Journalist specilising in drugs and crime. Orwell Prize winner. Co-author of the book 'Narcomania'. Former global drugs editor at Vice. Tips: maxdaly
@gmail
.com
I spent many hours with a long time drug dealer to talk about getting shot, crack dealing, the rave scene, gentrification, running pub coke sales and mental health >
How London Has Changed Over 25 Years, Through the Eyes of a Drug Dealer via
@viceuk
❄️🚽 Looking for photos of the best 'anti-coke snorting efforts' in pubs and bars. For example this classic at one of my favourite pubs, the Sheephaven Bay in Camden (not 100% sure if still there tbh)
It’s a massive honour to get this award, it’s a proper one. Up against some fantastic journalism. Thanks to all the young people, youth workers & experts who’ve trusted me and
@VICE
for being the best global platform to amplify unheard voices and hidden stories
WINNER ANNOUNCED: The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils 2019 has been won by Max Daly, Global Drugs editor at
@Vice
for 'Behind County Lines'. The prize is supported by
@jrf_UK
#OrwellPrize
Got some fantastic personal news...
I've just joined
@VICE
as its Global Drugs Editor. It's a dream job and it's going to be a fascinating journey
If you have a good story, wherever you are, journalist or not, DM me
I wrote about how, for 100 years, drugs have been used by the authorities as a pretext and a justification for ultra-violence against Black citizens.
How the War on Drugs Enables Police Brutality Against Black People via
@viceuk
A mix of ketamine, MDMA and pink food colouring, the drug is being sold by a new generation of young narcos in Colombia and is increasingly being seized by authorities in Europe.
via
@viceworldnews
Along with many journalists at Vice in the UK and US, I’ve been told my job is up for redundancy. After over five years as Vice’s Global Drugs Editor (and five before that as a columnist for Vice), I want to focus on the positives 🧵 1/7
Wahey! I'm really pleased to win this. Up against some highly talented big hitters from Times, FT, Guardian, Mail (and Dan Wootton😀). It's a good measure of how
@VICEWorldNews
is regularly scooping the globe in so many subject areas now. Thanks
@EditorsUK
, onwards and upwards.
"Drugs are a scourge on our society" says Boris Johnson, using the classic government phrasing that's been repeated for decades.
Is E on a dance floor really a scourge?
In reality, drug problems are a symptom of the real scourge on our society, which is inequality.
What happened one day in June 2020 to young Noah Donohoe is a proper mystery. All I know is that I feel deep sadness for his mum Fiona who is still looking for answers. Great piece by
@PeterCurran11
via
@viceworldnews
In the early 2000s Sweden had one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in Europe but now it has the highest – in 2022 there were a record 391 shootings and 63 fatalities. How did this happen in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries? Here’s what’s going on 🧵 1/10
VICE is losing ace journalists today, experts at their trade.
Many great stories will not now be reported. Many other journalists gone this week.
Good journalism is the only antidote to the tsunami of bullshit that hits us daily.
Yet it’s slowly being throttled to death.
Who knows what will happen, but Vice is too good to go. There’s a track record of ground breaking journalism going back years, much copied, and we’ve won more awards in the last 5 years than ever before.
Up the VICE
How did a city in England become home to a drug called “monkey dust”? And why are some politicians and media outlets falling over themselves to label users as glass-eating zombies? Thread 1/7 🧵
I'm really pleased to be nominated for an
@TheOrwellPrize
for a series of articles I wrote for
@VICEUK
looking behind the story of teenagers being dragged into drug dealing and murder
Here’s to my charming, brave dad Michael Daly, who took his own life last year; as he had always planned, just before dementia took complete control of his body and soul
🦁👨👦
Just realised Priti Patel’s first line in the drugs white paper sums up what is wrong about all governments’ approach to the drugs issue. Drugs are less ‘the root’ of harm and misery across society, they are mainly a symptom of it.
