As you may recall, interest in bros reached a fever pitch in early 2015, and "bro-bashing" (whatever that is) was at its zenith. Shortly after that, according to Alexander Nazaryan of Newsweek, the bro actually "died," as absurd as that sounds, from "a combination of social inutility, creepy sexuality and cultural vapidity, not to mention the scorn of many of his fellow Americans." But of course, 2015 was an entirely different political epoch, so it's easy to understand Nazaryan's mistake.

The discourse around bros during the Obama Era pretty much amounted to: "Straight men? How about they go kill themselves?" Misogyny was unacceptable, but misandry was hilarious. Male tears were guzzled from mugs (much in the way liberal tears are consumed today). Mansplaining was discouraged by major political figures. The internet rape-threat bonanza known as Gamergate was thought of as a mere temper tantrum thrown by a bunch of Mountain Dew-swilling toy enthusiasts, and certainly not any sort of political groundswell. A female president was on her way, and the patriarchy was done for.

Even some college bros took notice, as parodied on South Park in 2015.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, did not care about being #woke. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Trump never bothered weighing in on the issue of campus sexual assault. "Rape culture" may be an ill-defined term, but regardless of your definition, you'll surely agree it was on display when Trump sat on a bus with Billy Bush in 2005 and talked about women as though they were Fleshlights with legs. His surprise election demonstrated that despite America's apparent feminist awakening under Obama, a confessed pussy-grabber can still be president.

So what's the atmosphere like for bros on America's college campuses in 2017?

According to Michael Kimmel, Stony Brook University sociologist, and founder of the academic Journal Men and Masculinities, we're in a new, anti-PC epoch. "It's true that today there are far more people who are willing to scream out about their opposition to political correctness," he told me. "On college campuses, you might hear some of that, and in workplaces among younger people."

"It's a good time to be a guy, but at the same time it's a bad time to be a guy," Grant Garcia, a senior studying political science at the University of California Los Angeles told me. "It's just that whole male white privilege thing."

Salvatore DiGioia, a junior and fraternity member at the University of Michigan, has a vague sense that the post-election political climate is "weighing on certain relationships, but those are more personal issues," he told me in an email. Overall, he explained, "I've primarily been exposed to goal-oriented women who are often quick to define their boundaries." By way of an example, DiGioia told me that earlier this month, St. Patrick's Day went off with out a hitch. Fraternity and sorority members partying harmoniously together—"feminists and rare Trump voters alike, [and] it didn't look much different from last year."

Charlie Parkhurst

According to sophomore Charlie Parkhurst, another political science major at UCLA, politics is a touchy topic on campus right now. Trump was popular around Parkhurst's frat during the election, he said, because, "everyone's conservative there." Election Day gave license to some "douches" to get in people's faces on campus about their victory, he told me. But that didn't last long. "Even the guys that were being really ignorant and annoying, they're now like, OK. I understand he's not fit to be our president. Even the conservative ones," Parkhurst said.

But that's obviously not the case with all conservative bros. Some appear to be doubling their efforts to be douches. Bigger douches than ever, in fact.

Milo Yiannopoulos, who recently became a pariah on the right due to the sudden and unwanted publicity of some of his pro-pedophilia remarks, fashioned himself into a cult figure among right-wing bros who once flocked to videos of their hero dropping ostensible truth bombs on feminists. Yiannopoulos himself probably wouldn't be considered a bro according to the most basic reading of the bro stereotype because he's a very feminine-presenting gay man (though this is a huge can of worms in its own right), but he surrounds himself with bros. According to a piece for Pacific Standard by Laurie Penny, his tour bus was a tube full of boobie-obsessed straight dudes. Still, as we saw in February when an unruly protest halted his appearance at UC Berkeley, Yiannopoulos's schtick didn't play well on actual college campuses.

Other right-wing bros need a harder drug than Milo, and find him tame, or downright liberal. He told a crowd in January that white nationalism "isn't the way to go," and earned a rebuke from a blogger at Return of Kings—an all-in-one combo plate for internet readers who crave a mix of pick-up artist tactics, anti-feminism, and white nationalism.

White supremacist groups with apparent bro-appeal began online, but moved into real life in 2016 to support Trump's campaign, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). And some, like American Vanguard, have a pretty college bro-y vibe. Mixed in with the testosterone-flavored white nationalism at American Vanguard, there are claims that feminism is bad for America because it "gave us the most bitter, unhappy, angry, and sorrowful women on the planet."

Then there's Identity Evropa, which considers itself a "fraternity," according to its website. Identity Evropa members are engaging in something called "Project Siege" these days, which involves visiting college campuses, and posting photos of the idealized male form in classical sculpture, with white supremacist slogans written over them.

These white supremacist infiltration campaigns can't possibly be easy. Even in a reddish state like Michigan, college towns like Ann Arbor—where college bros spend their time—tend to be bastions of liberalism. In September of last year, some explicitly alt-right flyers got posted around the University of Michigan. DiGioia told me that the posters (along with other minor incidents) demonstrated that "bigoted sentiments do exist here, at least in some capacity." He said the main response was "fear and outcry within the Ann Arbor community."

"We're seeing these outbreaks of bigotry, and it's almost exclusively male," said Bostwick, a senior at UCLA. "I haven't seen any female white Neo-Nazis."

"There's something going on right now in our country, and it's fairly dramatic," Mark Potok of the SPLC told reporters during a phone conference I attended in February. According to the new SPLC report, 2016 saw an increase in the total number of hate groups, from 892 in 2015, to 917 in 2016. But Potok also told me that the kind of alt-right sentiment you may see on a college campus is much more widespread than those numbers suggest. The SPLC just isn't capable of quantifying the alt-right yet.

Bostwick said guys on campus would come to blows over politics before the election, but that groups like Identity Evropa don't set the tone of the conversation on campus. Rather than hate, he told me, "I see a lot more love."

Garcia took it a step further: "I feel like this divide is almost creating a unification," he told me. "It's bringing together people that feel like they're being shafted by what Trump is promoting. That's uniting people that wouldn't otherwise come together, against one foreign enemy—or rather, domestic enemy—that is Trump."

On the whole, Kimmel isn't worried, despite the existence of the alt-right. "I tend to be pretty sanguine about this generation of guys," he told me. "The long-term trend is that young women and young men are more equal today than they've ever been, and they're more comfortable about it," he told me.

"Having said that, I'll qualify it," Kimmel added. "The reason men are so comfortable with that is because they still rule."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

If you've ever gone down a Youtube rabbit hole, you've heard it at least a dozen times. Within the first minute of the video, usually after a flashy graphic letting you know what channel you're watching—an overly enthusiastic voice shouts at you, "HEEEY GUUUUUYS!" or possibly, "What's up YOU TUUUBE!!!" You can probably hear it in your head right now, it's so omnipresent it may not even annoy you anymore.

Over the last decade YouTube has existed, vloggers have been finding new and exciting ways to enter your home and talk about themselves, the things they like, what they're wearing or what they purchased. In our dystopian present, vloggers are now legitimate celebrities who make millions of dollars a year and travel the world. Toronto's own Lilly Singh, who started vlogging in 2010 is now a millionaire, making $2.5 million a year. But even as vloggers cross over into channels that more resemble the home shopping network, one thing remained the same—the YouTube voice.

Still don't know what I'm talking about? With over 10 million subscribers and millions of views on almost all her images, Bethany Mota is one of YouTube's biggest and most successful stars. In almost every video, within thirty seconds Mota begins by yelling, "Hey guys! It's Beth here" to her viewers.

Mota isn't the only popular YouTuber to adopt the voice. Makeup artists like Manny MUA, Jaclyn Hill, and Jeffree Star who are some of the most popular makeup vloggers all usually begin their videos in a similar way.

Regardless of what you think of the YouTube voice, the very distinct way of speaking makes sense. YouTube is a relatively new medium and not unlike news anchors, they've adopted a way to speak that means you understand exactly what they're saying. Toronto-based speech pathologist and PhD candidate Erin Hall says it can be compared to both news anchors and how we use different voices for different forms of communication. "Basically there are two things going on," Hall explains. "One is the actual segments they're using—the vowels and consonants. They're over-enunciating compared to casual speech which is something newscasters or radio personalities do." Not unlike your phone voice (we all have one), Hall explains that it's like how we enunciate our vowels and consonants more than we would in our regular speech.

According to Hall, however, it does go a bit beyond what we notice with news anchors, only because engagement is so important when vlogging. For a YouTuber, rhythm and cadence is a huge factor. "They're trying to keep it more casual, even if what they're saying is standard adding a different kind of intonation makes it more engaging to listen to."

This all goes back to having to show excitement and enthusiasm. To Emily Blamire, a PhD student, YouTubers are trying to entertain us and keep their audience engaged. "We see it from the very start of a video," Blamire explains, "In those first ten seconds or so, they're very similar in that regard in that there's the, 'hey guys' they're almost half yelling at you." Mixing the shouting, unbridled enthusiasm (and for many women, uptalk) is when we usually get the YouTube voice we all know and love (or loathe).

So it's pretty easy to identify "the voice," but where did it all begin? Did a bunch of YouTubers gather at a conference and decide to annoy their parents? According to both Blamire and Hill, there hasn't been much academic research on the subject. Hill believes this type of trend in speech happens naturally when you're trying to make people understand you. "Just the reflex of taking a video of yourself, you'd probably automatically do some of those things." Linguists suggest early YouTubers who found success with these intonations may have simply inspired others to make more of the same.

