The Vampire Ship
How the seizure of Europe’s largest heroin shipment created bloody fallout throughout the world—and sparked still-raging political corruption scandals in Turkey, Greece, and the Middle East.
How the seizure of Europe’s largest heroin shipment created bloody fallout throughout the world—and sparked still-raging political corruption scandals in Turkey, Greece, and the Middle East.
Alexander Clapp The New Republic Sep 2020 30min Permalink
Todd Marinovich was engineered from birth to be the greatest quarterback of all time. He ended up doing heroin in the locker room. A 2010 National Magazine Award winner, reprinted on Longform.
Mike Sager Esquire May 2010 40min Permalink
A generation of African American heroin users is dying in the opioid epidemic nobody talks about. The nation’s capital is ground zero.
Peter Jamison Washington Post Dec 2018 Permalink
A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave.
Jennifer Percy New York Times Magazine Oct 2018 25min Permalink
Jaimee was beloved. Jaimee was struggling. And then Jaimee was gone.
Evan Allen Boston Globe May 2018 20min Permalink
On the ground in Wilmington.
Paul Blest The Outline Feb 2018 10min Permalink
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s widow on addiction, loss, and recovery.
Mimi O'Donnell Vogue Dec 2017 15min Permalink
How a home-schooled teenager became an oxy kingpin.
Joe Eaton Pacific Standard Nov 2017 25min Permalink
Sixty journalists cover an ordinary week in an epidemic.
Cincinnati Enquirer Sep 2017 30min Permalink
On codeine syrup and Sprite
A story of truth, lies, and an American addiction.
Eli Saslow Washington Post Jul 2016 Permalink
On heroin and harm reduction.
Sarah Resnick n+1 Feb 2016 45min Permalink
Twelve-step programs treat alcohol and drugs according to the same principles. But heroin changes the way the brain works. If there’s a medication that treats heroin addiction, why aren’t we using it?
Jason Cherkis Huffington Post Jan 2015 1h30min Permalink
What does it take for heroin to grab hold in the small, remote towns of America? Like any business, it starts with one man and an entrepreneurial dream.
“If you’d like to relive your horrible moment, if you want people to know what actually happened, talk to me. I will tell your story.” — Sean Flynn on the Longform Podcast
Sean Flynn GQ Jan 2015 20min Permalink
Following the money and the opium in Afghanistan.
Matthieu Aikins Rolling Stone Dec 2014 25min Permalink
Laurie Sperring’s Staten Island nightmare.
"Caught between the dealers and the cops in Hazleton, Pa., is a woman with a bad habit."
Previously: Susan Dominus on the Longform Podcast.
Susan Dominus New York Times Magazine May 2014 30min Permalink
Robert Aaron was a veteran horn player who sold bags of heroin to friends to support his own habit. Then his friend Philip Seymour Hoffman overdosed.
John Leland New York Times Apr 2014 10min Permalink
The last days of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Anthony Haden-Guest Vanity Fair Nov 1988 40min Permalink
A dispatch from Vermont, which is in the midst of what the governor calls a “full-blown heroin crisis.”
David Amsden Rolling Stone Apr 2014 25min Permalink
How a 40-year-old IT consultant became nod, one of Silk Road’s highest volume heroin dealers, who turned informant and then fugitive.
Patrick Howell O'Neill The Daily Dot Jan 2014 20min Permalink
A recent history of ‘bupe’ Suboxone film, which is described as a miracle cure for opiate addiction but flows freely from for-profit clinics to dealers and inmates, sometimes melted into the pages of smuggled Bibles.
Deborah Sontag New York Times Nov 2013 30min Permalink
Remembering the loss of a parent and the birth of an addiction.
Cheryl Strayed DoubleTake Apr 1999 25min Permalink
The tragic life of 70s-era supermodel Gia Carangi.
On Gia’s early years as a bisexual “Bowie kid” in working class Philadelphia.
On Gia’s heroin addiction and death from AIDS at age 26.
Stephen Fried Philadelphia Magazine Nov 1988 1h15min Permalink
Police and scientists investigate an outbreak.
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Wired (UK) Aug 2012 15min Permalink