Six months ago Germany said it would legalise recreational weed and create a £3.3bn market. But the slow process has been described as “snail racing after the snails had too many edibles.”
via
@viceworldnews
At Glastonbury, if you end up with a pill or a bag of powder in your hand: you don't know know strong it is, so try a small amount first, it could save your life. Look after your friends
What is it that makes British Pakistanis from religiously conservative homes end up addicted to heroin and shunned by their family and community? VICE News has been speaking to heroin users in Bradford to find out. 🧵1/8
When tasers were first introduced police said they would be used sparingly. Now a new report says their use is spiralling out of control. Great exclusive for
@VICEWorldNews
by
@RubyJLL
👨🦽💊
One of the best things about my job is that I get sent emails that start like this:
Hello
I am a paraplegic who used to smuggle ecstasy in my wheelchair
Newsflash! Four
@TheOrwellPrize
shortlists revealed inc. inaugural Political Fiction Prize and Political Writing Prize, Orwell Prize for Journalism &
@jrf_uk
Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils. Congratulations all and a huge thanks to our panels:
🇨🇦Legal weed latest: ‘According to Stats Canada, the rate of cannabis consumption for 15-17 year olds fell from 19.8 percent in 2018 to 10.4 percent in 2019’
I think one of the biggest enablers of drug trafficking gangs is, ironically, prison. Most of the big smugglers have stepped up a level or two after meeting crucial contacts behind bars. It's like booking into a non-stop TED talk for organised crime.
This is awful. Vice has just trashed one of its best operations: it’s team of journalists covering Asia-Pacific. This crew is supremely talented, brave, award-winning and would make any news organisation a better place.
Read their work, hire them.
Our APAC team has been decimated amid widespread layoffs today at VICE World News. A sad day for us all, but that means some of these fantastic reporters & editors in Hong Kong, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia & Japan are available. Hire them!
Today is the 50th anniversary of Britain's anti-drug law, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the walking dead of our statute books.
It has obstructed the basic aim of any civilised drug policy: to help its most vulnerable. It has dehumanised and criminalised harmless people.
Just watching BBC documentary about festival drug dealers where a masked 'dealer' is adding rat poison pellets into MDMA. Unfortunately for the show, there is only one option here: he's taking the piss. Putting rat poison in drugs is an urban myth
No, dealers aren’t deliberately lacing cocaine with fentanyl in NYC or anywhere else. It’s a myth. Occasionally street opioid dealers who also sell cocaine accidentally contaminate it with fentanyl, but it’s rare, and far removed from average recreational coke scene.
Was on
@LBC
this morning collapsing
@SadiqKhan
’s seemingly woke line blaming middle class coke snorters for London street killings. Parroting such a tenuous link diverts from the real causes of these deaths: inequality, austerity, prejudice, claustrophobic communities
Excellent news to be shortlisted in the National Press Awards for my reporting on illegal drugs for VICE. Not sure there has ever been anyone shortlisted specialising in drug journalism before
@EditorsUK
?
Plus: my amazing VICE compadre
@misszing
nominated for the features award!
🎉 Congratulations to everyone who has been shortlisted for the SoE
#PressAwards
. You can read about the fantastic work of our nominees and supporters here:
One of the major injustices of the war on drugs is that under the guise of the ‘drug search’, police are provided with carte blanche to bully and oppress innocent citizens. The only solution is to remove the police’s power of a drug search. They cannot be trusted with it.