Obviously, not all YouTubers use the voice—and for many not falling into the trap is a conscious choice. For Jon Aitken, a YouTuber with nearly five thousand subscribers who regularly vlogs from his channel Jonbehere, it's all performative and avoidable. "It's performative in that you take on and change yourself to become something that you think people will want to watch." However, to Aitken the shouting is used as more than just a way to get engagement. "I think that's a way of disguising their videos are shit. When people yell it's overwhelming and masks the lack of thought that goes into the video."

We're so used to the voice, that it's almost hard to imagine a future in which this isn't the norm. Aitken—who is well acquainted with YouTubers who have millions of subscribers—believes the specific cadence is on its way out. While it's easy for the Bethany Motas of YouTube to maintain their subscription level by speaking in the way they have since starting out, Aitken thinks it's not the case for the newbies starting up. "In the current YouTube landscape it's more about standing out and if you can't stand out effectively then you can't get big." According to Aitken, the YouTube voice is generally a no-no between other YouTubers. "There are certain qualities that are looked down on by the community because they're designed to get a lot of views and be as likeable as possible."

This far into YouTube's existence, the voice is synonymous with vlogging as an entertainment medium. And while people like Aitken want it to stop, you probably won't see other vloggers calling out the voice anytime soon. "The more subscribers you have, the more careful you are about maintaining relationships in the YouTube community," he said. "You realize how profitable it is to not burn bridges."

Follow Sarah Hagi on Twitter.

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." This adage—popularized by Gloria Steinem, who heard it from an "old Irish woman taxi driver" in 1971—ignited as a feminist slogan because it pithily evoked the double standard that allowed for men's sexual and reproductive freedom, but not for women's.

Forty-six years later, the slogan remains as apt as ever. Decades of progress have not managed to deter politicians from passing a deluge of laws that restrict access to abortion in ways grounded neither in evidence nor reason, forcing hundreds of clinics to shut their doors. In state legislatures dominated by Republican men, where anti-choice extremism has become the norm, female lawmakers are reciprocating by turning the double standard back on their male colleagues. The most recent example is Texas Rep. Jessica Farrar, who joins a dozen fellow female lawmakers who have wielded satire to illuminate just how hypocritical, unjust, and ridiculous politically motivated abortion restrictions are.

On March 10, Farrar filed House Bill 4260, titled "A Man's Right To Know," which she described as "an act relating to the regulation of men's health and safety" that would create a civil penalty for "unregulated masturbatory emissions." The title of the bill mimics "A Woman's Right To Know," the notorious booklet that Texas clinics are required to foist on women at least 24 hours before an abortion procedure, which relays medically inaccurate gems such as the (erroneous) claim that abortion is associated with death, suicidal thoughts, and breast cancer. With this bill, Rep. Farrar aimed to highlight the "glaring inequities" in how politicians handle reproductive healthcare for men and women.

Continue reading on Broadly.

As crate-diggers, collectors, yard-salers, thrifters, and hoarders will tell you, fascination with obscure cultural curios is nothing new. The pursuit of "lost classics" has fueled everything from boutique reissue record label Numero Group to PBS mainstay Antiques Roadshow, the latter proving that these artifacts can be not only interesting, but profitable.

Far more interesting and rare are those collectors who devote their lives to objects or media that may have been forgotten for good reason—think The Shaggs's "hauntingly bad" outsider-rock oddities or Betty Crocker recipes from the 50s that positioned gelatin, mayonnaise, and hot dogs as gourmet delicacies. In the realm of comic books, the undisputed guru of all things ridiculous, forgotten, and regrettable is Jon Morris.

Since 1997, Morris has run Gone & Forgotten, a blog that chronicles comic book characters you've almost certainly never heard of before, and lately, he's taken his unique focus to print. The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains (out today via Quirk Books) is a companion piece to 2015's The League of Regrettable Superheroes, and chronicles such terrifying antagonists as Brickbat, a guy in a bat costume who carries around exploding bricks, or Morris's personal favorite, Swarm, a caped menace whose body is made up of killer bees that also happen to be Nazis.

With Marvel and DC Comics's movie franchises bigger than ever, we're in a curious spot in terms of increased popularity of upper-echelon heroes and simultaneous need for more villains to fill out TV seasons and smaller-scale films. We're also currently in a political moment in which even the most asinine supervillains no longer seem so far-fetched. To get Morris's expert opinion on these matters, I spoke with him over the phone.

VICE: How did you originally get into the world of forgotten and/or regrettable comic book characters?
Jon Morris: Both of my parents collected comics before I was born, so I grew up in this house with whatever was left over from their childhoods. My father taught himself how to speak English from comic books, so he just bought whatever was on the rack. We had dozens of one-off comics that nobody knew about when I started writing about them.

What else attracts you to these forgotten curios?
There are some real gems that you can only find by sifting through a ton of garbage. There was a movie in the 1980s called The Last Star Fighter, and Marvel Comics did a three-issue adaptation of it, which I picked up just thinking of it as a joke, but the pedigree on that book is just enormous. The writer and the artists are all professionals whose careers are marked by these highly respected, critically-acclaimed high points, and here they are working on just kind of this licensed book that they need to whip out and get on the stands while the movie is hot. Also, sometimes it's just hilarious. Some of the characters are genuinely insane.

With Marvel and DC movie franchises bigger than ever, do you think that's shrinking the circle of heroes and villains, or does it mean that we'll eventually arrive at a time when everyone knows, say, Egg Fu or Bloor?
We're probably a long way from seeing 90% of these characters become anything like a household name, even if they're picked back up [by Marvel or DC]. Since the publication of The League of Regrettable Superheroes, six different characters in that book were given relaunches of one type or another, and only one of them survived. Squirrel Girl has become a phenomenon, but Brain Boy was revamped, and he fizzled almost immediately. There's so many tens of thousands of characters, and there's no way for them all to hit the public consciousness—we have an upper limit for how much pop culture we can embrace before it starts to slip out the back.

MLJ Comics (1942)

Did you see Lego Batman yet? They momentarily resurrected Condiment King, The Calculator, and other obscure villains.
I haven't, but I've been told I should. I saw that my favorite, The Eraser—a man who dresses like a pencil—was given a quick shot of him, and I got pretty excited about it.

Do you see that kind of thing happening more in the future?
Yes and no. When you're at a Captain America or Iron Man movie, you're really just gonna see the major villains, because in about two hours, you want to hit all of the notes, so they're kind of limited. But in the background of a scene in Big Hero 6, which is only tangentially involved in the Marvel universe, there's the costume of Black Talon, the evil voodoo chicken man. Guardians of the Galaxy is 100% filled with B, C, and D-list characters. The fact that Ant Man even got a movie is surprising. They're bringing back really obscure characters, so to some degree that media saturation means they have to dig deeper and deeper to find characters they can actually somehow get on the screen.

Did you have more fun writing about the heroes or the villains?
It's very different, because the heroes, even if they were very short-lived, tend to have a few stories under their belts, and so you get a better grasp on who they are and what they're representing. Villains are much more reflexive and reactive—they usually come out of something really specific from the culture at the time, so it's fun to trace them back to whatever it was that inspired them.

There was that brief period in the late 70s, early 80s where America was simultaneously concerned with cloned Nazis living in South America and killer bees, and that ends up creating Swarm, the man made of Nazi bees.

Considering where we are in 2017, if you had to create a "regrettable" villain, what would it be?
I'm afraid the answer is really political.

I mean, how can it not be?
Right? We already have almost perfect supervillains serving in the administration. Steve Bannon could easily be some sort of alcohol-driven garbage man, and you wouldn't have to change a thing about his look—the only thing he needs to complete the transformation is a cape that bunches at the shoulders.

Buy "The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains" on Quirk Books' webstore .

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A new book by an anonymous North Korean author might be the most dangerous book on the planet right now. "His life is, of course, hugely at risk, and everyone involved with the book is in danger," literary agent Barbara J. Zitwer said of The Accusation, a story collection that had to be smuggled out of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In the 69 years since the Korean peninsula was divided following World War II, North Korean defectors have been a source for firsthand accounts of the Kim regime, but for an author to reach an international audience while still functioning within the DPRK system is an historic milestone.

Along with works by defectors, The Accusation fills an otherwise vacant space often occupied by rumor, hearsay, and America's own nationalist rhetoric. When left up to the West, the Kim regime's history of violent suppression is usually presented in either chilling yet misdirected documentaries or in controversial parodies, both of which generally shroud the country in mystery as a sinister, communist Other.

"He's writing about a world that we know nothing about," Zitwer recently told me over the phone. As an agent, Barbara Zitwer is responsible for bringing Korean literature to an international audience, having represented Han Kang's Booker Prize-winning The Vegetarian, among others, but never has she been able to work with a writer still inside the DPRK. "Most people in the world, they have no idea what North Korean people are like. They just see them in movies and think they are all automatons. Nothing could be further from the truth. He's giving us an open window, a view, of this world."

Bandi's work is no less scathing of the North Korean government, but offers a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by its policies. In seven pieces of fiction, Bandi (which means firefly) presents life in the DPRK and the daily anxieties that come with living under totalitarian rule. In the 1995 story "On Stage," the mother of a recently deceased child sheds "tears of grief for the Great Leader." "Their tears are genuine, aren't they?" Bandi writes. "It's hard to tell because the DPRK has made professional actors of us all, able to cry on cue after years of hard living."

Each story is time-stamped, beginning in December 1989, toward the late stages of Kim Il-sung's regime and ending in December 1995, shortly after the dictator's death. In each story, Bandi follows citizens trying to function under a clearly dysfunctional government, from disillusioned war heroes and country elites to families attempting to reunite despite being denied a simple travel permit. While this conceit lends itself to satire and witty moments, the overarching theme is that each individual is paralyzed by fear: At any moment, an accusation can take hold and their devotion to the Party is questioned. In "On Stage," a father's boss creates a "Fault 1 Demobilization" to help bring the son "back to his senses," an order to keep from sending him to the prison camp, which would destroy the family's reputation. Throughout the book, Bandi drives home the idea that if one person messes up, the entire family is screwed. One relative's bad reputation will haunt them in their jobs and general livelihoods.

