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Drugs

Watch the Ten Best VICE Documentaries About Drugs

Here are some of our favorite videos about weed kingpins, stoned kids, heroin holidays, and dangerous new drugs.

Kings of Cannabis, our documentary about weed kingpin Arjan Roskam and his quest for the rarest strains.

Humans have been getting high for as long as there have been humans, but in the past few years, a series of debates on drug policies have spread around the globe, charging the subject with a sudden urgency. Can powerful substances normally used for recreation be used to treat mental illness and addiction? Does arresting and prosecuting drug dealers really lead to a safer world? What should we do about new synthetic drugs that can turn people into empty husks of addiction? Is marijuana actually an incredibly potent medicine? Why is marijuana illegal, anyway?

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We've been delving into these issues for years, sending our far-flung correspondents to talk to not just policy experts but dealers, users, manufacturers, and everyone else who has a stake in the global drug economy. Below are a sampling of our favorite drug-related videos.

The Cannabis Republic of Uruguay

At the end of 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana. VICE correspondent Krishna Andavolu headed over to Uruguay to check out how the country is adjusting to a legally regulated marijuana market.

Getting High on HIV Medication

In 1998, the antiretroviral drug efavirenz was approved for treatment of HIV infection. Though the drug was highly effective, patients soon began to report bizarre dreams, hallucinations, and feelings of unreality. When South African tabloids started to run stories of efavirenz-motivated rapes and robberies, scientists began to seriously study how efavirenz might produce these unexpected hallucinogenic effects.

In this doc, correspondent Hamilton Morris travels to South Africa to interview efavirenz users and dealers and study how the life-saving medicine became part of a dangerous cocktail called "nyaope." He even tracks some down and tries it himself.

You can watch a bunch more VICE documentaries here.