In May last year the dying body of Bruno Borges, a professional scuba diver from Brazil, was found floating in the industrial port of Newcastle, Australia, surrounded by 54 kilos of cocaine bricks. 🧵 1 / 7
'I made the short walk to the toilets opposite the Strangers' Bar, which is only accessible to MPs and high ranking public officials. There, I found a huge amount of cocaine residue' via
@viceuk
⚠️ Tip for journalists in US: sheriffs and border offices, district attorneys, and (far too often) DEA offices, are NOT credible sources for information on drugs. Always treat their quotes and conjecture with extreme caution. via
@vicenews
Just found out my mum (age 80) last week made a pact with her friend on the other side of the village (age 91) to have a remote glass of sherry every day at 6pm during lockdown ❤️ 👵🏼
"Max Daly's reporting has brought us the best of journalism – getting under the skin of a difficult issue, giving a voice to people who are not often heard and challenging the assumptions of readers"
@campbell_robb
on last night's
@TheOrwellPrize
Read:
Don’t listen to idiots who tell you county lines is down to cocaine users or evil drug barons
It’s down to a society that has chosen to neglect the people who need the most help
Woman protesting against violence against women wrestled to ground by Met police, in the wake of the murder of a woman, the main suspect being a Met police officer
🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♂️
I wrote this long read about how the US opioid crisis is being used as propaganda tool > The Truth About Drug Dealers Lacing Cocaine with Fentanyl via
@vice
🍭❄️I'm looking for a top quality, experienced freelance news reporter who can submit and be commissioned to write regular news stories ON DRUGS (not you, the stories) across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. Please DM me 💊🔪
This incessant ‘cocaine trade fuelling rise in violence’ thing is so spurious. Why do people think England is 1980s Bronx? Anyway this narrative is great government propaganda, it hides the root causes of street gang violence and crime. Shit lives & inequality.
Truly gutted Gary has died. He was my first and best drugs contact and I owe my career to him. Smart, cool, funny and compassionate. A former drug user, he was a one man force of nature helping some of the most vulnerable people in society battle for justice and healthcare 🏍💨
London mayor candidate
@ShaunBaileyUK
puts two myths into a pot to make a stinker of an idea.
- As I’ve written many times, almost zero link between cocaine use and rise in street youth killings.
- Workplace drug testing is ineffective, Big Brother shit
0/10 ✖️
Good line
@ianbirrell
: ‘Slowly but surely, the war on drugs is ending around the world, yet our ministers press on like deluded generals in the First World War, oblivious to the deaths, despair, damage & divisions caused by their blinkered battle’
Pathetic rag. Calling people who are ill ‘junkies’ is inhumane. Dismissing attempts to save their lives is inhumane. If you know people who buy this paper, persuade them to buy another.
Last week I tweeted about starting a new role as editor of a magazine about gnomes and faeries and asked for story pitches. It was a joke and apologies to those who thought it wasn’t 🧚♂️🚫
I investigated what happens to the people who unwittingly pass on fatal ecstasy to their friends > The Hidden Victims of Britain's Ecstasy Deaths via
@viceuk
In the space of just 8 weeks, 26 young men and women from North America have been discovered with suitcases full of weed. The UK’s National Crime Agency admits it’s a strange phenomenon.
When VICE News went to Stoke we found that behind the lurid headlines, this story is really about what happens when the government cuts off the most basic resources for communities, only to use the aftermath as fodder for its own ends. 5/7
Poor guy. Weirdly met him in Holloway, north London on a Vice film he presented about UK’s heroin scene. He was sweet and helpful to the young addicted drug users we interviewed. RIP.
Just a reminder that Vice published an incredible piece on teenage girls, addiction, and Amy Winehouse’s legacy project, written by one of its teenage residents
I think by far the main drug threat from Taliban’s Afghan takeover is if they opt, for PR reasons, to clampdown on opium.
A shortage of usually abundant Afghan heroin could lead to traffickers turning to fentanyl, would spark a N America style OD crisis - at a global level.
THREAD. What police have labelled Country Lines, young dealers sent by city drug gangs to sell in satellite towns, is the biggest phenomenon in the UK street drug trade since the mobile phone + crack. Here are some recent investigations I've done for Vice on the subject...
In the US, drug reform is at the centre of political debate while in Britain politicians continue to shove the issue under the carpet. Here’s why
via
@vice
My London election propaganda 4U: Sadiq not done enough about teenagers stabbing each other non-stop, which is no.1 priority. Bailey clueless on crime, despite his 'from the hood' spiel. But
@sianberry
is best placed to stem these deaths + make London greener. Vote her ✅