides. He became a valuable assassin for the Gulf Cartel when he was killed in a shootout in 2012. Cops took fingerprints and DNA samples after his death. But days later, the corpse was stolen from a funeral home.

The Mexican government was adamant they killed Lazcano. They even dug up the graves of the hitman’s parents to confirm a DNA match. However, the results are sealed until 2024. If Lazcano really was the one killed, his path to the afterlife has been unique. The cold-blooded murderer reportedly rests in an exquisite three-story mausoleum with a “heavy religious theme” in his native Culiacán.^[6]

4 Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco was one of the most prolific cocaine smugglers ever. But a 15-year prison sentence in the United States followed by the 2004 deportation back to her native Colombia ended her trafficking career. Once back home, Blanco enjoyed retirement. But in 2012, she was assassinated in a local butcher shop by a passing motorcyclist. Ironically, it was Blanco who first pioneered the use of motorcycle assassins during her violent career.

Two days later, she was buried in the same cemetery as rival kingpin Pablo Guzman. Thousands of schoolchildren from across the city of Itagüí were bussed in for the funeral. Adult mourners shared bottles of liquor at her grave for hours. Everyone in town was there except her son, Michael Corleone—yes, named after The Godfather character—who was under house arrest for drug crimes of his own.^[7]

3 Nazario Moreno González

The Mexican government triumphantly announced that drug lord Nazario Moreno González was killed in a shootout in 2010. But the co-head of the La Familia cartel wasn’t dead. Four years later, authorities claimed he had been killed—again. They got it right the second time. The man known as “El Mas Loco” or “The Craziest One” had actually been shot and killed that time. Police held González’s body until it was confirmed to be him through forensic analysis. At that point, they released the corpse to family members.

During life, González was god-like. The cartel boss dressed in flowing white robes. Followers hung on to his every word. Some even venerated the drug lord as if he were a saint. But in death, he disappeared. Family members refused to say where they buried the kingpin. Rumors have persisted that he was cremated. His final resting place has never been confirmed.^[8]

2 Héctor Beltrán Leyva

Héctor Beltrán Leyva took over the family business after his brother Arturo was killed in 2009 (See #6). But while Arturo lived a notorious life and was given a flashy burial, Héctor’s end was less boastful. The younger Beltrán Leyva brother, known as “El H,” ran the family cartel until his 2014 arrest. In 2018, while in jail awaiting trial, the drug lord died of a heart attack.

Family members insisted on complete privacy after his death. Héctor’s body was flown back to his hometown of Hermosillo on a private jet. Once there, it was guarded by security personnel in a private wing of the city mortuary. From there, the burial story runs cold. The cartel boss’s final resting spot has never been revealed.^[9]

1 Frank Lucas

Frank Lucas served as the inspiration for Denzel Washington’s 2007 movie American Gangster. And the real-life crime boss’s life story was worthy of the silver screen. In the 1970s, Lucas became one of America’s most successful drug lords. He controlled the heroin market on the east coast, importing massive amounts of the drug from Southeast Asia. Against all odds, Lucas later left organized crime and lived well into his 80s.

Not long before Lucas died, he ordered a custom-made casket for his own burial. The design was based on a Cadillac CTS-V, with a sliding rooftop window and all the accessories. The custom coffin cost $12,000. When the ex-drug lord passed, he was buried in a well-attended ceremony. His nephew, a pastor, presided over Lucas’s funeral. The man of God acknowledged Lucas’s actions but commended the ex-gangster for working to help others avoid crime at the end of his life.^[10]

If you asked people what the world’s most popular drug is, what would the most common answer be? Many people will say marijuana, or cannabis if they’re pretentious potheads. There will be some people that get closer by saying tobacco or alcohol. Probably fewer than say weed, because when most of us hear the word drug we think of illegal drugs. However, none of these are correct. The right answer: caffeine. We don’t think of drinking coffee as doing drugs, but that’s what it is. So read on to find out more about the only recreational drug that your parents will encourage you to take with that Starbucks gift card they send you at Christmas.

10. It Makes You Feel Good

The main reason that people take drugs is because they make the user feel good. Drugs can make us feel so good that they’re dangerous. Some people are willing to take them despite the side effects and risks. The lows and highs for coffee aren’t quite as extreme as heroin, but as you’ll see they do exist. Let’s start with the high.