These are anxieties that Bandi clearly shares, seeing as only a small handful of people know the writer's true identity. What is known, according to the book's afterword by South Korean writer Kim Seong-dong, is that Bandi was or is a member of the Chosun Writers' League Central Committee, the DPRK's state-authorized writers' association, which is a tightly controlled network of writers tasked with creating the country's content. Adhering to the guidelines set forth by the Department of Propaganda and Agitation, Bandi and his comrades publish in government-operated newspapers and magazines because it is the only means to publish.

Bandi isn't the only writer to come out of the Chosun group. North Korean poet Jang Jin-sung also got his start with the Chosun Writers before defecting to South Korea. But Kim believes that Bandi still works within the central committee and lives a double life: propagandist content mule by day, spokesman for the resistance by night. For nearly two decades, Bandi has written "in patient hope of a time when things would be different, when his denunciation of the North Korean system might circulate freely in a world outside its borders," according to Kim.

It's a powerful denunciation that barely made it out. According to Do Hee-yun, a representative of the Citizen's Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees, Bandi first tried to give his work to a relative who had planned to defect. The pseudonymous writer chose not to defect himself, fearing for the safety of his children; instead he gave a relative his manuscript of short stories and poems to take with her as she fled to China, but since there was no guarantee she'd reach the border without being searched by police, she left the manuscript behind.

Months later, she made it across the border only to be picked up by Chinese soldiers. Noting her "smart appearance," they demanded a bribe of 50,000 yuan (over $7,500 USD), money that she naturally didn't have on her. She asked to be taken to the station, where she could contact relatives who might be able to pick up the tab. During the negotiation, a unit commander alerted a blogger who wrote about North Korean refugees, and that blogger reached out to Do, who worked with his human rights group to pay off the soldiers and secure the woman's release to South Korea.

After being sent to the Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees, the woman was finally able to meet Do in Seoul, which is how he learned of the prominent North Korean writer still working in the DPRK, hoping to release his manuscript into the world.

The manuscript made its way out of the DPRK to South Korea by way of China, hidden inside the pages of The Selected Works of Kim Il-sung.

"At first, I didn't have much interest, because the relative didn't know much about the exact contents of the manuscript," Do explained over email. "But since it was written under much hardship, they expected it might be of some help to the North's human rights movement and we were willing to push ahead."

A Chinese friend of Do's planned to visit a North Korean relative who just so happened to live in the same small city where Bandi lived. Over lunch, that friend presented Bandi with a letter from his relative in South Korea, instructing the writer to disguise his manuscript as a state-approved book and give it to this anonymous envoy. Months after the original plan was hatched, the manuscript finally made its way out of the DPRK to South Korea by way of China, hidden inside the pages of The Selected Works of Kim Il-sung.

"There's nothing shocking like political prison camps or public execution in this book, but I think it shows that the everyday life of North Koreans is that of slavery," Do told me. After he read the manuscript, he rushed to publishers, hoping that a clearer image of life in North Korea might catalyze more activism. "I want us to see the only slavery society existing in the 21st century and ask ourselves, as truly free individuals, whether or not we have the duty to act."

He continued: "I see this as a book that can make the people who are hanging on in North Korea realize, just as we do in the international community, that they are living as slaves, and give them strength and courage to stand up for change."

Indeed, as The Accusation continues to be translated in more languages, activism in the literary world is gaining momentum. On March 30, Do, Zitwer, and 20 other international publishers will meet at the Korean Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea to stage a symbolic reading from The Accusation. Not only will Bandi's stories be read into a loudspeaker in several languages, but human rights activists, North Korean defectors, and writers such as Krys Lee and Lee Jung-myung will also speak. It's a reading aimed "to free North Korea," explained Zitwer.

"Risking one's life to resist a system of oppression can be interpreted as having a premonition of that system's end," writes Kim Seong-dong. The US may never get its hands on another work from Bandi, or any other writer living inside North Korea for that matter. But its very existence is still a hopeful symbol that change is inevitable, if not imminent.

Follow Mary von Aue on Twitter.

The Accusation by Bandi is available in bookstores and online from Grove Atlantic in the US and Serpent's Tail in the UK.

Today, as the opioid crisis continues to ravage cities and small towns across North America due to the proliferation of fentanyl, it is changing our society's perception of who is affected by drug use, addiction, and drug-related death. For decades, heroin has held a certain barrier: With one of the strongest, if not the strongest, stigmas of any drug, those who used it have long been othered. But fentanyl, which is many times stronger than heroin, has now found its way into many types of drugs, including non-opioid ones. The list goes on, and it continues to grow: cocaine, fake Xanax, MDMA. And with that, the invisible line that has separated those who use heroin versus those who occasionally pop a pill of M at a music festival has begun to disintegrate.

"The stigma associated with heroin is so strong. And now that fentanyl is being cut into almost any recreational drug, it is deconstructing that stigma: Where is it coming from? Why are certain drugs more stigmatized than others? Why do some users feel appropriate concerning use of services and others don't?" Munroe Craig, cofounder of Vancouver-based harm reduction group Karmik, told VICE.

Heroin was first introduced as a drug to Western society by the pharmaceutical company Bayer in 1898; back then, it was in a cough syrup marketed as a "non-addictive" alternative to morphine. Opium became illegal in 1908 in Canada (and the importation of it was made illegal in 1909 in the States). By the 20s, drug prohibition had begun to descend on Canada and the US; however, by the late 1980s, cities like Vancouver and New York City were dealing with a heroin problem.

Heroin had a major hallmark that separated it from other drugs: Those using it generally were injecting it straight into their veins. Compounded with the fact that its use could lead to overdose, the spread of disease such as HIV, and death more frequently than other substances led to widespread stigmatization.

As a teenager and in my early 20s, I too held this entrenched societal stigma. I remember the shock, nausea, utter disbelief I felt when I found out friends of mine were doing H. I remember where I was when I found out—at a beach party in Toronto. I responded by distancing myself, acting as if my drug use—which, at times, veered into experimentation with opioids—was somehow better since I wasn't sticking a needle in my arm. The reality was that some of the drugs I had tried before were in the same class as heroin, and therefore, not any "better" at all.

Well after heroin had already become a major concern in Vancouver, NYC, and elsewhere, in 1996, the pharmaceutical company Purdue introduced the prescription opioid OxyContin. In 2012 in Canada, Purdue took OxyContin off the market and replaced it with the tamper-resistant OxyNEO, the purpose of which was supposed to reduce the likelihood of recreational use.

This move by Purdue is largely seen in Canada as one that sparked our opioid crisis. The illicit drug market reacted to the void. Soon, a bootleg version of fentanyl believed to derive from China, many times stronger than heroin, was on the streets. In places such as Alberta, round green-blue pills with an 80 imprinted on them containing fentanyl that looked like the previous form of OxyContin were being sold for $20 a pill and were just as easy to come by as weed. This phenomenon established a direct relationship between illicit and pharmaceutical opioids; fentanyl itself was first introduced as a prescription as well, being used in medical settings such as for surgery.

READ MORE: The First Fentanyl Addict

I'll admit that I didn't overthink it the first time I tried prescription opioids since I had been given them by a doctor for a throat infection. Growing up the United States, I was often prescribed controlled substances by doctors. It was normal, and until I was an adult, I don't remember ever having a conversation with my doctors about how to be careful with these drugs. Looking back, I know that set me up for the lax attitude I held toward recreational use of prescription drugs when I was younger.

Today, multiple people in Canada will die from drug-related causes. Thousands of drug users have been buried already in the last two years just in Canada. That line that our society imagined to exist between heroin and other drugs should have never existed, but today, it is dissolving for the most unfortunate reasons. We can no longer ignore that drugs worse than heroin exist as the substance that one-upped it is being found in all manner of things, putting anyone who uses drugs at risk of harm. We must ask questions about why stigma of certain drugs is stronger than others and what this has done to help our society progress. So far, the only purpose this attitude has served is contributing to the worst drug safety crisis of our lifetimes.

Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter .

When covering British Columbia's overdose crisis, there's pretty much no such thing as good news. Over the last year I've written about more than a thousand overdose deaths, burnt out frontline workers, lack of treatment options in prisons, and terrible conditions in some recovery homes.

But every once in awhile something happens on this beat that makes me feel like maybe humanity isn't totally doomed. This is precisely the vibe I got from Overdose Prevention Society co-founder Sarah Blyth's recent tweet about a crew of student engineers that are developing a technology that aims to save lives in Vancouver's hard-hit Downtown Eastside.

University of British Columbia engineer Sampath Satti told VICE the idea came out of a hackathon hosted between engineering and medical students over the winter. The device monitors changes in users' respiratory rate—one of the biggest indicators of impending overdose—and can alert others in the area that someone is about to go down.

Satti and his team Harry Alexander, Prashant Pandey, Mark Trinder, Anderson Chen and Perneet Sekhon hope the opioid-reversing drug naloxone can then be used more quickly. "The goal we're trying to achieve in an area like the Downtown Eastside, where there is no shortage of naloxone kits, is to connect people who have them to the people who need them," he told VICE.

Satti recently showed VICE a crude prototype his team developed, which is going to be tested at an overdose prevention site next week.