Caffeine consumption stimulates the release of the chemical dopamine, which leads to euphoria. Other drugs that rely on dopamine include cocaine and ecstasy. Recent research has shown that caffeine also acts on the same neurotransmitters that marijuana does. So, that buzz you feel when you have your first cup of joe in the morning is caused by chemicals being released in your brain’s reward system. In addition to the rise in productivity, this is another one of the positive effects of caffeine consumption.

9. It Can Have Side Effects

Like most things in life, caffeine can have some nasty side effects, especially if consumed to excess. Most of us know that it can cause insomnia, nervousness, and anxiety. However, there are other negative possibilities as well. These are much more rare, but they do occur. In some people, caffeine may cause stomach problems, nausea, vomiting, headaches, chest pains, and increased heart rate.

There are also some people who should take extra caution. It can sometimes make anxiety disorders or bipolar disorder worse. It’s also probably good to avoid it if you are pregnant or if you are a child. It also can make certain problems worse, like glaucoma, epilepsy, and high blood pressure. If you have something like that that impacts your life, make sure you talk to your doctor, or more realistically, look it up online. Again, these effects are rare but it’s good to at least keep them in mind.

8. You Build Up a Tolerance

Has this ever happened to you? You do something fun you’ve never done before, and the first time you do it it’s incredibly intense and memorable. The next time you do it, it’s still really, really good, but maybe not quite as intense. But you still really like it, so you do it a lot. And after a while, it’s still kind of fun but it’s not the same. You enjoy it, but not as much. You just built up a tolerance.

That’s what happens when you consume a substance often. And this happens with caffeine as well as with other drugs. In one study, subjects became desensitized to the effects of caffeine in the first four days of consumption. This tolerance building is why you tend to need more over time in order to feel the same effects. The best way to keep your tolerance low is to keep your consumption levels low. And if you feel you’re drinking too much, you can always take a few days off. But, that might be hard because…

7. It Can Cause Withdrawal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0HaQmahq4o

When someone tries to quit taking a hard drug, let’s say heroin, there are often withdrawal symptoms. Part of the reason it’s hard to quit is because the drug makes us feel good, but another reason is because stopping feels so bad. This is the case with caffeine for many people.

Attempting to stop consuming caffeine can lead to withdrawal symptoms. Caffeine use releases adrenaline, which causes an energy boost. But this energy boost wears out eventually, and many people decide that means it’s time for more caffeine. But overconsumption can wear down your adrenal gland, making you dependent on the adrenaline boost provided by caffeine. This leads to withdrawal symptoms ranging from headache to constipation to depression. Luckily, these are usually milder than the withdrawals experienced by heroin addicts and will usually go away within a week or so. Whew!

6. You Can Overdose On It

Most things should be enjoyed in moderation, if at all. Caffeine has tons of health benefits, but too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing. According to the Mayo Clinic, up to 400 mg of caffeine per day is safe in healthy adults. But, this amount differs based on your age, weight, and sex. Caffeine overdose usually only leads to unpleasant symptoms that go away once the caffeine is flushed out of your body. So, most of the time, it’s not that bad.

Milder symptoms include dizziness, diarrhea, and fever. But you should go to the doctor if you experience trouble breathing, vomiting, or convulsions. It’s probably best you go to the doctor after that whether you drank any caffeine or not. To avoid all this, keep your daily caffeine level below 400 mg, and even less if you aren’t used to it or are a particularly small person.

5. It Can Kill You

As we said earlier, caffeine overdose usually only leads to mildly unpleasant symptoms. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. In extremely rare cases, it can actually help kill you. Again, this can only happen if large amounts are consumed in a small amount of time. Back in April, a teen in South Carolina died after drinking a McDonald’s latte, a large Mountain Dew, and an energy drink in under 2 hours.

He suffered from a caffeine induced cardiac arrhythmia. Based on estimates, he may have consumed about 470 mg of caffeine, over the daily recommended limit, in under two hours. The energy drink is particularly to blame, as it contains tons of caffeine and sugar. The American Association of Pediatrics has warned against kids and teenagers consuming energy drinks, and they say no one can ensure they are safe. Soda’s not good for you by any means, but energy drinks seem to be even more dangerous.