VICE: How did this project get started?
Sampath Satti: The idea started with the observation that 90 percent of overdose deaths were actually happening indoors. This was happening in conjunction with existing methods of naloxone distribution. We asked why so many deaths were still happening with all these harm reduction measures being taken. We hit on the hypothesis that even though there are naloxone kits out there, when people overdose alone and nobody is around to help, those are the cases that are going to go all the way from overdose symptoms to death. We started thinking about solutions, and found that respiratory rate is one of the biggest indicators for impending overdose.

What are you trying to make, what does it look like?
It's basically a wristwatch, or the form will look like a wristwatch. Right now the prototype has a pulsoximeter that attaches to the finger, which will be integrated into a glove. The person wearing the glove can connect the wires to the wrist watch, and when they overdose and the respiratory rate goes down, it will generate a local alarm. Ideally future prototypes will be just a sensor on the watch that sits on the wrist that can be worn all the time.

How does it work?
You may have seen a pulsoximeter in a hospital before. It measures the variability in the heart rate, which we can correlate to the respiratory rate. The sensor itself is a simple LED and photo detector, which captures light reflected off the finger.

How do you see it being used?
We think it could be used in social housing. If you could generate a local alarm, it could go to the caretaker of the SRO, who would be monitoring the overdose symptoms of maybe 1,000 people. That would probably be our next step.

Have you tried it out on anybody?
No, with a device like this, we can't make users think this protects them in any way from overdose. Right now we can only test in a controlled environment. Part of what we're doing with [overdose prevention site co-founder] Sarah Blyth, is evaluating if it can be tested in supervised injection sites, in the presence of volunteers. Then we'll see if we can capture impending overdose. Right now we're focused on the technology, trying to make it reliable, so we know it can detect opioid overdose signs early. It's still a hypothesis, so we'd like to get validation at an injection site first, which will give us data to build a better prototype.

Do you see yourselves running into any roadblocks?
The primary challenge will be user compliance. Would they wear these things? Would they take care of them? The device should also work in tandem with other harm reduction measures, and not encourage risky behaviour. We don't want to encourage people to use alone, but in the event that they do, this will help.

What are you hearing from frontline workers?
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The Overdose Prevention Society has said users would be willing to wear the device, that it wouldn't add to social stigma.

Right on. Can I come see you test it out?
Definitely, I think by next week we'll have something really nice to show you.

Interview has been edited for clarity and style.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

Last year, San Francisco allocated a record $214 million to prevent and reduce homelessness, an $84 million increase since 2011. And it still isn't enough.

Pressure for the city to address its unceasing homelessness epidemic—by the wealthy, by activists, and by the homeless residents themselves, through proposition ballots and last year's creation of the city's first Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing—has been building for decades. The latter department is an idea first pitched within city hall 14 years ago, and its formation couldn't have come soon enough; much of the reason the city spends spends such astronomical sums lies in the tangled patchwork of contracts and departments that currently characterize how it addresses homelessness.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, as of last year, the city had more than 400 contracts with 76 private nonprofits and homelessness organizations—and not enough coordination between them, nor a system to track individual homeless persons as they moved from one organization to another. Jeff Kositsky, the department's newly named director, has made the establishment of a unified database that will coordinate the delivery of services and track progress of homeless individuals a top priority. Named ONE (for Online Navigation and Entry System), the department is aiming for a two-year timeline to create and integrate it within the city's myriad homeless services.

With data, he hopes, will come accountability and streamlining. And Kositsky has professed that his department will focus on measuring client outcomes from each of the organizations the city has contracts with, meaning that those who fail to produce results may lose city funding.

"We are creating a coordinated entry that will help us best match people with the appropriate resources," said Randall Quezada, the Department of Homelessness's communications manager. "Often, the feedback we get is that it feels like a very patchwork system. People don't have a sense of how to move from one point to the next, and they have to go to different providers, and they have to tell their story over and over. With the ONE system, that's all going to go away."

Within the disparate populations that homelessness affects, youth homelessness proves to be one of the trickiest to effectively serve. As of the most recent Homeless Unique Youth Count and Survey, some 1,500 unaccompanied homeless children (those under 18) and transition-age youth (18 to 25) were homeless in San Francisco, representing 20 percent of the city's overall homeless population. Advocates for homeless youth in the city are cautiously optimistic about the ONE system but also worry that a renewed focus on measured outcomes will detract from harder-to-measure initiatives that are also essential in effectively helping the homeless

To understand the sheer complexity of addressing a problem like youth homelessness, one need only look at the slew of programs and resources offered by Larkin Street Youth Services. For the past 30 years, the organization has run drop-in community centers in the Haight and Tenderloin neighborhoods, education and employment services at Larkin Street Academy, medical care at the Michael Baxter Larkin Street Youth Clinic, emergency shelter for kids 17 and under at Diamond Youth Shelter and for 18- to 24-year-olds at Lark-Inn for Youth, and various types of housing for both general and specific populations, including foster care "graduates," LGBTQ youth, young people with behavioral health needs, and HIV-positive youth.

"Many of our clients are dealing with layers upon layers of trauma," said Graham Thomas, director of Programs for Larkin Street. "As a result, their coping skills are diminished."

When Kositsky took on his new position in August, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that "our number one priority is we want to get people who are homeless into housing." But Thomas expressed concern that "housing first" policies will lead to "housing only" practices. "Let's address housing, absolutely," he said. "But if we want to solve homelessness, we're going to have to cough up some serious resources. We need wraparound services to address the whole person."

By all accounts, the city's increased funding and the creation of ONE will provide those wraparound services. But others echoed Thomas's concerns over the pressures ONE will produce.

"One of the things we've learned over the years is that progress is not linear, and the more trauma you've experienced, the less linear your progress will be," said Rob Gitin, co-founder of At the Crossroads, a homeless youth outreach program. "If you're hiring someone, and you have one position to fill, are you going to hire the person who has a 70 percent chance of succeeding, or the person who has a 30 percent chance of succeeding? That's how outcome-based funding can lead to the people who are struggling the most having the hardest time getting the help they need.

"The kids we see who can maintain positive changes, it's because they have figured out how to build healthy relationships, and they have figured out how to navigate challenging relationships with healthy boundaries," continued Gitin. "When we put so much focus on housing and jobs, we keep them in survival mode. We want to help them thrive, and they need those relationships to do that."

For homeless youth like Tiffany Case, forming trusting relationships can be terrifying. During her final semester of college in Sacramento, she said, her roommates chased her out of their shared apartment after taking up meth. A woman who offered to help sold her into sex trafficking instead. She escaped, fled to San Francisco with two backpacks of belongings, and lived out of her car while working event-production gigs. Before she could get back on her feet, another driver rear-ended her at high speed. "I could barely walk from the car accident," she said, when she started sleeping in Golden Gate Park in 2014.

While living there in a tent, she took advantage of the services offered by Homeless Youth Alliance, a street outreach team that provides basic necessities to young people, such as hot food, dry socks, band-aids, and tampons.

In 2016, a friend introduced her to Christian Calinsky, a former Golden Gate Park resident who, in late 2014, founded Taking It to the Streets, a neighborhood organization that provides homeless youth with housing in exchange for community service. Taking It to the Streets currently houses 63 kids in 37 units across two San Francisco hotels, and their cleaning crews sweep streets and clean graffiti in a 70-block area of the Upper Haight neighborhood.

Case is one of them. "When I met Christian, I was a nervous wreck," she said. "I had been turned away a lot, and I was wary of anyone who said they wanted to help. His accepting energy was truly shocking, and it made all the difference for me. I knew I could trust him, and he hasn't let me down."

The fear among youth homelessness advocates is that providers of such "soft" services will lose city funding. But Quezada says that's not the intent. "We recognize that people are on different journeys, and we want to do whatever we can to support that journey," he said. "We can't compel people to accept services, but we're not giving up on folks."

President Trump and his lawyer are hoping to block a lawsuit from former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos by arguing that the Constitution protects sitting presidents from facing state lawsuits, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

After accusing Trump of sexual assault during the campaign, the season five Apprentice cast member filed a defamation lawsuit against him in January after he denied he had "met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately" and called his accusers "liars." Zervos's suit essentially put the president in a position to either admit her story was true and apologize, or try to prove she lied about her account in court.

Now Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is trying to make sure the case doesn't make it to court. According to the Reporter, Kasowitz plans to file a motion to block the lawsuit under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. He argues that that clause prevents a sitting president from facing litigation in a state court, an issue he says was "raised, but not decided,by the US Supreme Court in Clinton v. Jones."

In that 1997 Supreme Court case—regarding the sexual harassment allegations brought by Paula Jones against former president Bill Clinton—Clinton's lawyers tried to argue that any lawsuits brought against the president should be dealt with after his term was up. Justice John Paul Stevens decided, however, that the president could still face private litigation while in office, though questions regarding the president's immunity in those lawsuits should be decided as early as possible. That way, the president could focus on running the country.

Apparently Kasowitz is banking on that ruling to try to block Zervos's suit. But Zervos's lawyer, civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, told the Reporter she has a different interpretation of the ruling.

"[It] determined unanimously that no man is above the law and that includes the President of the United States," Allred said. "We look forward to arguing this issue in court."

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

It's a slippery slope, directly tying enjoying live music to violence. Unless you accidentally whack someone in the face while doing a furious propellor motion with your arms to Skrillex—in which case, people should probably move out your way and maybe not speak to you actually—it's generally accepted that music and violence are two separate entities that do not logically correlate. Lyrics directly inciting violence through hate speech may be just about the only exception, and even then the lines between a true call to arms versus artistic license blur constantly. Despite this, a five-page document to try and clamp down on crime at gigs, known as Form 696, was still rolled out by London's Metropolitan Police in 2005. More than a decade later, it still exists—and yeah it's still trash, for reasons we will get into shortly.