4. It Can Increase The Chance For Hallucinations

Caffeine is not like LSD. We’re guessing you already knew that. It does not directly cause any kind of hallucination. But, a study has linked caffeine consumption to hallucinations. It doesn’t cause hallucinations, but they are correlated. Those who consume the equivalent of 3 cups of brewed coffee (315 mg caffeine) per day were more likely to hallucinate than those who didn’t.

Caffeine has been shown to increase stress. The researchers of the study say that stress is also related to hallucinations. It’s not common at all, but stress may increase the possibility of hallucinations for those who are prone to them. On the other hand, it may be the other way around. They say it may be that those prone to hallucinations may use caffeine as a coping mechanism. The jury’s still out on this one, as they say.

3. It’s a Social Drug

Sure, a lot of times people drink caffeinated drinks on their own. In fact, that’s probably the most common way to consume it. But there is also a unique social aspect to coffee drinking. The primary locations of these social occasions are coffee shops. In the coffee shop owner’s ideal world, people would come in, purchase something expensive, and then leave. But that is not how people act for the most part.

People treat coffee shops as meeting places. They spend hours there studying, chatting, working on business presentations, or “writing” (AKA wasting time online). They are unique places, like a bar but much more relaxed. You can talk to other people, but it’s not expected. And there are probably more people getting actual work done than at the nightclub. The fact that it helps improve productivity is one of the main reasons that caffeine is the world’s most accepted drug, and also one of the reasons that people choose to do their work at coffee shops.

2. It’s Expensive

Illegal drugs are expensive. Many small fortunes have been lost to cocaine and quaaludes… at least that’s what we got out of Wolf of Wall Street. Unfortunately, caffeine is an expensive habit as well, and a much more accessible one. Some desperate addicts spend $5 on coffee per day. In a single day! A coffee habit slowly but surely eats away at one’s savings, eroding the sense of security and ease that was their savings account.

So, why is coffee so expensive? First off, it’s a volatile business, so owners tend to raise prices because of risk. The crops and market tend to fluctuate a lot, which causes uncertainty. There are tons of threats to the world’s coffee supply, and a shortage could really hurt coffee shops. So, the lower the supply of coffee goes, the higher the price will be for the shops and the customers. It’s production also requires lots of different people and organizations. It’s estimated that each coffee bean is handled by 30 different pairs of hands before it ends up in your cup. Most businesses have middlemen, and coffee’s got a ton of them. Coffee is not necessary to life, no matter what you’ve heard people say. It’s a luxury item and is therefore highly priced.  

If you want to keep your costs down, stick with the simpler variations, like black coffee. Specialty drinks are bound to be much more expensive. And to make it even cheaper, make your own at home.

1. Governments Have Tried To Ban It Before

Most recreational drugs are banned. Coffee and alcohol are pretty much the only two openly and fully accepted in American society. Alcohol is legal for anyone over the age of 21, and caffeine is totally legal for everyone. 8-year-olds drink soda chock full of sugar and caffeine. There’s no longer any actual cocaine in Coke, but there’s still a lot of white powder that’s pretty bad for you.  

In addition to the health dangers of overconsumption, there are also psychoactive effects to caffeine. It is, after all, a drug. And, like pretty much all drugs, governments have tried to ban it before. Banning drugs is like a drug to some people. In the 17th century Ottoman Empire, the consumption of coffee was a capital offense. Sultan Murad IV was fully on board the anti-caffeine train, prescribing death for coffee drinkers. That’s right, death. And he didn’t stop there. He would dress up as a commoner and walk around Istanbul trying to catch people defying his law. He carried a freaking sword around with him and when he came upon anyone sipping a latte, he would chop off their heads. Ironically, despite his anti-drug rhetoric, the Sultan didn’t heed his own warning: his death was caused by alcohol poisoning.

The coffee hate wasn’t limited to one country. In England, The Women’s Petition Against Coffee argued that coffee was to blame for tons of problems, particularly regarding men. They even blamed coffee for causing impotence. They knew they had to fight back, for The Devil’s Cup had ruined their husbands. This sounds somewhat similar to the Women’s Temperance movement. And these sorts of ideas continue into the present day, in a more restrained way. Just last year, New Jersey was considering banning people from driving after drinking coffee. But, try as they might, coffee will rebound. Despite this resistance and it’s side effects, we fully expect caffeine to continue to be the world’s most popular drug.