So, why are we bringing it up today? According to a Victoria Derbyshire program investigation, aired on the BBC on Monday morning, Tory Culture Minister Matt Hancock has raised concerns with Mayor Sadiq Khan about the use of the form in London—still used across 21 boroughs—in an effort to finally get it revoked. To that end, here's a rundown of what exactly it is, and why you should give a shit.

WHAT IS IT?

"Form 696" is a risk assessment form that was first launched in October 2005 in response to a series of violent incidents at garage gigs in the early 2000s. "Two people were shot at a 'So Solid Crew' party in central London in October 2001," reads the only review of the form's efficiency, published by the new-defunct Metropolitan Police Authority in 2009. "Two people were shot in Turnmills nightclub in central London at the end of April 2003. Club promoters were asking for armed police to patrol club nights due to the fear of violence at events." After four more incidents in 2004 and 2005, the form was introduced. It's supposed to "check" the supposed danger of violence at any event, requesting the names, private addresses and phone numbers of all promoters and artists be submitted at least two weeks in advance for live shows that "predominantly features DJs or MCs performing to a recorded backing track."

Continue reading on Noisey.

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

I possess a deep propensity for shame. I'll leave the house with a little pimple on my forehead – just a moderately-sized whitehead, not even a big angry puss-y number – and immediately feel it throbbing. I'll imagine people staring at it, taking photos and uploading them to a rapidly growing Facebook group called "Michi Buchinger Acne Updates". It's highly possible that my shame is in some way connected to my inflated sense of self.

For whatever reason I have a need for strangers to think good things of me. It's a weakness, and I need to move beyond it. But what's the best way to do that? What can I do to signify I have both given up wholeheartedly on myself and care not what other people think of me?

One simple answer: toe shoes. The most embarrassing footwear ever designed.

Nobody knows exactly why toe shoes happened. My theory is some designer wanted to take "the next step in dynamic footwear", but instead of taking that next step just took a completely wrong turn. They're shoes shaped like feet – with toes and everything – and they make the person wearing them look like he or she accidentally put gloves on their feet.

The actual point of wearing toe shoes is probably that they're comfortable. Reviews on Amazon usually touch on that, like one from a "M. Schultz", who calls his toe shoes "heaven on earth :-)" and "totally stress free". Which makes me worry for M Schultz's, because there has to be something severely wrong with his life if wearing normal shoes is stressful.

Anyway, I figure walking around in these shoes for a bit might help me deal with my sense of shame, and help me build some confidence. So I buy a pair in the hope they'll change me forever.

Day 1

I can honestly say I have never tried to stuff the dead body of a very large man into the boot of a Volkswagen Polo, but I can imagine that's about as difficult to pull off as trying to force my feet into my new toe shoes. I feel like one of Cinderella's desperate stepsisters. On top of that I never considered the fact that having a compartment for each toe means I can't wears socks – unless I buy toe socks to go with the shoes, which I do not want to do at all. So here I go, off on my first outing with the toe shoes, barefoot and feeling anxious.

Outside, I can't shake the feeling that every stranger passing me by disapproves of the choices I have made – footwear-related or otherwise. I feel hollow and nervous, and want to apologise for taking up space on the beautiful streets of my city, Vienna. I want to tell people, "Hey, my eyes are up here!" but I feel too uncomfortable to try to make a joke.

And I wish I could say it was all in my head, that really no one cares – but on my walk someone does ask me why I'm not wearing normal shoes. I have no answers. I make the outing as short as possible.

Day 2

Yesterday, I felt people's gazes burn a hole in my feet, but after sleeping on it for a night I've figured out how to prevent that today – I'll take my toe shoes for a jog. If I run fast enough, no one will notice what I'm wearing – or at the very least they won't be able to ask me questions about it. And if they do, I can just lie and say they're for a fungal condition, because that's less embarrassing than admitting I bought them for their aesthetic.

There are many strange things about these shoes, but the strangest thing might be that it really does feel like you're walking around barefoot. So what I thought would be a normal jog becomes a very painful excursion – much more painful than usual, I mean. I feel every little pebble pricking into my soles. On top of that, these shoes are new and tight and probably not meant for jogging. After 15 minutes my feet start bleeding. I decide to take my run of shame home, where I spend the rest of the day. I don't have to wear shoes if I don't leave the house.

Day 3

I'm invited to a party at a friend's house, starting in the early afternoon. Staying home is not an option. Hours before it kicks off, I start feeling anxious and consider wearing something flamboyant and distracting to the party – like a big floppy red hat. Contrary to what M. Schultz suggested, these shoes are giving me a lot of stress.

When I get to the party I discover there was no need to worry about my friends judging my cartoonish feet – everyone at the party has left their shoes by the door. It also means that I'll have to walk around the house completely barefoot like a flower child, but I quickly make peace with that. It takes a bit longer for the other drawback of taking off the toe shoes to sink in. I might feel like a flower child, but my feet don't smell like flowers. Just to be safe, I go and hang out by the cheese board.

My friend Barbara quickly notices I'm not enjoying myself and asks me what's up. I immediately tell her everything – about the toe shoes, my nerves and that if she smells something weird it might not be the camembert. She starts laughing in a way that suggests she wants my kind of problems; that the world would be a happy place if everyone just had problems like mine. "Of course people will stare at your feet and laugh at you," she says. "You're standing there sulking the whole time. It's not the shoes, it's the fact that you look as rattled as Kate Winslet by the end of Titanic."

She might have a point – I've been looking like a sad emoji on legs for the past few days."Why don't you just walk around town in your toe shoes," Barbara suggests, "and try to believe that your shoes are perfectly normal and everything is absolutely fine and everyone else is crazy for not having picked up the trend yet?"

It's solid advice. People who seem to exude confidence never look anything like sad emojis on legs – they look like they know what they're doing, which makes it easy to believe that they know what they're doing. And you believing they know what they're doing will give them even more confidence. I've always said that faking it is the key to success – it's what got me through most of my school exams. And it could get me through a day in toe shoes.

Day 4

The first good news of the day is that my shoes are worn-in by now and don't hurt as much any more. The fact that they no longer make my feet bleed allows me to walk around more confidently, and less like a drunken pirate. The second bit of good news is that the weather is very nice today, which is always a better setting when you want to strut around self-assuredly. I find it's fairly easy to follow Barbara's advice and just change my attitude – and surprisingly, when I stop thinking 'please don't look at my shoes please don't look at my shoes' it seems like people actually do ignore them and me and just continue paying attention to their Candy Crush game. I still hate and and fear them, but more because they're holding up the pavement while staring at Candy Crush.

I go about my day as I would normally – I go to the supermarket, meet a friend for lunch, have a work meeting. No one says anything about my shoes – at least not to my face. I'm tempted a few times to whack my feet on the table and force a reaction, confront them by saying: "You took me seriously, but aha: I've been wearing these the whole time!" But I don't – I'm not sure I can handle the response yet.

M.Schultz might have been more correct than I thought; with the right mentality toe shoes can really be pretty stress free footwear. I'm not saying they're more stress free than toe-less shoes, but they're nothing to panic over. And it's good to know that being less critical of yourself and your ridiculous footwear incites significantly fewer stares and laughter. I'm very much looking forward to trying out Barbara's advice next time I have a throbbing red pimple on my face.

It's 8PM on a Tuesday night and Martha Kelly is about to go onstage. "I wish I dressed better," she says in her distinctive monotone. "I wish I had better fashion sense and had been working out for the past six months."

"For this show specifically?" I ask. "Yeah," she laughs. "I'm looking forward to your set," I tell her. "It'll be awful," she mutters.

It's 9PM on a Wednesday night and Martha Kelly is about to go onstage. "I don't like my jokes," she says in her distinctive monotone. "Maybe if I dressed better. Goddamnit. Shit." "You were great last night," I tell her. "I was OK," she shrugs.

Martha does not abide compliments well. Which is unfortunate, since she's been receiving quite a few of them of late due to her standout performance as insurance saleswoman Martha Brooks in Baskets, FX's Bakersfield-based tragicomedy which was recently picked up for a third season.

Baskets is her first acting gig, the result of a cold call from the show's co-creator and star Zach Galifianakis, who she met doing open mics in the late 90s. The two were never especially close; they hadn't spoken in over a year when he asked her to, without auditioning, take on the role of Martha. "I feel almost like I owe Zach my life," she says. "I definitely owe him every single thing that's been going on work-wise, because I wasn't even doing stand-up when he called me. I was really depressed, eating a lot of potato chips and cookies and watching a lot of Law & Order. SVU." She's since returned to stand-up; her Comedy Central Half Hour aired late last year.

Her deadpan delivery on Baskets is drier than an unsalted saltine, making her the perfect comic foil for Galifianakis's broad strokes as Chip, a classically trained clown stuck doing rodeo work and his twin brother, Dale, the fedora-wearing owner of a fly-by-night career college. Her performance on the show has led to other gigs, most notably a small role in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming ("in which I look absolutely terrible and will probably be entirely cut out of, which would be OK because they made me look really butch. They wouldn't let me wear lipstick. It's really stupid to care, but I did."). Despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, she insists she is awful at acting.

"I have no idea how to do it," she proclaims, "and whether it's any good. Even if someone says they liked it. With Baskets, sometimes people say they really like it and I think, 'Maybe I'm not terrible,' but then I watch it and I'm like, 'No, I'm right. I really am terrible.'"

"Why do you think you're terrible at acting?" I ask. "I'm just really stiff and talk in a monotone and have a very tiny range emotionally," she replies. "But some human beings are like that," I counter. "This human being is like that," she laughs.

The primary emotion Martha experiences in her day-to-day life is silent fear. An anxious sort, a stick of gum is perpetually lodged in her mouth; as soon she spits one out, another takes its place. Sitting in the green room awaiting her set at Los Angeles's Nerdmelt Showroom, she swings her feet and wrings her hands.

"How do you deal with anxiety?" I ask. "I feel like shit until it passes," she replies. While waiting for the shit to pass, she often bides her time watching Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, as she finds comfort in their altered version of reality. In the Alvin universe, "there are good guys and bad guys," she explains, "but no one is ever in real jeopardy. In the real world, I don't even feel safe in this green room."

She separates a lot of things, up to and including the minutiae of the real world, into the categories of good and bad. There are a lot of good things on Earth, she says, but a lot of bad things beyond our control. Take, for example, the presidency of Donald Trump. Scrolling Twitter, she feels powerless; she wonders when, if ever, we will collectively agree he has gone too far. The fact that there's no end in sight compounds her anxiety. There are good parts to existence, sure, but not enough to make her "desperately cling to life."

"Hell is a fairy tale," she says. "What we really have to fear is reincarnation."

She is, as I type this, moving back to Austin, driving with her dog and cat in tow. It's the third time she's done so. She's originally from Southern California (specifically, and "sadly," Torrance) but prefers Austin, which she's called home off and on since 2000. "When you get out of a show in Austin," she explains, "you can smell the grass and asphalt. In LA, you smell nothing and cigarette smoke."

"There's a lot of really great people here," she says of Los Angeles, "but this city can go to hell."

"I'm so sick of my material," she sighs while staring at her setlist, which is written on a tattered piece of Holiday Inn stationary. "I shouldn't have had that nap." She had taken a "group nap" with her pets earlier in the day and woke up disoriented at dusk. "Do you need a Coke?" I ask her. "I'd rather ruin the audience's night," she laughs.

"If this doesn't go well," she tells the crowd before her final joke, "it's not entirely your fault." It goes well.

Follow Megan Koester on Twitter.

Grief and sleeplessness brought Alison Painter to a hospital in Ottawa a few days after November 30, 2008—the day her husband killed himself.

Sleep had evaded Painter long enough for a doctor to prescribe her something to take the edge off.

Benzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drugs like Xanax, Valium, and Ativan, used to treat a range of conditions like anxiety and insomnia. Painter was prescribed zopiclone, a z-drug that has effects similar to benzodiazepines. Notoriously habit-forming, these drugs are widely prescribed by doctors and easily available on the street.

Months later, at Surrey Memorial Hospital, Painter asked to see a specialist, but her psychiatrist was dismissive of her concerns. "He felt that I would probably have to be on medication for the rest of my life. He heavily pushed the medication," she said.

Two years after her first dose, Painter faced tinnitus, skin inflammation, muscle spasms, and shooting pains that took her to the emergency room, but she didn't connect the onslaught of symptoms to zopiclone.

The over-prescription of benzodiazepines and z-drugs in Canada is hardly new. It was first recognized in the 1970s, a decade after benzos hit the market as a treatment for insomnia and anxiety disorders among women. Doctors handed them out for PMS, chronic illness and stressful life events like childbirth and menopause, assuring unwitting patients that long-term use of the drugs was safe.

Despite research-backed links to dependence, abuse, injuries, cognitive impairment—even dementia—benzos such as diazepam (Valium) and alprazolam (Xanax) remain among the most commonly prescribed and misused class of psychoactive drugs in the world. Benzos are the second most common drug group implicated in medication-related deaths in the country—outranked only by opiates—according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada.

"We're talking about a situation that's developed over the past 30 to 40 years, and it's similar to what we're seeing with opiates," Dr. Annabel Mead, director of the St. Paul's Hospital addiction medicine fellowship and an addiction medicine consultant for Vancouver Coastal Health, told VICE.

"Opiates are just getting more attention these days, and benzos are kind of the quiet cousin in the background."

Benzos are heavily prescribed to women and seniors. A report by the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women's Health states women make up 60 to 65 percent of people taking benzodiazepines.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine found benzos are involved in at least 30 percent of all fatal opioid overdoses in the US. The number of pharmaceutical opioid related overdose deaths involving benzos in BC increased 600 percent between 2004 and 2013.

The Ashton Manual, regarded as the unofficial encyclopedia on benzodiazepines, suggests benzos are no longer effective after a few weeks or months of regular use.

While living with the side-effects is tough, getting off benzos is significantly worse.
Tolerance causes withdrawal symptoms to appear even if the user continues to take the drug. As a result, the dosage is increased to maintain its effectiveness.

In 2012, after suffering bouts of sickness, Alison Painter connected the dots and began to taper off zopiclone.

Like alcohol, quitting benzos cold turkey is dangerous. Benzodiazepine tapering should be gradual because withdrawal symptoms can be life-threatening.

"I had what they call the 'benzo flu.' It felt like I had the flu crossed with jet lag crossed with the worst hangover imaginable. Every single day I was like that," Painter told VICE.

Dennis Amott, 78, was prescribed clonazepam for mild anxiety by his GP in North Vancouver and was assured he could stay on the drug for life.

"This particular doctor had no idea of the harmful effects of the drugs, and on the contrary, he encouraged me to take it as often as I want, every day of my life, which I did," he said.

Amott battled his dependence on clonazepam, but didn't come out the other side unscathed. Many of the symptoms he faced during his withdrawal—stress headaches, tinnitus, heart palpitations, chest pain, short- and long-term memory loss—continue to this day.

"The more you take the drug, the more it hurts you, the more you want. It's a vicious cycle," he said.

READ MORE: It's Never Been Less Safe to Try Out Drugs

When it's comes to safe prescribing practices of benzos, Canada fairs poorly compared to countries like the UK and Australia where benzos are seldom prescribed for longer than the recommended time period (a maximum of two to four weeks), and only if alternative treatment options are exhausted.

Mead disagrees with the claim that there is no better alternative to benzos for treating anxiety and sleep disorders. SSRIs and non-drug treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy are safer and more effective, she said, yet they remain under-promoted and under-used.

But she did point out despite persistently high prescribing rates of benzos, things are looking up—at least in BC.

In June, 2016, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC issued new prescribing standards for benzodiazepines, opioids, and other addictive drugs.

Under the standards, doctors must now carefully review patient histories, carry out a risk-benefit analysis to determine if treating a patient with benzos is safe, and refrain from prescribing the drugs for long-term use.

Failure to comply with the standards calls for strict disciplinary action, although no physician has been fined or disciplined so far.

"The College's experience is that all physicians want to practice safely and in accordance with current standards. They are very receptive to educational interventions," a representative from the College's communications department told VICE.

Mead agrees that educating doctors on the risks of benzodiazepines and enforcing strict guidelines for doctors are the best strategies to counter the prescription drug crisis we have on our hands.

"The big push for both benzos and opiates is prevention," she said. "Stop putting patients on it in the first place."

It's official: the Conservative leadership race is in its final stages. The deadline for buying party memberships to be eligible to vote in the contest was midnight on March 28. Everybody who will decide the fate of Canada's opposition party is locked in now for the vote on May 27. Now that the doors are closed to the public, the candidates will be looking to swoop in on the members their rivals have signed up. Things are going to get wild.

We had a taste of that this week, when every day so far apparently has brought exciting new revelations in how desperate everyone is getting to one-up each other in the battle for second and third-order preferences.

When it feels like a long week by Wednesday, you know shit is good.

1. Brad Trost's campaign re-affirmed that their candidate is uncomfortable with "the whole gay thing."

In a shocking twist on Tuesday, campaign manager Mike Patton dropped the bombshell of the year: the gays weird Brad Trost out.

It was hard enough to accept that the campaign had homophobic leanings when Trost kicked it off last year by lashing out at Canada's decade-old marriage equality laws. His email on Monday night stating that he would cut funding to any gay-related events or causes was a real stunner too. His campaign's unequivocal denunciation of any "serious leaders" like Rona Ambrose or Maxime Bernier who encouraged "the gay lifestyle" by participating in the parade seemed like a lot to take. And honestly I was a little offended when Trost later graphically defined the gay lifestyle as "gay people having gay sex."

I was about to write him off as a serious candidate before Patton's reassuring honking voice informed me that Brad has no problem with whatever immoral, disgusting sexual behaviour people engage in behind closed doors in the privacy of their own homes. He just wants everything that happens in public to conform to "some kind of basic community standards."

Whew! Turns out Trost is actually totally OK with gay people as long as they're not doing anything gay where someone might notice, and are otherwise not existing as a gay person in a public space or social setting. I mean, if two gays are gaying it up in a forest when no one's around to call the police, are they really gay? Forced closeting has never seemed so zen.

2. Maxime Bernier announced he would use the army to stop illegal border crossings

Bernier is widely presumed to be one of the frontrunners in an increasingly tight race, so he's stepping up his game to prove to Conservative voters that he's a serious politician who takes illegal immigration seriously. When Kevin O'Leary announced he would use the 1982 Constitution's "notwithstanding clause" to override a 1985 legal decision to grant asylum-seekers a refugee claims hearing before they're deported, Bernier decided to one up him by announcing that he would also do this but also deploy the army.

The RCMP are only for regular crimes, you see. When you're facing a major natural disaster, like floods or foreigners, you send in a fucking tank.

I will bet any of you $20 that someone will unironically call for a border wall before the vote in May.

3. Kellie Leitch did a Q&A with an anti-Muslim activist group

Kellie Leitch is a firm believer in defending Canadian values. So is Rise Canada, a group that wants to awaken the masses to the danger of the Islamic way of thinking. They are also, according to Anti-Racist Canada, a hate group. And apparently the guy who tore up a copy of the Quran at a Peel Region school board meeting was also there to hear Leitch speak, so, you know it was a real hootenanny.

4. Kevin O'Leary got into a shouting match with Rosie Barton on CBC over whether or not the Canadian economy is collapsing

There has been a lot of talk in this race about who is the Canadian Donald Trump. We are very desperate for a Canadian Donald Trump, because as much as Canada loves to be smug about how cool it is vis-a-vis the gaudy nightmare south of the border, Canada also hates missing out on hot global trends like loud boorish men in politics—plus, the media has Canadian content quotas to hit, man.

Anyway, K-Money is obviously the Canadian Trump. He is famous for yelling on television and this week proved he is in top form. When he gets up in Rosie's grill about how the Canadian economy is falling to pieces under Justin Trudeau's abysmal stewardship, it doesn't matter that GDP growth in Canada grew 2.6 percent in the final quarter of 2016 or that a quarter of a million jobs have been created in the past few months: the economy is bad and Trudeau is bad and the CBC is bad and everything is a fucking nightmare and we're all going to die slaving away in Kathleen Wynne's salt mines unless Kevin bails us out.

It was actually a pretty good pitch. If you have a gut feeling that things are shitty, you're right—and so is O'Leary. It's these mainstream media hacks in the pay of the Trudeau government who are lying to you. Media in this country is just a long audition for a sweet government comms job anyway. Look at them, just gobbling everything up. Is this the future you want? No, of course not. You know Canada isn't working at it's full potential. You trust the familiar bald man from the TV who reminds you of business and confidence. He's the right man for the job. He's going to win, probably.

5. Michael Chong became culturally relevant for the weirdest possible reason

On second thought, I really can't milk this joke anymore.

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Friends and family members of Abdirahman Abdi, the black man who was killed after a violent encounter with Ottawa police last summer, were expecting the first steps towards justice to take place in court this week.

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, which investigates police, charged Const. Daniel Montsion with manslaughter, aggravated assault, and assault with a weapon in early March. On Wednesday, his pretrial was scheduled for May.

But a campaign amongst fellow police officers who are showing support for Montsion by wearing bracelets that say "united we stand," "divided we fall," and his badge number 1998 has reignited rage within the community, according a spokeswoman for Justice for Abdirahman Coalition.

"I think it sends a terrible message. It is a complete and blatant act of disregard for the family. The city has been traumatized by this incident and it's a blatant disregard for human life," Farhia Ahmed told VICE.

Abdi, a Somali-Canadian who had a history of mental illness, was killed last July after police answered a call from an Ottawa coffee shop. According to witnesses, two officers, Montsion and Const. Dave Weir, chased Abdi on foot, beat him with their fists (wearing armoured gloves), hit him with a baton, and pepper sprayed him. A bystander video captured Abdi lying on the ground in a pool of blood with cops around him; several minutes pass before he's given any form of medical assistance.

The death sparked an SIU investigation and accusations of racism within policing. At the time, members of the Somali-Canadian community in Ottawa told VICE they are scared of the cops.

According to the CBC, at least 1,200 of the "United we stand" bracelets have been purchased at $2 a pop.

Read more: Canada Has a Race Problem and We Refuse to Talk About It

Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau sent a note to members in the force yesterday clarifying that the bracelets are not part of an official police initiative.

"I want to remind you that they are not part of the Ottawa Police Service uniform and should not be worn during working hours."

Bordeleau said while he understands the sentiment, "We must take into account the community perceptions of actions like these wristbands. There has already been a great deal of negative commentary and we should all be concerned about the long term impact on public trust this could create." He noted Montsion already has supports through the organization.

Matt Skof, president of the Ottawa Police Association, which represents the officers, told VICE showing support for an officer in this manner isn't unique.

"It's never been a public campaign," he said. "These bracelets are a personal decision."

Skof said he disagreed that wearing the bracelet could be seen as a conflict of interest.

He also said Abdi's death had nothing to do with race—a line he's been touting since Abdi was killed.

"It's not an appropriate conversation to have," he said. "There is nothing to show that race was an issue."

Ahmed said Bordeleau has seemed open to repairing the police's relationship with the black community and that he has been given a list of recommendations, including an external audit of diversity and equity practices within the force.

She said the bracelet campaign has "disturbed" Abdi's family.

"What we would like to see is for officers and members of the police service to show a little bit of discretion and professionalism… and stay away from supporting this campaign."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Just before 10 PM on Monday, a gray Dodge minivan pulled into a dark street near the Annie Coleman Gardens, a public housing complex in a predominantly poor, black neighborhood four miles east of Miami International Airport known as Brownsville. Inside, Terence White and Charles Woods, a pair of veteran Miami-Dade Police undercover detectives working a gang detail with the feds, focused their eyes on a suspicious car that had just parked there.

Suddenly, four men approached the van and at least two began shooting at the detectives, according to Miami-Dade Police. Bullets struck the front passenger and side doors, punching holes through metal and shattering the glass windows. At least one officer returned fire through the van's windshield, according to the Miami Herald.

When the smoke cleared, nearby police in a black pickup truck rushed to the scene and placed White, who had been shot in the bicep, and Woods, who was also struck, into the truck's bed. They whisked their injured colleagues to the nearby Jackson Ryder Trauma Center. But even as both officers suffered relatively minor injuries, the brazen attack set off a furious manhunt that ended early Wednesday morning with the arrest of 19-year-old Damian Antwan Thompson, an alleged "associate" of 13th Avenue Hot Boyz, a Brownsville gang that has been packing serious firepower for close to a decade.

Tangela Sears, a community activist who leads the group Parents of Murdered Kids in Miami-Dade, told me that 13th Avenue Hot Boyz and other gangs are obviously responsible for a large number of violent shootings involving adolescents in Miami's inner-city neighborhoods.

"Without a doubt, they are part of the problem," Sears said. "If you shoot at law enforcement, you will shoot at anybody. We see it everyday. I get a text every time there is a shooting."

According to Miami-Dade Police, law enforcement officials zeroed in on Thompson following several tips to the CrimeStoppers police line pointing to the accused gang banger as the shooter. Woods also identified Thompson as the assailant and said that his partner, White, had recently arrested the teen on a gun possession charge, according to the March 29 arrest report.

Thompson was apprehended at a Hyatt Hotel near the airport where cops found him hiding underneath bedsheets, according to the arrest report. Thompson allegedly yelled, "I'm going to kill both of y'all" as officers struck him to "gain compliance" until he was handcuffed. Thompson has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest with violence.

Check out the VICE documentary on the Black Women's Defense League in Texas.

Back in 2010, a Miami Police-led operation ended with the arrests of 14 individuals, including members of 13th Avenue and their rival gang the 13th Court Cowboys. Cops also confiscated 31 firearms, including sawed off shotguns and a TEC-9, which then-Miami-Police Chief Miguel Exposito displayed on a large table for reporters. Timothy Smith, an alleged leader of 13th Avenue, was slapped with multiple illegal firearms charges and allegedly sold 17 guns to undercover officers.

"That gang and another gang on the other side of Northwest 12th Avenue are always at each other and may be responsible for a lot of drive-by shootings that we have seen lately," said John Rivera, president of the police union representing Miami-Dade Police officers. "It is easier to buy a firearm for juveniles than it is to buy a pack of cigarettes for them. There is a proliferation of guns, especially in that general area."

It is still not clear how—or even whether —Thompson is associated with any gangs. A Miami-Dade Police spokesperson did not respond to questions about his affiliation or lack thereof prior to publication. According to Miami-Dade County criminal court records, the suspect was arrested last November for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, only for the case to be dropped. Two months later, he was arrested again—this time for allegedly carrying a concealed weapon. The arresting officer: Terence White, whom Thompson acknowledged knowing while being questioned by cops early Wednesday, according to the arrest report.

According to the Herald, White was working plain-clothes duty during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade in Liberty City back in January when "an anonymous source" identified Thompson as a "wanted subject." But when White and other officers approached the teen, Thompson took off running and dropped a dark-colored 9mm Glock from his waistband, the paper reported. He is scheduled for trial on the gun charge on June 12.

"There is some belief that [Thompson] knew these were police officers and purposely shot into their vehicle," Rivera said. "This is an individual who the system hasn't done much to him. It's a free ticket for him."

While cops are inclined to point their fingers at a possible gang-banger, Thompson's quick arrest has left community activists like Sears asking why law enforcement doesn't seem to expend the same amount of police resources when black children are the victims. Between 2006 and 2016, an average of 30 youths were killed annually in Miami-Dade, according to a Miami Herald investigation last year. More than 75 percent were black.

"What is the difference between a child shot and killed in the streets with an officer hit with non-life threatening injuries?" Sears asked. "We are constantly hearing that they are not able to do these things because they need more resources. But when a cop is shot, the resources come from out of nowhere. It had a lot of families angry yesterday and this morning."

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In Early Works, we talk to artists young and old about the jobs and life experiences that led them to their current moment. Today, it's actor Kiernan Shipka, who's currently starring on FX's Feud and in Oz Perkins's violent, Satanic horror film The Blackcoat's Daughter. (You likely recognize her from Mad Men, too—she played Don Draper's daughter Sally.) Read on for her thoughts on doing voice work for video games, her obsession with ballroom dancing, and what scared her most as a child.

My first job was when I was, like, six months old. [Editor's note: Shipka did commercial and print work as a child.] I did not take a long time to start. I don't have any recollection of it, but as I get older, I've definitely started remembering things that I've tried to take on.

One of my favorite hobbies when my family lived in Chicago was ballroom dance. When we moved to LA, it was one of the things that I stuck with, and I did it until I was about 13 or 14. There's something about it that was so fun. I love to dance the cha cha, salsa, and the waltz. I'm so into all of it. I was a big Dancing with the Stars fan—that was the one dancing show I tuned into all the time. My favorite season was when Shawn Johnson won. I don't think doing Dancing with the Stars is in the cards for me right now, but I'm happy to watch it.

Chicago was beautiful. The weather is a little harsh, but the people are amazing, and the city is gorgeous. When we moved to LA, I was a little young to miss anything about where I lived previously—it was new, but I didn't have that much memory of the old. LA has really been the place that I've grown up.

There was no lightbulb moment when it came to getting into acting. The light was slowly, but surely, turning on—you know? When it reached full brightness, I was like, Wow, this is serious. My first TV appearance was on an episode of Monk—one day of work. All I remember about it was that Tony Shaloub was great, and it was a nice, hot day. It was an easy and fun job.

I don't play video games, but I don't mind doing voice work for them. It's super fun. You definitely have to pay attention to your voice, more than anything. You have to put the emphasis on your voice and convey all the emotion through that—whereas when you're acting, you can use your face and your body as props to help you. Voice work is kind of isolated in that way.

Mad Men was so much more than a TV show—it was my acting school, where I learned to tap into my emotions and understand the character well. I made so many great relationships, too. Mad Men was the environment where I spent a lot of my formative years. It was one of the most influential things in my life, and my life will be forever changed because of it, in the best way.

It was so much fun to have worked on Feud—really amazing to work with Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, and Ryan freaking Murphy, who is just the most incredible force. I've been so grateful to see what they do so expertly because I've learned so much. I never sat down to watch What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? before this, but it's fantastic, obviously—[Bette Davis and Joan Crawford] were such fantastic powerhouses.

I think Feud shines a light about the way women used to be treated in Hollywood—and how they still are, in many ways. It's an important thing to focus on right now, because times are changing, but it's also important to highlight what hasn't. It's strongly relevant.

Courtesy of Suzanne Tenner/FX

I read the script for The Blackcoat's Daughter while I was filming something in North Carolina, and I was very into it. I talked to director Oz Perkins on the phone, and I knew automatically that he had really good taste, and I was going to be in good hands. I felt very safe doing a riskier thing in a more different role in those kinds of hands.

The funny thing with making the movie—as well as a lot of independent films—is that you don't have a lot of time. Time is not a huge luxury. It's a big challenge as an actor to bounce from the most demonic point in your character's arc back to beginning of the movie. That's just how it goes—but there's something even more fun and fast-paced and exciting about that in so many ways.

I wasn't too into horror movies as a kid, though. I was a big scaredy-cat, but I'm not so much anymore. I didn't watch that many scary movies, though—nothing crazy. Voldemort gave me enough nightmares to last my childhood.

As told to Larry Fitzmaurice

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In 1955, Harold and the Purple Crayon, a children's book about a four-year-old and his titular instrument, promised kids a world of unbridled creative potential, an infinitely flexible reality produced from their imaginations. Six years later, three ad executives in Chicago offered a counterpoint with The Executive Coloring Book, a dispatch from the adult world that offered bleak instructions like, "This is my suit. Color it gray or I will lose my job." This was a coloring book, but one that eschewed innocence for the corporate hamster wheel and landscapes of elevators, sales charts, and company cars. Even the odd dash of color was grim: pink for the pill that "makes me not care," and mahogany deskware ("I wish I were mahogany").

From THE EXECUTIVE COLORING BOOK by Marcie Hans, Dennis Altman and Martin A. Cohen, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Marcie Hans, Dennis Altman and Martin A. Cohen

Written by—and dedicated to—Marcia Hans, Martin A. Cohen, and Dennis Altman, The Executive Coloring Book is an artifact from the Mad Men era that also has the distinction of being the first adult coloring book. Since then, coloring books for grown-ups have become a fad—over 24 million of these books were sold in the last two years alone. Titles have included Die Hard: The Authorized Color and Activity Book, Color Your Own Dutch Masters, and the Cunt Coloring Book from houses as prestigious as HarperCollins and artists like Tony Millionaire (David Bowie: Color the Starman). These books mostly have a twee, feel-good Punky Brewster sort of vibe. A cult of the eternal child, in other words.

It's far cry from Altman and company, whose books really were for adults: After the unexpected success of The Executive Coloring Book, which sold out its initial run and made the New York Times bestseller list, they followed with The John Birch Society Coloring Book in 1962. Dennis Altman would go on to write a book about Jesus Christ entitled The First Liberal as well as hilariously partisan pop-culture novelties like Meanie Manifesto: The Official Train Manual for Republican Children and one more coloring book, this one about the Koch Brothers.

Now that Penguin is reissuing The Executive Coloring Book (the title is embossed in gold across in a nondescript binding), I recently corresponded with Altman, who is his 80s, about the original activity book for broken middle-class shills and what it feels like to be at the forefront of a cult of pastels.

VICE: Just as a document, I see The Executive Coloring Book as tapping into the corporate estrangement that was a major theme in late 50s novels like The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit or films like The Apartment. Can you say a little bit about where it came from?
Dennis Altman: I was a member of the creative department at North Advertising in Chicago, a lifetime ago—the people who write and design ads and TV spots. We had just come out of a presentation where we showed a new commercial to two guys best known as Steve Stunted and Harlow Halfshot, the group managers on our Frozen Pizza account. (The names have been changed, to protect the incoherent.)

The strategy for the spot was just to say that the pizza tastes great. Simple enough. All the scenes were full of appetite appeal. The product looked delicious, and the people on screen savored every bite. But Steve and Harlow rejected it. I asked why, and they said there weren't enough adjectives. Steve claimed he had a book that said there had to be at least five descriptive adjectives in every commercial. Contrary to all reasonable expectations, I did not do him great physical harm at that time.

Later that day, I had lunch with my two closest friends at North, Martin Cohen and Marcie Hans. I told them about my morning, when I suddenly had an idea for revenge. Exposure. We could go public. We could tell our story to the world. We would do a book that told it all. It was delicious.

From THE EXECUTIVE COLORING BOOK by Marcie Hans, Dennis Altman and Martin A. Cohen, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Marcie Hans, Dennis Altman and Martin A. Cohen

There's a deep frustration through The Executive Coloring Book, which asks us to color telephones, attaché cases, nails—or "inter-fibrous friction fasteners"—and disapproving wives.
That was the world I lived in, as seen by a protagonist who was simply a man-child who roamed and ruled in a world he barely understood. We had to deal with account executives who were totally unschooled in the communication arts. Creative people in ad agencies have to practice every art known to man. We apply our skills in writing and design through the media of film, music, drama, and computer technology. But before we can sell any product to the public, we have to sell our ideas to the wooden-witted account executives, who are our only bridge to the client.

Why a coloring book?
We were ad makers, but we knew that the book would have to take its style from the books we knew when we were small. Dick and Jane and their dog, Spot. McGuffey's Reader. Coloring books. Yes. That was it. A coloring book for executives. Eureka.

"That was the world I lived in, as seen by a protagonist who was simply a man-child who roamed and ruled in a world he barely understood. We had to deal with account executives who were totally unschooled in the communication arts."

Today's corporate culture—particularly tech, I suppose—embrace a far more touchy-feely communal vibe that claims to celebrate bohemianism and independence, while pretty blatantly reducing them to buzzwords and striving to eliminate the line between work and recreation. Ironically, the "adult coloring book" is exactly the kind of trend that appeals to that kind of culture. Do you see these books as heirs to your legacy or do they seem like deviations?
Have you heard the one about the cost accountant who married the graffiti artist?

Don't wait for it; things like that don't happen. But that's how life is lived in advertising agencies. The ad business is the only industry on earth where creative, artistic people have to work closely and productively with the most narrow-channeled, numerically oriented stuffed suits that management can find.

Can you say a little bit about your life and work since originating the adult coloring book?
My life and times is best expressed in four groups of 20. First 20 years—school and Army (Long Island University and Korean [War] era). Second 20—writer and then creative director at Chicago and New York ad agencies (DDB Worldwide, North, Young & Rubicam and J. Walter Thompson).
Third 20—a professor at the University of Kentucky, College of Communication. Fourth 20—In progress: retirement in Florida.

Recent work by J. W. McCormack appears in Conjunctions, the Culture Trip, the New York Times, and the New Republic.

The Executive Coloring Book by Marcia Hans, Martin A. Cohen, and Dennis Martin Altman is available in bookstores and online from Penguin Random House.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions might believe weed is only "slightly less awful" than heroin, but a new nationwide survey indicates a majority of the country seems to have a more positive outlook on the drug, the Washington Post reports.

The new data, collected by the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, found that more Americans are cool with the idea of legalizing weed now than they were a few years ago—up from 52 percent in 2014 to 57 percent in 2016.

But that doesn't mean everybody's on the same page when it comes to transforming marijuana into an on-the-books industry, specifically among older people and Republicans. While a majority of people aged 18 to 64 support legal weed, only about 42 percent of people who are 65 and older agreed with them.

Additionally, support for marijuana remains split along party lines. There was a 20 percent gap between the way Democrats and Independents feel about weed compared to Republicans. While more than 60 percent of both Independents and Democrats think pot should be legal, only about 40 percent of Republicans felt the same way.

Even though the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug—alongside heroin, acid, and bath salts—the recent survey seems to indicate Americans' attitudes toward the drug are changing. A recent Quinnipiac poll found a similar nationwide trend, with 71 percent of Americans saying they don't believe the feds should crackdown on legal weed—something Sessions may be thinking about doing.

But then again, while we're on the subject of polls, it might be worth noting that most Americans think Jeff Sessions should resign. So there's that.